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Use of Remote Sensing and Field Data to Quantify the Performance and Resilience of Restored Louisiana Wetlands

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Abstract

Typical goals of wetland restoration efforts are to conserve, create, or enhance wetland structure, and to achieve wetland function that approaches or exceeds natural conditions. Measuring wetland establishment, condition, and resilience can be difficult, especially because monitoring wetland function has traditionally been time-intensive, costly, and often required repeat field-based surveys. Remote sensing provides novel collections of data and facilitates rapid assessments of wetland landscapes, land cover, species/habitat composition, change detection, degradation, diversity, as well as system threats and pressures. A combination of remotely collected and in situ vegetation data were used in conjunction with landscape metrics and vegetative indices. These data were used to evaluate and compare changes and trends in condition, function and resilience of restoration sites and reference wetlands in southwest Louisiana, USA. Results of this work show the restored wetlands reached structural and functional equivalency to reference wetlands after approximately three to ten years post-construction. With adequate maturity, the restored wetlands outperformed the reference wetlands, having higher percentage of land, land aggregation, aboveground vegetation productivity and floristic quality. Supplementing traditional field-based methods with remote sensing applications provided enhanced metrics for inventorying and monitoring of wetland resources, forecasting of resource condition and stability, and adaptive management strategies.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Ecosystem Management and Restoration Research Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Environmental Laboratory, Wetlands and Environmental Technologies Research Facility, ATTN: CEERD-EE-C, 3909 Halls Ferry Road, Vicksburg, MS, 39180-6199, USA

    Glenn M. Suir

  2. Department of Oceanography and Coastal Science, College of the Coast and Environment, Louisiana State University, Energy Coast and Environment Building, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Charles E. Sasser

  3. Department of Biology, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, 70504, USA

    John M. Harris

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  1. Glenn M. Suir
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Correspondence to Glenn M. Suir.

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Suir, G.M., Sasser, C.E. & Harris, J.M. Use of Remote Sensing and Field Data to Quantify the Performance and Resilience of Restored Louisiana Wetlands. Wetlands 40, 2643–2658 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-020-01344-y

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