I. Data Set Descriptors A. Title: Christine M. Hladik. 2018. May to July 2018 regions of interest (ROIs) of tidal marsh and tidal forest plant species to be used as ground reference data in habitat mapping.. Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER Data Catalog (data set GIS-GCEL-1812a; http://gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/public/app/dataset_details.asp?accession=GIS-GCEL-1812a) B. Accession Number: GIS-GCEL-1812a C. Description 1. Originator(s): Name: Christine M. Hladik Address: Department of Geology and Geography Georgia Southern University Statesboro, Georgia 30460 Country: USA Email: chladik@georgiasouthern.edu 2. Abstract: We collected field data from sites distributed in habitats along the salinity axis of the Altamaha River estuary and the Duplin River to be used as ground reference data for habitat mapping. Regions of interest (ROIs) for tidal marsh (salt, brackish, tidal fresh) and tidal fresh forest vegetation species were generated near ground control points (GCP) by digitizing vegetation areas in ArcGIS 10.4 based on field maps.These observations will be used to create habitat maps from aerial photographs of the Altamaha River estuary, GA taken following Hurricane Irma to better understand how the storm surge affected tidal vegetation and to examine any shifts in vegetation type. 3. Study Type: Research Study 4. Study Themes: Geospatial Analysis 5. LTER Core Areas: Disturbance Patterns 6. Georeferences: none 7. Submission Date: Dec 04, 2018 D. Keywords: Alismataceae, Alismatales, Altingiaceae, Amaranthaceae, Angiospermae, Apiaceae, Apiales, Araceae, Arecaceae, Arecales, Asteraceae, Asterales, Asteranae, Baccharis halimifolia, Borrichia frutescens, Carex lupulina, Caryophyllales, Caryophyllanae, Cephalanthus occidentalis, Chasmanthium latifolium, Cladium jamaicense, Commelinales, Cornales, Cupressaceae, Cyperaceae, Daucus carota, Distichlis spicata, disturbance, Disturbance Patterns, elevation, Embryophyta, Fagaceae, Fagales, Fraxinus caroliniana, GCE, Gentianales, geographic information systems, Georgia, Georgia Coastal Ecosystems, GPS, habitats, Iva frutescens, Juncaceae, Juncus effusus, Juncus roemerianus, Juniperus virginiana, Kosteletzkya pentacarpos, Lamiales, land cover, latitude, Lilianae, Liquidambar styraciflua, longitude, LTER, Ludwigia peploides, Magnolia virginiana, Magnoliaceae, Magnoliales, Magnolianae, Magnoliopsida, Malvaceae, Malvales, Myrtales, null, Nyssa aquatica, Nyssaceae, Oleaceae, Onagraceae, Onoclea sensibilis, Onocleaceae, Panicum virgatum, Peltandra virginica, Persicaria arifolia, Pinales, Pinidae, Pinopsida, Piperales, plant communities, Plantae, Pluchea carolinensis, Poaceae, Poales, Polygonaceae, Polypodiales, Polypodiidae, Polypodiophytina, Polypodiopsida, Pontederia cordata, Pontederiaceae, Quercus falcata, Quercus laurifolia, remote sensing, Rosales, Rosanae, RTK, Rubiaceae, Rumex verticillatus, Sagittaria lancifolia, Sagittaria latifolia, Salicornia depressa, salt marshes, Sapelo Island, Saururaceae, Saururus cernuus, Saxifragales, Saxifraganae, Serenoa repens, Spartina alterniflora, Spartina cynosuroides, Spermatophytina, Streptophyta, Suaeda linearis, surveys, tidal forest, tidal fresh forest, tidal marsh, Tracheophyta, Typha domingensis, Typhaceae, Ulmaceae, Ulmus americana, USA, Viridaeplantae, Viridiplantae, wetlands, Zizaniopsis miliacea II. Research Origin Descriptors A. Overall Project Description 1. Project Title: 2017 Hurricane Irma 2. Principal Investigators: Name: Merryl Alber Address: Dept. of Marine Sciences University of Georgia Athens, Georgia 30602-3636 Country: USA Email: malber@uga.edu 3. Funding Period: Nov 01, 2017 to Nov 01, 2018 4. Objectives: To evaluate the effects of disturbance along an abiotic salinity gradient by augmenting sampling of eleven core GCE-LTER monitoring sites, evaluate the effects of prior disturbance history by leveraging an ongoing field experiment to determine how prior saline disturbance treatments affect responses to the hurricane storm surge, evaluate state change using aerial imagery to look at landscape level shifts in vegetation type compared to pre-storm maps. 5. Abstract: The Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER program is studying how intertidal communities respond to changes in the upstream intrusion of salt water, due to both press (sea level rise) and pulse (droughts, storms) disturbances, and what it takes to tip these communities into a new state (which we define as a habitat shift). Hurricane Irma, which passed over the US on Sept. 11, 2017, caused the highest storm surge ever recorded on the central Georgia coast, and caused salt water to intrude far upstream. The GCELTER has long-term experiments and monitoring programs that provide ?before? data and a context for understanding the effects of this event. We hypothesize that the effects of disturbance will vary across abiotic gradients, that the response will depend on a site?s prior disturbance history, and that state change is more likely to occur in transitional areas. We will assess these hypotheses as follows: 1) To evaluate the effects of disturbance along an abiotic salinity gradient we will augment sampling of our 11 core monitoring sites. We predict that the greatest response and longest recovery times in upstream areas that rarely experience pulses of high salinity water; 2) To evaluate the effects of prior disturbance history we will leverage an ongoing field experiment to determine how prior saline disturbance treatments affect responses to the hurricane storm surge. We predict that the press plots, which were already strongly affected, will take the longest to recover; that pulse plots may be pushed over a tipping point by the combination of the previous pulse treatment plus the hurricane; and that the control plots will be affected as observed in the pulse treatment before the hurricane; 3) To evaluate state change we will collect aerial imagery that will allow us to look at landscape level shifts in vegetation type compared to pre-storm maps, and augment sampling of transitional plots. We predict that transitional areas will be particularly vulnerable to state change, and that hurricane disturbance will re-set habitat distributions across the landscape. 6. Funding Source: NSF OCE 1803159 B. Sub-project Description 1. Site Description a. Geographic Location: GCE_Domain -- GCE Domain, Sapelo Island, Georgia Coordinates: GCE_Domain -- NW: 081 35 11.25 W, 31 33 49.82 N NE: 081 09 03.73 W, 31 33 49.82 N SE: 081 09 03.73 W, 31 10 12.96 N SW: 081 35 11.25 W, 31 10 12.96 N b. Physiographic Region: GCE_Domain -- unspecified c. Landform Components: GCE_Domain -- unspecified d. Hydrographic Characteristics: GCE_Domain -- Site contains the Altamaha River, Sapelo River, tidal creeks and free connections to the Atlantic Ocean through Doboy Sound and Sapelo Sound e. Topographic Attributes: GCE_Domain -- unspecified f. Geology, Lithology and Soils: GCE_Domain -- unspecified g. Vegetation Communities: GCE_Domain -- unspecified h. History of Land Use and Disturbance: none recorded i. Climate: Climate summary for Sapelo Island, Georgia, based on NWS data from 1980-2010: Daily-aggregated Values: Mean (sample standard deviation) mean air temperature: 20.09°C (7.28°C) minimum air temperature: 15.02°C (7.96°C) maximum air temperature: 24.82°C (6.98°C) total precipitation: 3.26mm (10.3mm) Yearly-aggregated Daily Values: Mean (sample standard deviation) total precipitation (1980-2010): 1124mm (266mm) 2. Experimental or Sampling Design a. Design Characteristics: Digitized regions of interest (ROIs) of Altamaha River and Duplin River tidal marsh and tidal fresh forest plant species. b. Permanent Plots: c. Data Collection Duration and Frequency: In total, 800 regions of interest (ROIs) were digitized in ArcGIS 10.4 based on annotated field maps. Beginning of Observations: May 23, 2018 End of Observations: Jul 07, 2018 3. Research Methods a. Field and Laboratory Methods: Digitization -- Regions of interest (ROIs) for vegetation areas were digitized from field maps. In the field at each ground control point (GCP) sampling location, large-scale maps of the site and surrounding area where annotated with vegetation boundaries and notes on the distribution of marsh vegetation. These field maps provided the basis for interpreting and digitizing the large number of training data required for the classification of orthoimagery being collected by UGA. ROI polygons were digitized from the field maps using ArcGIS 10.4. A minimum scale of 1:500 was used to ensure that each ROI was assigned the class that was representative of the image pixels, with mixed pixels being assigned the dominant cover class. b. Protocols: none c. Instrumentation: ArcGIS 10.4 d. Taxonomy and Systematics: e. Speclies List: f. Permit History: none 4. Project Personnel a. Personnel: 1: Christine M. Hladik 2: Sydnee Shaw 3: Ashley Williamson 4: Cody Morgan 5: John F. Schalles 6: Merryl Alber b. Affiliations: 1: Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia 2: Georgia Southern University 3: Georgia Southern University 4: Georgia Southern University 5: Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska 6: University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia III. Data Set Status and Accessibility A. Status 1. Latest Update: 04-Dec-2018 2. Latest Archive Date: 04-Dec-2018 3. Latest Metadata Update: 04-Dec-2018 4. Data Verification Status: new submission B. Accessibility 1. Storage Location and Medium: Stored at GCE-LTER Data Management Office Dept. of Marine Sciences Univ. of Georgia Athens, GA 30602-3636 USA on media: electronic data download (WWW) or compact disk 2. Contact Person: Name: Wade M. Sheldon, Jr. Address: Department of Marine Sciences University of Georgia Athens, Georgia 30602-3636 Country: USA Email: sheldon@uga.edu 3. Copyright Restrictions: not copyrighted 4. Restrictions: All publications based on this data set must cite the contributor and NSF grant number a. Release Date: Affiliates: Dec 04, 2020, Public: Dec 04, 2020 b. Citation: Data provided by the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research Project, supported by funds from NSF OCE 1803159 (data set GIS-GCEL-1812a) c. Disclaimer: The user assumes all responsibility for errors in judgement based on interpretation of data and analyses presented in this data set. 5. Costs: free electronic data download via WWW, distribution on CD may be subject to nominal processing and handling fee IV. Data Structural Descriptors A. Data Set File 1. File Name: GIS-GCEL-1812a_1_0.CSV 2. Size: 800 records 3. File Format: ASCII text (comma-separated value format) 3a. Delimiters: single comma 4. Header Information: 5 lines of ASCII text 5. Alphanumeric Attributes: 6. Quality Control Flag Codes: 7. Authentication Procedures: 8. Calculations: 9. Processing History: Software version: GCE Data Toolbox Version 3.9.8 (14-Mar-2018) Data structure version: GCE Data Structure 1.1 (29-Mar-2001) Original data file processed: GIS-GCEL-1812a.txt (800 records) Data processing history: 04-Dec-2018: new GCE Data Structure 1.1 created ('newstruct') 04-Dec-2018: 800 rows imported from ASCII data file 'GIS-GCEL-1812a.txt' ('imp_ascii') 04-Dec-2018: 81 metadata fields in file header parsed ('parse_header') 04-Dec-2018: data structure validated ('gce_valid') 04-Dec-2018: updated 1 metadata fields in the Dataset sections ('addmeta') 04-Dec-2018: imported Dataset, Project, Site, Study, Status, Supplement metadata descriptors from the GCE Metabase ('imp_gcemetadata') 04-Dec-2018: updated 55 metadata fields in the Dataset, Project, Site, Status, Study, Supplement sections ('addmeta') 04-Dec-2018: manually edited data set metadata ('ui_editmetadata') 04-Dec-2018: updated 6 metadata fields in the Data sections ('addmeta') 04-Dec-2018: updated 15 metadata fields in the Status, Data sections to reflect attribute metadata ('updatecols') 04-Dec-2018: parsed and formatted metadata ('listmeta') B. Variable Information 1. Variable Name: column 1. ID column 2. Dominant column 3. Plot 2. Variable Definition: column 1. ROI identification number column 2. Dominant plant species present within the ROI column 3. Ground Control Point (GCP) 3. Units of Measurement: column 1. None column 2. None column 3. None 4. Data Type a. Storage Type: column 1. integer column 2. string column 3. integer b. Variable Codes: Dominant: RM = Acer rubrum (red maple), AL = Arenaria lateriflora (Moehringia lateriflora), SWC = Arundinaria tecta (Switch Cane), BH = Baccharis halimifolia, BM = Batis maritimas, BOLBO = Bolboschoenus spp., BF = Borrichia frutescens, HS = Carex lupulina (Hop Sedge), CEO = Cephalanthus occidentalis, NSO = Chasmanthium latifolium (Northern Sea Oats), CLAD = Cladium jamaicense, CP = Cypress spp., DC = Daucus carota, DIST = Distichlis spicata, ELEO = Eleocharis spp., ASH = Fraxinus caroliniana (Carolina Ash), MUD = Intertidal Mud, IVA = Iva frutescens, JUEF = Juncus effusus, JR = Juncus roemerianus, JV = Juniperus virginiana, KOVI = Kosteletzkya virginica, SG = Liquidambar styraciflua (Sweet Gum), LUPE = Ludwigia peploides, SBM = Magnolia virginica (Sweetbay Magnolia), MM = Marsh Meadow (BM/DIST/SV/SS mix), WT = Nyssa aquatica (Water Tupelo/Black Gum), SF = Onoclea sensibilis (Sensitive Fern), PAVI = Panicum virgatum, GAA = Peltandra virginica (Green Arrow Arum), PINE = Pine Forest , PLUC = Pluchea carolinensis, POLY = Polygonus spp, PONT = Pontederia cordata, SRO = Quercus falcata (Southern Red Oak), LSO = Quercus laurifolia (Laurel Swamp Oak), RV = Rumex verticillatus, SALA = Sagittaria lancifolia, SLAT = Sagittaria latifolia, SV = Salicornia virginica (Sarcoconia spp), LT = Saururus cernuus (Lizard’s Tail), SCAM = Schoenoplectus americanus, SCHO = Schoenoplectus spp., SCTA = Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani, PALM = Serenoa repens, ST = Spartina alterniflora (tall), SM = Spartina alterniflora (medium), SS = Spartina alterniflora (short), SC = Spartina cynosuroides, SUAE = Suaeda linearis, HLT = Tracaulon arifolium (Halberd-Leaved Tearthumb), TYPH = Typha domingensis, WE = Ulmus americana (White Elm), ZIMI = Zizaniopsis miliacea c. Numeric Range: column 1. 1 to 800 column 2. (none) column 3. 1 to 82 d. Missing Value Code: 5. Data Format a. Column Type: column 1. numerical column 2. text column 3. numerical b. Number of Columns: 3 c. Decimal Places: column 1. 0 column 2. 0 column 3. 0 6. Logical Variable Type: column 1. nominal (discrete) column 2. coded value (none) column 3. nominal (discrete) 7. Flagging Criteria: column 1. none column 2. none column 3. none C. Data Anomalies: V. Supplemental Descriptors A. Data Acquisition 1. Data Forms: Field notebooks, Excel spreadsheets 2. Form Location: Office of Christine Hladik 3. Data Entry Validation: B. Quality Assurance/Quality Control Procedures: C. Supplemental Materials: D. Computer Programs: Microsoft Excel 2016; Trimble Geomatics Office E. Archival Practices: F. Publications: not specified G. History of Data Set Usage 1. Data Request History: not specified 2. Data Set Update History: none 3. Review History: none 4. Questions and Comments from Users: none