Colony Island Network Design and Implementation (CINDI): Island Area Change 1995 - 2018--Colony Island Delineations

The waterbird population of the Gulf Coast of Texas relies on 300 natural and constructed colony islands to support the population, but the limited funds that are dedicated to island rehabilitation cannot be used to restore all islands. Managers must prioritize islands that provide the greatest benefit to waterbirds, but the prioritization process is challenging without a tool to guide their decisions. Therefore, we developed a data-driven prioritization tool that incorporates bio-geo-physical constraints on nesting as part of a pilot study. To support this, we collected data on change in colony island nesting habitat area (m^2) by delineating aerial imagery of colony islands derived from the Texas Orthoimagery Program and the National Agriculture Imagery Program in 1995, 2008, 2012, and 2018. This dataset contains shapefiles of digitized island habitats. This dataset is a result of research funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's RESTORE Science Program (ROR - https://ror.org/0042xzm63) under award NA23NOS4510306 to Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi.