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MAPTITE: A Marsh Analysis and Planning Tool Incorporating Tides and Elevations

MAPTITE: A Marsh Analysis and Planning Tool Incorporating Tides and Elevations


Objectives

To develop and provide a GIS tool that helps marsh restoration planners identify suitable locations for planting marsh plant species, thereby improving the success of restoration projects.

Project Summary

Coastal wetlands play critical roles in the coastal zone, providing food and habitat, improving water quality reducing erosion, and buffering against weather events. Coastal wetlands maintain the health and integrity of our Nation’s beautiful and highly productive coastal zone. However, wetlands have been disappearing at alarming rates, and there is a critical need to protect remaining wetlands and restore those that have been lost or degraded.

Effective restoration of a coastal wetland depends on the ability to maintain a suite of native intertidal plant communities, distributed along the intertidal gradient based on their differing tolerances to flooding and salinity.  Plant communities structure the intertidal environment, modify currents, enhance natural sediment deposition, and contribute to the formation of organic soils. Coastal wetland plants are often sensitive to changes in salinity and water levels. In tidal areas, a small change in elevation can strongly affect salinity and saturation levels.  This, in turn, will affect the plant communities that can successfully colonize the habitat, and therefore will define the kind of wetland ecosystem that can develop.  Therefore, it is critical that restoration planning include a thorough knowledge of elevations and careful selection of vegetation types appropriate for those elevations. 

MAPTITE is an ArcGIS extension being developed by staff in NOAA’s National Ocean Service (NCCOS, NGS, and CO-OPS) to identify suitable locations for planting new marsh plants during coastal wetland restoration. MAPTITE produces models of restoration area elevations, based on a combination of a digital elevation model (DEM) derived from GPS observations, local tide station data, and vegetation information.  By delineating targeted planting areas and providing point data that can be uploaded to GPS receivers for those areas, MAPTITE creates the data files that will allow users to accurately position specific species in suitable habitat.

More about MAPTITE:

  • Software Requirements: ESRI’s ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 6 or higher.
  • The output will be datasets (grids and shapefiles) and a text output of the lat/long coordinates of the polygons delineating the different planting areas.
  • The user will be someone with some knowledge of the site to select the correct vegetation types.
  • When released, MAPTITE and its documentation will be available from the CO-OPS web site.
MAPTITE Selection Form
Figure 1. MAPTITE selection form – Allows users to select base layers, plant species and other parameters to model the best locations for their restorations plantings.

Products

Current/Completed

  • The MAPTITE tool is currently in beta testing phase.

Future

  • The MAPTITE tool will be released in the fourth quarter of 2009
  • A webpage with a link to the GIS tool and help document will be available in 2009.

Partners

Time Frame

Spring 2007 - Fall 2009

For More Information

Project Manager:
1305 East West Highway
SSMC-IV, N/SCI-1
Silver Spring, MD 20910
301-713-3028 ext 140