Gulf Coast Region Landcover Analysis

American Forests, with the financial support of the US Forest Service, conducted a landcover analysis for a 48 county and parish region along the Gulf Coast of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, to measure the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the region’s ecosystem in June 2006.

"The project was designed to address two fundamental questions 1) Canwe quantify the impact of the storm on the landcover and 2) once wehave new data on the condition of the landcover, how can we use it tomake better decisions about growth, development and management in thefuture.

"The classification of the landcover before and after the storm providedthe basis for updating the Southern Fire Risk model used by the stateforestry agencies for fire control and for producing the ecosystemservices analysis documented in this report. The change in landcover isreference data for both the fire risk and ecosystem services modeling.The findings presented document the reference change data and thecalculations for ecosystem services. However, the data and the analysistechniques will continue to provide the state and local officials withnew information as they grow and develop in the future.

"The classified data along with CITYgreen software and training wasprovided to state and local officials. With this data, software andtraining the local people will be able to analyze the conditions inspecific areas of interest and model scenarios for future growth anddevelopment plans.

"The links, listed by state contain the findings from the analysis usingCITYgreen, an ArcGIS extension developed by American Forests to performUrban Ecosystem Analyses. These analyses measure the areas of variouslandcover classes (urban, trees, open, etc) and calculate the value ofecosystem services provided by those landcovers." [from American Forests website]

Gulf Coast Region Landcover Analysis