Habitat Structure Maps for the California Central Valley 2013-2017

We produced a time series of maps of habitat structure within wetlands of the Central Valley of California. The structure of open water and tall emergent vegetation, such as Typha spp. and Schoenoplectus spp., is critical for migratory birds. Through field observation and digitization of high resolution imagery we identified the locations of tall emergent vegetation, water, and other land cover. Using a random forest classification, we classified multispectral Landsat 8 imagery 2013-2017. We used images from the fall when most wetlands are flooded and the summer to separate trees and tall emergent vegetation. The final maps show the distribution and extent of tall emergent vegetation within wetlands. Final time series has two products: the basic map which contains the tall emergent vegetation, water, and other, and the mixed map which the water and other classes are the same as the basic and the tall emergent class is broken into mixed (tall emergent 50-74%), tall emergent (greater than 75%).