Global Change Research Wetland Vegetation Composition 1972 and 2010

This dataset consists of geospatial files representing vegetation zones for Kirkpatrick Marsh and the Global Change Research Wetland, a tidal brackish marsh on the Rhode River in Maryland. Shapefiles represent two moments in time, one based on a high-resolution areal imagery from 1972, the other from 2010. Vegetation zones include native graminoids <i>Schoenoplectus americanus</i> and <i>Spartina patens</i>, the native shrub <i>Iva frutescens</i>, the invasive reed <i>Phragmites australis</i>, as well as mixed communities. The dataset consists of two shapefiles, one titled <b><i>Communities1972</i></b>, representing the 1972 map, and <b><i>Communities_DissolvedNE</i></b>, representing the 2010 map. The shapefiles consists of several files which need to be grouped together to view in Geographic Information System software.<br> .dbf – Attribute format; Tabular data associated with geometric features .shp – Shape format; Geometry of the features .shz- Shape index; Positional index of each feature .prj – Projection description .shp.xml – Geospatial metadata .cpg – Specifies the code page for identifying character encoding. The dataset also contains a report, <b><i>Methods of generating Kirkpatrick Marsh maps.pdf</i></b>, which contains a report detailing the materials and methods that went into generating these maps.<br><br>