Proposed Landscape Changes for Alternative D of the Saratoga National Historical Park's General Management Plan, 2003

Berthiaume, Justin

Landscape change (field to forest, field to thinned forest, forest to thinned forest, and forest to field) for SARA GMP Alternative d. Alternative D: Focus on Burgoyne Campaign (the preferred alternative). A major decision point in the GMP alternatives is the extent to which the park's configuration of field and forest match the configuration that was present at the time of the battles, and whether the need to provide views of certain areas to park visitors should take precedence over historic land cover. A GIS analysis was completed that compared the four alternatives, which have different management prescriptions for field-forest conversion and viewshed maintenance. A current field-forest configuration shapefile was created by tracing the information on the orthophotos. This data layer served as a starting point for adding or removing fields or forests based on the alternatives. The previous work conducted for Task 2 had rendered a historic field-forest layer, based on the rubbersheeted OCLP battle maps. The third shapefile used was the viewsheds proposed in each alternative, which would imply the clearing of forest. By combining the historic field-forest configurations with the viewsheds proposed in each alternative, and comparing that with the current field-forest configurations generated from the orthophotos, it could be determined for each alternative five possible treatments of the fields and forest: convert field to thinned forest or forest, convert forest to thinned forest or field, or have no change. An additional parameter was added when the park decided that no change in the current field-forest should occur outside the Battle Action and Encampment Zone, as part of the GMP zoning. A map for each of the four alternatives and acreage calculations for each treatment were created. Intermediate Data Layers: Shapefile "2000_field_forest.shp" : Current (2000) park field-forest configuration digitized from orthophotos received from park. Shapefile "1777_field_forest.shp" : Historic (1777) field-forest configuration digitaized from OCLP battle map. Shapefile "Views.shp" : Digitized viewsheds from key points in the park digitized from GMP descriptions. Shapefile "Battle_action.shp" : Battle Action and Encampment Management Zone digitized from hand-drawn park maps. These data were created by Justin Berthiaume for schematic purposes in the Saratoga National Historical Park General Management Plan to be published in 2004.