Zafer Defne
Neil K. Ganju
2019
Unvegetated to vegetated marsh ratio in Cape Cod National Seashore salt marsh complex, Massachusetts
1.0
Vector Digital Data Set (Polygon)
data release
DOI:10.5066/P99KU0C5
Reston, Virginia
U.S. Geological Survey
Suggested citation: Defne, Z., and Ganju, N.K., 2019, Unvegetated to vegetated marsh ratio in Cape Cod National Seashore salt marsh complex, Massachusetts: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P99KU0C5
https://doi.org/10.5066/P99KU0C5
Unvegetated to vegetated marsh ratio (UVVR) in the Cape Cod National Seashore (CACO) salt marsh complex and approximal wetlands is computed based on conceptual marsh units defined by Defne and Ganju (2019). UVVR was calculated based on U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) 1-meter resolution imagery. Through scientific efforts initiated with the Hurricane Sandy Science Plan, the U.S. Geological Survey has been expanding national assessment of coastal change hazards and forecast products to coastal wetlands. The intent is to provide federal, state, and local managers with tools to estimate their vulnerability and ecosystem service potential. For this purpose, the response and resilience of coastal wetlands to physical factors need to be assessed in terms of the ensuing change to their vulnerability and ecosystem services. CACO is one of the selected domains to expand this study.
References:
Defne, Z., and Ganju, N.K., 2019, Conceptual marsh units for Cape Cod National Seashore salt marsh complex, Massachusetts: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P955K1Y2
The purpose of this shapefile is to calculate ratio of unvegetated area to vegetated area in each marsh unit. Analysis of unvegetated to vegetated marsh ratio is part of a comprehensive assessment to identify the factors and their weights in determining the vulnerability and resiliency of salt marshes. An unvegetated area to vegetated area ratio was defined as a potential indicator of current state of a salt marsh unit.
2019
publication date
None
-70.240881163
-69.929876024
42.071513705
41.603266713
USGS Metadata Identifier
USGS:5c62f414e4b0fe48cb34c8b9
USGS Thesaurus
geospatial datasets
wetland ecosystems
wetland functions
coastal ecosystems
coastal processes
None
salt marsh
vegetation
marsh health
estuary
Long-Term Ecological Research
LTER
UVVR
ISO 19115 Topic Category
oceans
inlandWaters
environment
None
Atlantic Ocean
United States
Massachusetts
Barnstable County
Cape Cod National Seashore
Cape Cod Bay
Wellfleet Harbor
Little Pleasant Bay
Herring Cove
Outer Cape
None
The unvegetated to vegetated ratio for each marsh unit is defined for scientific research purposes and should not be used as a sole source of reference for any regulations and policy making. Public domain data from the U.S. Government are freely redistributable with proper metadata and source attribution. Please recognize the U.S. Geological Survey as the source of this information.
U.S. Geological Survey
Zafer Defne
Ocean Scientist
mailing and physical address
384 Woods Hole Road
Woods Hole
MA
02543
508-548-8700 x2254
508-457-2310
zdefne@usgs.gov
https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/file/get/5c62f414e4b0fe48cb34c8b9?name=mu_UVVR_CACOp.png
Graphic that shows UVVR in marsh units of CACO salt marsh complex overlaying Esri basemap.
PNG
Environment as of Metadata Creation: Microsoft Windows 7 Version 6.1 (Build 7601) Service Pack 1; Esri ArcGIS 10.5.1 (Build 7333) Service Pack N/A (Build N/A)
Zafer Defne
Neil K. Ganju
2019
Conceptual marsh units for Cape Cod National Seashore salt marsh complex, Massachusetts
1.0
Vector Digital Data Set (Polygon)
data release
DOI:10.5066/P955K1Y2
Reston, VA
U.S. Geological Survey
https://doi.org/10.5066/P955K1Y2
Marsh units, water and land boundary inherit from accuracy of the source data, CACO marsh units. Vegetated and unvegetated polygons accuracy is based on the 1-meter resolution National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) products with processing dates of 2016, and U.S. Geological Survey Coastal National Elevation Database (USGS CoNED) data with processing date of 2018. Vegetated and unvegetated polygons accuracy is based on the 1-meter resolution NAIP imagery, 1-meter resolution CoNED elevation model.
Topological errors that occurred during geoprocessing were automatically removed by the topological rules used for the analysis. The polygons are checked for correct geometry and do not overlap. Small polygons (less than 9 square meters) were assumed to be marginal and were assigned the classification from the surrounding majority value. A visual comparison between NAIP imagery was performed at randomly selected sites to verify the land and water boundaries. Marsh polygons without any vegetation were assigned a UVVR value of -1.
The results are specific to the marsh polygons definition within the boundaries of the CACO salt marsh complex. A detailed on-the-ground analysis of a single site may result in a different interpretation of the wetland and marsh unit boundaries.
Horizontal accuracy is inherited from the source dataset that delineates the marsh units, and can be considered to be +/-6 meters.
Jeffrey Danielson
Dean Tyler
2018
Topobathymetric Model for the New England Region States of New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, 1887 to 2016
Raster Digital Data Set
Reston, VA
U.S. Geological Survey
https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov
https://nationalmap.gov/viewer.html
online
2018
publication date
CoNED
Downloaded CoNED topobathymetric data from USGS Earth Explorer. Projection was NAD 1983 UTM Zone 19N with the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88). Download date was 2018/05/25.
U.S. Geological Survey
2017
NAIP Digital Ortho Photo Image
Remote-sensing image
Salt Lake City, Utah
USDA-FSA-APFO Aerial Photography Field Office
https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov
https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/51355312e4b0e1603e4fed62
online
2017
publication date
NAIP
Downloaded NAIP 1-meter resolution imagery from the USGS Earth Explorer. Projection was WGS 1984 Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere. Download date was 2018/05/25.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
2017
National Wetland Inventory Massachusetts Wetlands
Vector Digital Data Set (Polygon)
Madison, WI
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
https://www.fws.gov/wetlands/data/Data-Download.html
online
2017
publication date
NWI
Downloaded wetlands data for the state of Massachusetts in Shapefile format from the NWI download page. Projection was NAD 1983 Albers. Download date was 2018/05/25.
Zafer Defne
Neil K. Ganju
2019
Conceptual marsh units for Cape Cod National Seashore salt marsh complex, Massachusetts
Vector Digital Data Set (Polygon)
data release
DOI:10.5066/P955K1Y2
Reston, VA
U.S. Geological Survey
https://doi.org/10.5066/P955K1Y2
online
2019
publication date
CMU_CACOp.shp
Used the features in [CMU_CACOp.shp] to calculate the mean elevation for each marsh unit. Projection was WGS 1984 Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere.
This process step and all subsequent process steps were performed by the same person, Zafer Defne, in ArcMap (ver. 10.5.1) using tools from ArcToolbox, unless otherwise stated. For complex operations, names of specific tools used are given in CAPITAL letters (any critical parameters used are given in parentheses, separated by a semicolon, immediately after the tool name). The input and output file names are provided in [square brackets] when necessary. Units for length and area calculations are meters (m) and square meters (m2) unless otherwise stated.
Set the data frame coordinate system and projection to NAD 1983 UTM Zone 19N. Prepare elevation dataset to be clipped to the boundaries polygon. MOSAIC TO NEW RASTER(Pixel type= 32 bit float; Mosaic operator=Mean; Cellsize=1 m) all of the CoNED raster to a new raster dataset with 1 m resolution [elev_mosaic.tif].
CoNED
2018
elev_mosaic
U.S. Geological Survey
Zafer Defne
Ocean Scientist
mailing and physical address
384 Woods Hole Road
Woods Hole
MA
02543
508-548-8700 x2254
508-457-2310
zdefne@usgs.gov
Prepare mask polygon to define analysis boundaries. In order to account for the possible influence of the surrounding terrain on the analysis, first a mask area larger than the salt marsh extent is created [UVVR_mask]. At the end of the analysis the results are clipped to the boundaries of the salt marsh area [MU_mask]. Both UVVR_mask and MU_mask are edited to decide which interior polygons are removed.
a) EXPORT features from NWI dataset after SELECT("ATTRIBUTE" LIKE 'E2%EM%' OR "ATTRIBUTE" LIKE 'E2AB3%' OR "ATTRIBUTE" LIKE 'E2EM%' OR "ATTRIBUTE" LIKE 'E2SS%' OR "ATTRIBUTE" LIKE 'E2US4%') to select from estuarine intertidal areas of 1) Emergent, 2) Scrub-shrub, 3) Rooted vascular aquatic bed, 4) Organic unconsolidated shore classes [NWI_exclusive_select.shp].
b) BUFFER(Input features=[NWI_exclusive_select.shp]; Linear unit=5 meters; Dissolve type=All) to obtain the mask polygon [buff5m.shp] and ELIMINATE POLYGON PART(Condition=Percentage; Percentage=99; Eliminate contained part only) to obtain [UVVR_mask01.shp]. Apply buffer with -5 meters to obtain [MU_mask01.shp].
c) EXPORT features from NWI dataset after SELECT("ATTRIBUTE" NOT LIKE 'E%' OR "ATTRIBUTE" LIKE '%FO')to obtain features that are not estuarine or are forested estuarine. MULTIPART TO SINGLEPART to separate individual polygons [NWI_inclusive_single.shp].
d)To exclude the voids in the NWI map during the analysis these interior polygons need to be removed from the mask. Create a rectangular polygon that covers the domain [extent.shp]. ERASE [NWI_excusive_select.shp] from [extent.shp] and MULTIPART TO SINGLEPART to get [NWI_voids_single.shp].
e) SELECT BY LOCATION from [NWI_inclusive_single.shp] that are completely within the [MU_mask01.shp], and SELECT BY LOCATION from [NWI_voids_single.shp] that are completely within the [MU_mask01.shp]. If any of additional polygons need to be removed from the mask include them in a new feature layer [erase_mask_manual.shp]. Merge all three feature sets to get polygons to be excluded [erase_inside.shp] from the final masks.
f) ERASE [erase_inside.shp] from [MU_mask01.shp] and [UVVR_mask01.shp] to obtain [MU_mask.shp] and [UVVR_mask.shp], respectively.
NWI
2018
UVVR_mask
Compute vegetated and unvegetated boundaries by image processing.
a) EXTRACT BY MASK from elevation raster [elev_mosaic.tif] using [UVVR_mask.shp] polygon. Rescale the elevation raster values to the same range with 8-bit NAIP imagery (0 to 255) using min-max scaling. Perform ISO CLUSTER UNSUPERVISED CLASSIFICATION with4-bands (Near Infrared , Blue, Green, Red from the NAIP imagery and the rescaled elevation raster with 32 classes a minimum class size of 5000 cells. RECLASSIFY the classified raster by visually comparing the NAIP imagery to obtain the unvegetated-vegetated raster [UVVc.tif].
b) Dissolve unvegetated regions smaller than a threshold value to the surrounding vegetated regions and vice versa to clean the UVV raster. For this purpose use the REGION(Number of neighbors=4; Zone grouping method=Within; Add Link field to output) to get the [UVV_region.tif], and TEST("Count" less than 9) to set a threshold value of 9 raster cells [UVV_test.tif]. Use RASTER CALCULATOR to toggle the value of the Link field in the region raster, where the test raster indicates regions with areas smaller than the threshold.
c) RASTER TO POLYGON(Simplify polygons=False) and CLIP with the final marsh complex outline [mu_diss.shp] to obtain [UVVc_filt_clip.shp].
d) REPAIR GEOMETRY and DISSOLVE(Create multipart features=False) to get filtered, clipped and dissolved unvegetated-vegetated polygons [UVVc_filt_clip_diss.shp].
e) INTERSECT the dissolved conceptual marsh units [mu_diss.shp] with unvegetated-vegetated polygons [UVVc_filt_clip.shp], REPAIR GEOMETRY, and calculate the area of unvegetated and vegetated polygons in each marsh unit. To do this ADD GEOMETRY ATTRIBUTES(Geometry properties=Area_geodesic; Area unit=Square_meters) to get [UVV_poly.shp], and DISSOLVE(Input features=UVV_poly.shp; Dissolve fields=FID_CMU, gridcode; Statistics field=gridcode.MEAN, Area_geo.SUM) and REPAIR GEOMETRY to get [UVV_poly_diss.shp]. Edit the fields to have "TYP", "APGN_M2", and "ATOT_M2" fields for type of polygon indicating vegetated or unvegetated, surface area of the polygon, and total surface area of the marsh unit, respectively.
f) Add field "UVVR" and calculate unvegetated to vegetated ratio based on "TYP", "APGN_M2" and "ATOT_M2" fields. If the vegetated area is zero for a marsh unit set the value of UVVR to -1.
g) DISSOLVE(Input features=UVV_poly_diss.shp; Dissolve fields=FID_CMU, gridcode; Statistics field=UVVR, ATOT_M2 and FLG with Statistics type= First for all) to obtain mu_UVVR_CACO.shp]. FLG flags anomalous marsh units based on absence of vegetation, elevation and surface area, and is set to (-1) no vegetated area; (-10) marsh unit elevation higher than the 99.8 percentile; (-100) marsh unit elevation less than 0.2 percentile; (-1000) marsh unit surface area less than 900 m2; and (0) no flag. Combination of negative values indicate combination of flags. For example, -1001 indicates no vegetated area and area less than 900 m2.
h) SELECT BY ATTRIBUTES FROM [CMU_CACOp] where "CLASS"= 'vegetated', and join field "APGN_M2" from CMU_CACOp.shp on the feature dataset [mu_UVVR_CACO.shp].
i) Rearrange field names and change the projection for better performance of web services with online base maps. PROJECT(Input coordinate system=NAD 1983 UTM Zone 19N; Output coordinate system=WGS 1984 Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere; Geographic transformation=WGS 1984 (ITRF00) to NAD 1983) the feature dataset to obtain the final conceptual marsh units [mu_UVVR_CACOp.shp].
elev_mosaic
CMU_CACOp
NAIP
2018
mu_UVVR_CACOp
Added keywords section with USGS persistent identifier as theme keyword.
20200806
U.S. Geological Survey
VeeAnn A. Cross
Marine Geologist
Mailing and Physical
384 Woods Hole Road
Woods Hole
MA
02543-1598
508-548-8700 x2251
508-457-2310
vatnipp@usgs.gov
Vector
G-polygon
523
WGS 1984 Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere (ESRI Full Name: WGS_1984_Web_Mercator_Auxiliary_Sphere)
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
coordinate pair
0.6096
0.6096
Meter
D_WGS_1984
WGS_1984
6378137.0
298.257223563
mu_UVVR_CACOp
Attribute information associated with the UVVR in marsh units of CACO salt marsh complex.
U.S. Geological Survey
FID
Internal feature number.
Esri
Sequential unique whole numbers that are automatically generated.
Shape
Feature geometry.
Esri
Coordinates defining the features.
FID_CMU
Sequential unique whole number that represents the identification number for each conceptual marsh units.
USGS
0
522
none
ATOT_M2
Total surface area of a marsh unit in square meters
USGS
134.350305045
444753.212137
square meters
AVEG_M2
Surface area of vegetated part of a marsh unit in square meters
USGS
0
429886.815359
square meters
UVVR
Ratio of unvegetated surface area to vegetated surface area. Originally UVVR ranges from zero (completely vegetated) to infinity (completely unvegetated), however it is assigned the value of -1 when completely unvegetated.
USGS
0
560.437392385
none
FLG
Marsh unit flag indicating anomalous marsh units based on absence of vegetation, elevation and surface area. FLG values indicate: (-1) no vegetated area; (-10) marsh unit elevation higher than the 99.8 percentile; (-100) marsh unit elevation less than 0.2 percentile; (-1000) marsh unit surface area less than 900 m2; and (0) no flag. Combination of negative values indicate combination of flags. For example, -1001 indicates no vegetated area and area less than 900 m2.
USGS
-1001
0
None
In this dataset, the salt marsh complex CACO has been delineated to conceptual salt marsh units to facilitate unit by unit evaluation of response and resiliency of marsh system to physical and biogeochemical drivers. Each unit is also analyzed based on the vegetated and unvegetated surface area coverage, the ratio of which can be an independent measure of marsh health for microtidal marshes on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. UVVR is calculated as the ratio of unvegetated area to vegetated area in a marsh unit. Decimal values in the attribute table are a result of double precision calculations while significant digits are considered in defining the attribute measurement resolutions. Therefore, the smallest unit increment for area values and UVVR is assumed to be 1 meter and a 0.001, respectively.
USGS
U.S. Geological Survey - ScienceBase
mailing and physical address
Denver Federal Center, Building 810, Mail Stop 302
Denver
CO
80225
1-888-275-8747
sciencebase@usgs.gov
mu_UVRR_CACOp
Neither the U.S. Government, the Department of the Interior, nor the USGS, nor any of their employees, contractors, or subcontractors, make any warranty, express or implied, nor assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, nor represent that its use would not infringe on privately owned rights. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by the USGS in the use of these data or related materials. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Not for navigational use.
Shapefile
ArcGIS 10.5.1
This zipped file contains a polygon shapefile and its components, a style layer descriptor file, metadata in xml, txt and html formats and a browse image.
https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/file/get/5c62f414e4b0fe48cb34c8b9
https://doi.org/10.5066/P99KU0C5
The first link in network resources is to download data directly. The second link points to a landing page with metadata and data.
WMS
https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalogMaps/mapping/ows/5c62f414e4b0fe48cb34c8b9?service=wms&request=getcapabilities&version=1.3.0
The link in network resources points to the Web Mapping Services (WMS) end point.
WFS
https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalogMaps/mapping/ows/5c62f414e4b0fe48cb34c8b9?service=wfs&request=getcapabilities&version=1.0.0
The link in network resources points to the Web Feature Service (WFS) end point.
None. No fees are applicable for obtaining the data set.
20200806
U.S. Geological Survey
Zafer Defne
Ocean Scientist
mailing and physical address
384 Woods Hole Road
Woods Hole
MA
02543
508-548-8700 x2254
508-457-2310
zdefne@usgs.gov
FGDC Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata
FGDC-STD-001-1998