HiTIDER: History and Topography to Improve Decision-making for Estuary Restoration - NERRS/NSC(NERRS Science Collaborative)

By engaging 30 reserves from across the country in habitat mapping, this project highlighted differing trends among regions and estuarine habitat types. Working with local and national end users, including the NERRs and a variety of organizations interested in understanding estuarine habitat change, the project built a shared understanding of trajectories of change to design and build support for future restoration strategies. The habitat mapping included the following two components conducted at each of 30 reserves: 1) Elevation-based mapping, using NOAA-generated elevation models and tidal datums to estimate the potential extent of the estuary, and identify areas no longer subject to tidal influence that could be restored in the future, and 2) Historical mapping, using the oldest T-sheet (topographic map) or Lake Survey map to examine extent and distribution of habitats in one smaller area of interest on/near each reserve, and document how that has changed over time. The project generated various products for each of the 30 reserves: technical reports detailing findings, historical maps available as raw image files, and geodatabases in local coordinates with both elevation-based and historical mapping analyses.