Louisiana Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring Program – 2008-2016 habitat change, Late Lafourche Delta Region

Publication Date

2019-07-31

Time Period

2008-10-29

Time Period

2016-10-31

Laurenzano, C., Enwright, N.M., SooHoo, W.M., Dugas, J.L., Mouton, K., Lee, D.M., and Borrok, P.S., 2019, Louisiana Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring Program – 2008-2016 habitat change, Late Lafourche Delta Region: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9DW2Y25.

Type: Related Primary Publication

Barrier islands provide numerous invaluable ecosystem services including storm protection and erosion control for the mainland, habitat for fish and wildlife, salinity regulation in estuaries, carbon sequestration in marsh, recreation, and tourism (Barbier and others, 2011). These islands are very dynamic environments due to their position at the land-sea interface. Storms, wave energy, tides, currents, and relative sea-level rise are powerful forces that shape barrier island geomorphology and habitats. The BICM habitat products developed through this effort will provide a powerful tool for tracking changes to barrier island habitats over time. As previously mentioned, the BICM program has developed two habitat classification schemes which include a detailed 15-class habitat scheme and a general eight-class habitat scheme. The detailed scheme was used for this habitat mapping effort and builds off the general scheme used in previous BICM habitat mapping efforts (Fearnley and others, 2009). The additional classes developed in the detailed scheme are primarily used to further delineate various dune habitats, separate marsh and mangrove, and distinguish between beach and unvegetated barrier flat habitats. The habitat change analyses in this product depict and summarize habitat change between 2008 and 2015/2016 per BICM reach. The results from these analyses are summarized in two habitat change products. The first product depicts change in land and water coverage and the second product highlights changes based on inundation zones (for example, water, intertidal-unvegetated, intertidal-vegetated, supratidal, and developed/shoreline protection). For more details on the change classes, see the Entity and Attribute Information section. For more information about the BICM program, see Kindinger and others (2013). For more details on BICM habitat change classes, see the Entity and Attribute Information section of the metadata. Please consult the accompanying readME.txt file for information and recommendations on the contents of this dataset (that is, dataset and recommended symbology). For more information about the BICM program, see Kindinger and others (2013).

• USGS Data Release Products
• USGS Wetland and Aquatic Research Center