HTLN Wetland File Geodatabase v1.1

Haack, Jennifer; Haack, Jennifer

This geodatabase includes all spatial information associated with wetlands monitoring at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The dataset was assembled by compiling and reconciling several existing datasets that mapped wetland locations. Identifiers within in the datasets allow the original source of the each wetland polygon to be determined if needed. The objectives of wetlands monitoring include 1) identifying spatial patterns of wetland integrity across a large number of wetlands, 2) identifying temporal changes in wetland vegetation condition relative to a watershed disturbance gradient, 3) evaluating the relationship between rapid and intensive methods to extrapolate patterns identified using intensive methods to the larger suite of rapidly assessed wetlands, 4) identifying temporal changes in sentinel wetlands, and 5) identifying temporal changes in reference wetlands as points of comparison for other wetlands measured using intensive methods. Detecting trends in wetland quality at these scales is designed to allow managers to evaluate the effectiveness of watershed management actions or to identify areas in need of additional management attention. A tiered approach is used to accomplish these objectives, with 3 levels of monitoring intensity (USEPA 2006). The Level 1 GIS analysis is a Landscape Development Index (LDI) that integrates the impacts of human land use on a given site (Brown and Vivas 2005) using the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) and Florida land-use coefficients. The Level 2 analysis is a rapid field assessment developed for the state of Ohio: Ohio Rapid Assessment Method v. 5.0 (ORAM). The Vegetative Index of Biotic Integrity (VIBI) is a Level 3 intensive vegetation survey. All three methods (LDI, ORAM, and VIBI) are correlated (Mack 2004, Fennessy et al. 2007).