Assessing Tallgrass Coastal Prairie in Southwest Louisiana

Vegetation assessments are part of an effort to produce seamless, consistent, and high resolution landcover data for the northern portion of the western gulf coastal plain. This geography was once dominated by tallgrass prairie and has undergone dramatic change with less than 1% of this natural habitat in existence.

Tallgrass prairie provides a suite of ecosystem services including enhancing beneficial insect and pollinator populations, improving water quality, sequestering carbon, and reducing runoff and erosion. Many of the remaining remnants are along the coastal fringes of the historic range and vulnerable to sea level rise. Due to the vast benefits associated with this diverse, productive, and threatened ecosystem, conservation entities across the Western Gulf Coastal Plain are working toward a collaborative, strategic, landscape scale approach to conservation planning.

Our work will provide baseline data to enhance the ability of decision makers to communicate, prioritize, and implement restoration activities and other habitat enhancement actions associated with water sheds within this geography.