Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU)

Development of Orthorectified Historic Imagery for Resource Assessments in the Central Alaska Network

Project ID: J8W07110015

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Partner Institution: Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota

Fiscal Year: 2011

Initial Funding: $57,371

Total Funding: $57,371

Project Type: Technical Assistance

Project Disciplines: Biological

National Park: Central Alaska Network Inventory & Monitoring

Principal Investigator: Robertson, Andy

Agreement Technical Representative: MacCluskie, Maggie

Abstract: The Central Alaska Network (CAKN) of the National Park Service (NPS) recognizes that climate change has the potential to significantly impact network parks. This is particularly true of interior units such as Yukon Charley Rivers National Preserve (YUCH) where the continental climate typically produces average annual temperatures below freezing. As the climate warms, park ecosystems may start to experience significant changes such as shallow lake drying, modification of historic wildfire regimes, increased flooding and erosion, accelerated vegetation succession and replacement, and changes in the depth to active layer of permafrost. Given the management implications of these potential changes, it is critical that historic spatial datasets be assembled for use in assessing ecosystem changes over time. This project is a collaborative effort between CAKN and Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota to build a geographic information system dataset from historic black and white, and color infrared photography acquired for YUCH. It will also involve orthorectification of scanned aerial photos to the existing 2007 aerial photo base imagery of the preserve. Orthorectification of a similar photo series (1950s and 1980s) for Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve (WRST) may be added as a future project task, pending availability of sufficient funds and development of a satisfactory methodology in YUCH. The products from this project support the NPS Alaska Landcover Mapping Program and provide a key base cartographic reference for resource assessments of the impacts of climate change.

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