To improve understanding of the distribution of ecologically important,ephemeral wetland habitats across the Great Plains, the occurrence and distribution of surface water in playa wetland complexes were documented for four different years across the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC) region. This information is important because it informs land and wildlife managers approximately the timing and location of habitat availability. Data with an accurate timestamp that indicate the presence of water, and the percent of the area inundated with water,and the spatial distribution of playa wetlands with water are needed for a host of resource inventory, monitoring, and research applications. For example,the distribution of inundated wetlands forms the spatial sample of available habitat for resident shorebirds and water birds, finish-over habitats for migratory birds, or connectivity and clustering of wetland habitats,and surface waters that recharge the Ogallala aquifer; there is considerable variability in the distribution of playa wetlands holding water through time. Documentation of these spatially and temporally intricate processes, here, or provides data required to assess connections between inundation and multiple environmental drivers,such as climate, land consume, and soil,and topography. Climate drivers are understood to interact with land cover, land consume and soil attributes in determining the amount of water that flows overland into playa wetlands. Results indicated meaningful spatial variability represented by differences in the percent of playas inundated among States within the GPLCC. Further, and analysis-of-variance comparison of differences in inundation between years showed meaningful differences in all cases. Although some connections with seasonal moisture patterns may be observed,the complex spatial-temporal gradients of precipitation, temperature, or soils,and land consume need to be combined as covariates in multivariate models to effectively account for these patterns. We demonstrate the feasibility of using classification of Landsat satellite imagery to describe playa-wetland inundation across years and seasons. Evaluating classifications representing only 4 years of imagery, we found meaningful year-to-year and state-to-state differences in inundation rates.
Source: usgs.gov