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An Effective Method for Detecting Potential Woodland Vernal Pools Using High-Resolution LiDAR Data and Aerial Imagery
Citation:
Wu, Q., C. Lane, AND H. Liu. An Effective Method for Detecting Potential Woodland Vernal Pools Using High-Resolution LiDAR Data and Aerial Imagery. Remote Sensing. MDPI, Basel, Switzerland, 6(11):11444-11467, (2014).
Impact/Purpose:
Using remote sensing and GIS to improve ability to identify and map potential vernal pools on the landscape.
Description:
Effective conservation of woodland vernal pools – important components of regional amphibian diversity and ecosystem services – depends on locating and mapping these pools accurately. Current methods for identifying potential vernal pools are primarily based on visual interpretation and digitization of aerial photographs with variable accuracy and low repeatability. In this paper, we present an effective and efficient method for detecting and mapping potential vernal pools using stochastic depression analysis in conjunction with GIS spatial analysis. Our method was designed to take advantage of the high-resolution LiDAR data which is becoming increasingly available but not yet frequently employed in vernal pool studies. We successfully detected more than 2000 potential vernal pools in a ~150 km2 study area in eastern Massachusetts. The accuracy assessment in our study indicated that the commission rate ranged from 2.49% to 5.99%, while the proxy omission rate was 8.21%, which are much lower than reported errors of previous vernal pool studies conducted in the northeastern U.S. One significant advantage of our semi-automated approach for vernal pool identification is that it may reduce inconsistencies and alleviate repeatability concerns associated with photo interpretation methods. Another strength of our strategy is that in addition to detecting the point-based vernal pool locations for the inventory, the boundaries of vernal pools can also be extracted as polygon features to characterize their geometric properties, which are not available in the current statewide vernal pool databases in Massachusetts.
URLs/Downloads:
CLANE 2014_WU_ETAL_REMOTESENSING.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 10147.342 KB, about PDF)rs61111444
