PIE-LTER
Site Resources:
GIS, Maps and Aerial Imagery
Geographic Information System (GIS)
The PIE LTER research program is involved with developing GIS datalayers and databases for the watersheds and waterbodies of the Plum Island Sound Estuary. GIS development has focused on understanding the impact of land use change on the watersheds in northeastern Massachusetts and the geomorphological evolution of tidal creeks in the Plum Island Sound Estuary.
Links and Data
Our GIS development has greatly benefited from the use of the Massachusetts Geographic Information System developed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of Geographic and Environmental Information. Databases and datalayers have been developed by colleagues at The Marine Biological Lab, Clark University and The University of New Hampshire.
Massachusetts Geographic Information System
Clark University GIS information on Ipswich River Watershed
Clark University Ipswich River Watershed (GIS)
There are two faculty members at Clark University who are members of the PIE research team. They are Robert Gilmore Pontius Jr (rpontius@clarku.edu) and Colin Polsky (cpolsky@clarku.edu). Since 1999, Pontius and his students have been creating GIS-based methods for land change prediction. They develop novel techniques of model validation and land change assessment. Much of their work can be found at www.clarku.edu/~rpontius. Most of the maps below were obtained from the Massachusetts Geographic Information System and formatted to facilitate simulation modeling of changes among land cover types over time. Future scenarios of land change are used to make scenarios of nutrient loading. Polsky joined the PIE team more recently. He and his students study the vulnerability of human populations to the possible over-exploitation of water and land.Clark University GIS data for the Ipswich watershed has been developed in IDRISI with most files raster based. The following statements explain how to use the Clark GIS data files in ArcView 3.x if IDRISI is not available.
An IDRISI raster comprises two files: an image file (.rst) and an image documentation file (.rdc). An additional file supplied with the raster is a metadata file (.doc) which follows the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata format. The information in the .doc file is appended as comments to the end of the associated .rdc file.
The following ArcView extensions are available from the ESRI ArcScripts web site (http://arcscripts.esri.com/; search on IDRISI) to utilize IDRISI rasters in ArcView 3.x:
* Av2Idrisi (Av2Idrisi)
* Idrisi Image extension (AVIdris.zip)The Av2Idrisi extension reads any version of an IDRISI raster and converts it to an Arc Grid. Any application that supports the ESRI GRID format can access the resultant grids. The Idrisi Image extension provides support to view 16-bit versions of an IDRISI raster; no manipulation of the raster is possible. To use the Idrisi image extension with 32-bit versions of an IDRISI raster, one needs to change the image file suffix from ".rst" to ".img" and the image documentation file from ".rdc" to ".doc". Please refer to the on-line tip at http://www.pierssen.com/idrisi/idrisi32.htm and the readme.txt file included in the compressed download file.
An MS-DOS utility, IDR2GRID, permits the conversion of 16-bit versions of an IDRISI raster to an Arc Grid for viewing in any application that supports the ESRI GRID format. The utility, however, requires an installed copy of ArcView (3.x or greater) to provide the gridio functions. Download the utility from http://www.pierssen.com/arcview/arcview.htm. To use IDR2GRID with the 32-bit versions of the raster files, one needs to change the image file suffix from ".rst" to ".img" and the image documentation file from ".rdc" to ".doc". Please refer to the on-line tip at http://www.pierssen.com/idrisi/idrisi32.htm and the idr2grid.txt file included in the compressed download file.
Clark GIS Data:
GIS-IP-ip30_info_anderson Ipswich Watershed Land Use for 1971, 1985, 1991, 1999: Anderson Level 1 (IDRISI Raster A.1 data)
GIS-IP-ip30_info_aspect Ipswich Watershed aspect model.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_dem Ipswich Watershed Digital Elevation Model using 30m grid.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_hydrology Ipswich Watershed hydrology map to be used to generate a hydrologically corrected Digital Elevation Model.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_nutrientsamplesites Ipswich Watershed single pixel locations of nutrient sampling sites in the Ipswich River Watershed.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_open_protection Ipswich Watershed areas defined as protected and recreational open space.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_open_purpose Primary use of Ipswich Watershed areas defined as protected and recreational open space.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_open_status Status of Ipswich Watershed areas defined as protected and recreational open space.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_roads Ipswich Watershed roads taken from MassGIS.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_slope Ipswich Watershed slope model generated from Digital Elevation Model.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_townmask Shows the entirety of towns that have area within the Ipswich River Watershed.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_towns Shows the areas of towns that are located within the Ipswich River Watershed.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_townsvector A vector form of the ip30_info_towns map.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_wetlands Shows locations of wetlands within the Ipswich study area.
GIS-IP-ip30_info_window This map shows the extent of the Ipswich River Watershed study area.
GIS-p_arc_vector_01 Massachusetts State land use areas for the Parker and Ipswich River watersheds,1971, 1985, 1991, 1999 (21 and 37 landuse classifications)
GIS-p_landuse7_1971_01 Massachusetts State land use for towns in the Ipswich River watershed for 1971, Anderson Level 1, 7 landuse classifications.
GIS-p_landuse7_1985_01 Massachusetts State land use for towns in the Ipswich River watershed for 1985, Anderson Level 1, 7 landuse classifications.
GIS-p_landuse7_1991_01 Massachusetts State land use for towns in the Ipswich River watershed for 1991, Anderson Level 1, 7 landuse classifications.
GIS-p_landuse7_1999_01 Massachusetts State land use for towns in the Ipswich River watershed for 1999, Anderson Level 1, 7 landuse classifications.
GIS-p_landuse21_1971_01 Massachusetts State land use for towns in the Ipswich River watershed for 1971, 21 landuse classifications.
GIS-p_landuse21_1985_01 Massachusetts State land use for towns in the Ipswich River watershed for 1985, 21 landuse classifications.
GIS-p_landuse21_1991_01 Massachusetts State land use for towns in the Ipswich River watershed for 1991, 21 landuse classifications.
GIS-p_landuse21_1999_01 Massachusetts State land use for towns in the Ipswich River watershed for 1999, 21 landuse classifications.
GIS-p_landuse37_1985_01 Massachusetts State land use for towns in the Ipswich River watershed for 1985, 37 landuse classifications.
GIS-p_landuse37_1991_01 Massachusetts State land use for towns in the Ipswich River watershed for 1991, 37 landuse classifications.
GIS-p_landuse37_1999_01 Massachusetts State land use for towns in the Ipswich River watershed for 1999, 37 landuse classifications.
GIS-p_mask_01 Plum Island Ecosystems Mask (Idrisi raster)
GIS-p_mask_vector_01 Plum Island Ecosystems Mask (Idrisi vector)
GIS-p_towns_01 Plum Island Ecosystems Towns (Idrisi raster)
GIS-p_towns_vector_01 Plum Island Ecosystems Towns (Idrisi vector)
GIS-p_watersheds_01 Plum Island Ecosystems Watersheds (Idrisi vector)
WAT-GIS-Anderson1-Landuse Anderson Level 1 landuse for the Parker, Rowley and Ipswich River watersheds years 1971, 1985, 1991 and 1999.
University of New Hampshire River GIS
University of New Hampshire researchers are developing river network hydrological and biogeochemical models to explore how land use change, climate variability and change, and surface water management affect water and nutrient fluxes throughout the basin and to the estuary. A central requirement for this model is a digital river network that is used to simulate surface water flow paths from source areas to the coastal zone. The river network is grid-based at a 120m by 120m resolution. The following GIS files define important characteristics of the river network that drains to the Plum Island Estuary, including flow direction, cell length, distance from cell to ocean, upstream contributing area for each grid cell, and the stream order to which the grid cell first enters the surface water network.UNH GIS data layers currently available consist of Arc ascii (raster digital data) files and a corresponding Microsoft Word metadata file which follows the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata format, the same template as used by Clark University.
UNH GIS Data:
WAT-RGIS-120m-FlowDirection. GIS datalayer is a gridded flow direction (i.e. river network) of the watersheds draining to Plum Island Sound. The resolution is 120 m x 120 m. This layer gives the direction of each cell to the next downstream grid cell. The gridded river network is used to explore scientific questions regarding the role of different land uses in defining nutrient loading, and the role of river systems in controlling exports to the coastal zone.
WAT-RGIS-120m-DirectDrainOrder GIS datalayer is a gridded data set that identifies for each pixel the stream order that drainage from the pixel initially enters into the Ipswich or Parker river network.
WAT-RGIS-120m-CellLength GIS datalayer is a gridded data set of cell length, corresponding with an estimate of river length, for rivers in Plum Island Sound watershed.
WAT-RGIS-120m-Distance2Ocean. GIS datalayer is a gridded data set of the estimated distance (km) to ocean from each point in the gridded river network. The resolution is 120 m x 120 m. Based on the flow direction in: WAT-RGIS-120m-FlowDirection.asc
WAT-RGIS-120m-UpstreamArea GIS datalayer is a gridded data set of the contributing area to each grid cell for rivers in Plum Island Sound watershed. The resolution is 120 m x 120 m. This layer gives drainage area (km2) of each grid cell based on the flow directions in: WAT-RGIS-120m-FlowDirection.asc
Maps:
Site Location Maps & Data file of latitude and longitude for all PIE LTER sampling sites
Map of Plum Island Sound and the Surrounding Estuarine System
Watershed Map with the Ipswich, Parker, and Rowley Rivers
1971 Land Use Map
1985 Land Use Map
Map of Plum Island Sound Streams, Ponds, and Watersheds
NOAA map of Newburyport Harbor and Plum Island Sound
Aerial Imagery:
irparker.jpg
Infrared aerial photo of the mouth of the Parker River and Northern Plum Island Sound, Newbury, Massachusetts, 1:25,000 scale, Flown in July 1985 by James W. Sewall, Old Town, ME for University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.plumisla.jpg
Color aerial photo of Plum Island Sound and surrounding estuarine system, Ipswich, Rowley and Newbury, Massachusetts, March 1992, 1:40,000 scale, USGS National Aerial Photographic Program.
Links:
Massachusetts Geographic Information System
Massachusetts Electronic Atlas
