The Everglades National Park (EVER) and Big Cypress National Preserve (BICY) vegetation mapping project is a component of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). The CERP is a cooperative effort between the South Florida Water Management District, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and the NPS Vegetation Inventory Program (VIP), with funding provided by the NPS VIP and the USACE. The goal of the project is to produce a spatially and thematically accurate vegetation map of EVER and BICY that will serve as baseline conditions to 1) document changes to the spatial extent, pattern, and proportion of plant communities as they respond to management-driven hydrologic modifications resulting from the implementation of the CERP and the Western Everglades Restoration Project; and 2) provide vegetation and land cover information to NPS park managers and scientists for use in park management, resource management, research, and monitoring.
The project covers an area of approximately 7,400 square kilometers (1.84 million acres) and consists of seven mapping regions: four regions in EVER, 1 through 4, and three regions in BICY, 5 through 7. Photo-interpretation is performed by superimposing a 50-meter x 50-meter (¼-hectare) grid cell vector matrix over stereoscopic, 0.30-centimeter spatial resolution, color infrared aerial imagery on a digital photogrammetric workstation. Photo-interpreters identify the dominant community in each cell by applying majority rule algorithms, recognizing community specific spectral signatures, and referencing an extensive ground-truth database.
Approximately 78% of the entire project area is mapped. EVER is 73% complete while BICY is 92% complete. Regions 2, 3, and 7 are mapped. The Region 2 vegetation map has a thematic accuracy of 88.6% with a lower 90th percentile confidence level of 84.6% and is available for download (https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2243281). The thematic accuracy of the Region 3 vegetation map is 89.4% with a lower 90th percentile confidence level of 85.6%. This map will be available for download in fall 2018 (https://irma.nps.gov). The thematic accuracy of the Region 7 vegetation map is 85% with a 90% lower confidence interval of 82%. The final report for Region 7 is pending peer review.
Footprint of the Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve vegetation mapping project showing mapping regions and progress to date.