1. Modeling to Improve Wetlands Management
Omar Alminagorta
David E. Rosenberg
Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Utah
8 January 2014

2. Outline Why model? Satellite imagery of wetlands
Modeling vegetation spread
Tools to improve wetland
management
Discussion

3. Why Model? Better understand Easier than field experimentation
Inform decisions

4. I. Satellite imagery in wetland
Landsat imagery is released every 16 days to the public at

5. Classification by water depth and vegetation cover (June 25, 2007)
Dry Mudflat Medium/ Phragmadites VegetationType2
Deep Water (No Phragmadites)

6. Classification by wetland units
Add scale of colors
Dry Mudflat Medium/ Phragmadites VegetationType2
Deep Water (No Phragmadites)

7. Recommendation #1 Use Landsat remote sensed images to monitor
Water depth and vegetation cover
Spatial and temporal changes
Free, readily available

8. II. Modeling vegetation spread
Simulate Phragmites australis response to:
Changes in water level
Seed or rhizome reproduction

9. Model States

10. Simulation over time
Unit 5B

11. Model validation 2007 - 2011: Unit 5B
Simulation End
Landsat classified
Comparison
Model
underestimation
Non-Invas.in common
overestimation
Plants in
common
Out-wetland Unit

12. Recommendation #2 Manage water level according to biological state of vegetation

13. Recommendation #3 Detect early, respond rapidly, and eradicate completely48
No control
Initial coverage
112 32 74 86
Eradicate small patch
Reduce
big patch
After Control
Later

14. III. Tools to improve wetlands
Recommend water allocations and vegetation control to improve wetland habitat
Systems Model
Satellite images
Water allocation
Invasive vegetation
Scarce resources

15. Model Development Water depth Vegetation cover Water availability
Promote diverse habitat types
HSI =Habitat Suitability Index HSI = Capacity of a given attribute to support selected species
WU = weighted usable area for wetland
WU =surface area of wetland that provides suitable conditions to species
WU=f(HSI, flood Area, species weight)
Water depth
Vegetation cover
Water availability
Financial budget
Species Requirements
Conveyance network.

16. Recommendation #4 Substantial potential to improve over prior management practices

17. Rec. #5: More dynamically adjust water levels
Previous Management
Model
Recommendation

18. Recommendation #6 Protect Refuge water right to prevent decline
We ran the model for a wider range of water availability, we can notice the non-lineal relationship and that wetland perfomance declines rapidly for water availability below of Hm3. Considering that water right at the refuge . Refuge Manager should be concerned about upstream water abtractions that infringe on the Refuge’s water right.

19. Limitations Landsat images have 30-m resolution
Difficult to identify current wetland vegetation.
Managing invasive vegetation is a long term efforts
Multi-step process, pre and post control.

20. Develop a graphical user interface so wetland managers can easily use
Future Work
Develop a graphical user interface so wetland managers can easily use

21. Discussion and Questions
What is most interesting?
What results will help your work?
What improvements would you like to further use at the Refuge?
Additional comments?

22. Composite habitat suitability index
The model is able to perform how changes in water level and vegetation control can affect spatial and temporal the Habitat performance in wetlands. For example this figure that during May wetland unit 1 has poor habitat conditions but during September this unit improve

23. Wetland benefit per additional unit of water available to the Refuge

24. Birds Species used in the model with their respective water depth preferences and weighting by month of the year