Tony Pernas
Friday, October 17, 2008 - 1:30-2:00
A cooperative invasive exotic plant survey and mapping project covering the entire 2.68 million acres of the Everglades Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area (CISMA), Florida. Using two observers flying in a Bell 206 JetRanger at 500’ AGL at 100 mph, the National Park Service’s Florida/Caribbean Exotic Plant Management Team and South Florida/Caribbean Inventory and Monitoring Network teamed up with the South Florida Water Management District to digitally aerial sketch map (DASM) six major invasive exotic plant species within the greater Everglades. The project cost $0.035 per acre and took 92 hours to complete. The Everglades CISMA is a formal partnership of eight federal, state, and local government agencies, tribes, and various interested groups that manage invasive species (all plant and vertebrate taxa) within a geographic boundary containing the Big Cypress National Preserve, Everglades National Park, Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, Miccosukee Indian Reservation, and Water Conservation Areas 1, 2A, and 3A. DASM is the US Forest Service’s preferred way to detect and monitor forest pest outbreaks because of its reliability and relatively low cost. Advances in GPS technology and computer hardware and software led to the development of this digital aerial data collection system and it has recently been applied for mapping weeds. The system consists of networked, user-interface, portable PCs with a pen-based screen that is linked to a GPS receiver. The user draws points, lines and polygons with attributes on a moving background map. After the survey, the digital files of collected data are downloaded directly into GIS.
Keywords: DIGITAL AERIAL MAP, EVERGLADES, INVASIVE SPECIES, EXOTIC PLANT MAPPING