National Capital Region Network Remote Sensing and Landscape Pattern Protocol for Land-Cover Monitoring of Parks

Book excerpt: These protocols describe the application of remote sensing imagery for monitoring spatially explicit ecological indicators (vital signs) of landscape pattern that have been identified for the National Capital Region Network (NCRN). The protocols employ land-cover data from multiple remote sensing platforms, including aerial photography, IKONOS satellite imagery, SPOT Imagery, and Landsat ETM+ imagery. The multi-scale approach facilitates the acquisition of fine-scale data suitable for detailed analyses of small areas (1-m resolution or smaller) and coarser data (e.g., up to 15 and 30m resolution) for repeat characterization of larger areas. For most applications, the coarser scale data are adequate for characterizing landscape pattern, although ultimately data from multiple sensors may be appropriate or necessary based on different objectives of landscape monitoring (e.g., mapping single trees vs. forest stands) and the scale at which a resource of interest interacts with the larger landscape (e.g., birds vs. herptiles). Eight Standard Operating Procedures are provided that document methods for the acquisition (SOP 1) and pre-processing of satellite imagery (SOP 2), the development of land cover maps from remotely sensed data (SOP 3), the processing of those maps in preparation for analyses of landscape patterns (SOP 4), calculation of landscape pattern metrics (SOP 5), graph analysis of landscape connectivity (SOP 6), stream buffer delineation (SOP 7), and image-to-image or mapto- map change detection (SOP 8). SOPs have been tested for 4 parks in the NCRN, Antietam National Battlefield (ANTI), Rock Creek Park (ROCR), Prince William Park (PRWI) and Catoctin Mountain Park (CATO) and the results of these analyses are Townsend et al (2009).