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Project Goal
<br />The goal of this project is to develop a seamless land cover system for the Platte River Corridor
<br />from Ogallala to Columbus, Nebraska. A complete, highly detailed land cover and vegetation map for the
<br />entire area will be available as GIS. The partnership defined the project area as the active channel plus
<br />five miles either side of the outer boundary of the active river channel.
<br />Project History
<br />This is an ongoing project. Several organizations have contributed so far to this project including
<br />the Platte Aabitat Partnership (PRHP), Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (NGPC), Platte River
<br />Whooping Crane Maintenance Trust (PRWCMT), USFWS Habitat and Population Evaluation Team
<br />(HAPET), Central Platte Natural Resources District (CPNRD), Tri-Basin Natural Resources District,
<br />Twin Platte Natural Resources District, Great Plains GIS Partnership, Rainwater Basin Joint Venture, and
<br />Nebraska Partnership for All Bird Conservation.
<br />To date, the project has advanced considerably and is partially completed. Steps completed to
<br />date include imagery acquisition, image processing, and development of seamless 1-meter color infrared
<br />aerial photography for the Corridor. A classification mask of agricultural lands, grass, water, trees, and
<br />developed land has also been created. A sample set of training data has been collected on the
<br />PRWCMT's Wild Rose Ranch property and on several NGPC Wildlife Management Areas. To finish the
<br />project, additional training data needs to be collected far other stretches of the River. Additional training
<br />data will be collected on State, Federal, and other NGO properties along the Corridor.
<br />Two field technicians have been funded through two separate six month appointments by the
<br />PRHP and the PRWCMT and have been housed by the PRWCMT. By providing for a technician we can
<br />collect the necessary remaining training data for other stretches of the River, complete the photo
<br />interpretation, conduct an accuracy assessment and finalize the dataset. The additional funding of
<br />$25,000.00 sought from the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program would be used to hire the
<br />technician to finalize the proposed project. The technician will be hired through the Platte River
<br />Whooping Crane Maintenance Trust, Inc. but, as with previous technicians will be directly supervised by
<br />the director of the Great Plains GIS Partnership office in Grand Island, NE.
<br />Methods and Materials
<br />Landcover development from aerial photography has been problematic in the past largely due to
<br />software and hardware limitations. In the last 3 years, monumental strides have been made in imagery
<br />acquisition, data development, processing, and image analysis to make this a cost-effective, efficient
<br />method for mapping and monitoring activities. The HAPET office in Grand Island, NE has developed
<br />and refined a 9-step process for landcover mapping in prairie systems. Steps include data mining,
<br />vegetation classification system development, image acquisition, image processing, sampling design, field
<br />wark, image classification, accuracy assessment, and final landcover development.
<br />Data Mining
<br />Data mining is the process where-by spatial data is sought out that can be integrated to develop a
<br />class hierarchy and enhance the image classification by reducing confusion between classes. For this
<br />project we started with the Farm Service Agency Common Land Unit. The common land unit is the
<br />agriculture field boundary layer created to administer USDA programs. This data is created on a county
<br />basis. Far this project, 17 counties were merged into a seamless dataset. Next, the data was attributed
<br />relative to the needs of this project. The basic classes included agriculture fields, Conservation Reserve
<br />Program (CRP) lands, trees, grass, water, non-agriculture, and developed. These classes were created by
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