Wildlife A Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA story
Agriculture
Water
Wildlife
Lake Thompson is a crucial habitat for migratory birds. The simultaneous presence of open water, shallow mudflats, cattail marshes, and wet meadows offers a diverse landscape for shorebirds, waterfowl, wading birds, and gulls.
Herons and egrets use the shallow water and mudflats on the lake’s fringes. Pelicans, gulls, terns, and ducks thrive in the open water.
The dead trees that remained standing were perfect nesting habitat for cormorants, eagles, herons, and egrets. Eventually, the dead trees collapsed, and the habitat changed again.
Besides affecting farmland and wildlife habitats, the expanding lake has flooded several roads. For example, 218th Street, also known as Oldham Grade, crosses the southern part of the lake. It was closed for much of the 1990s. It is open again, but the area’s roads often need repair from the high water.
Landsat data can be used to map these changes and help organizations like South Dakota Game, Fish, and Parks understand the interaction between lake levels and wildlife populations.
Location
July 29, 1972, Landsat 1 (path/row 32/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
Aug. 29, 1984, Landsat 5 (path/row 29/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
July 22, 1985, Landsat 5 (path/row 30/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
Aug. 3, 1986, Landsat 5 (path/row 29/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
June 29, 1994, Landsat 5 (path/row 30/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
July 29, 1999, Landsat 5 (path/row 30/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
July 21, 2008, Landsat 5 (path/row 30/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
Aug. 24, 2011, Landsat 5 (path/row 29/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
Aug. 11, 2018, Landsat 8 (path/row 29/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
Sep. 6, 2019, Landsat 8 (path/row 30/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA Additional Imagery & Stories
Farmland Inundated
The aerial photo from 1952 is black and white and doesn’t have the infrared imaging capability of Landsat, but it has something that Landsat doesn’t—v...
Hydrology
An aerial image from 1952 shows Lake Thompson as a wetland, with about one-third of it as open water. Landsat began observing the area in 1972 with mu...