Imagery

As part of CRMS, Digital Orthophoto Quarter Quadrangles (DOQQs) for the coastal region of Louisiana are created for years when coastwide land-water classifications are required. A DOQQ is a raster image in which displacement in the image caused by sensor orientation and terrain relief has been corrected. These images combine the image characteristics of a photo with the geometric qualities of a map. The DOQQs generated for this project consist of four components or spectral bands of information: blue, green, red and very-near infrared (VNIR). These images are referred to as Color Infrared (CIR) digital imagery.

CRMS site-level assessments of land-water coverage will be based off of color-infrared photography acquired for coastal Louisiana and clipped to each 1-km2 CRMS-Wetlands site. Unless otherwise noted as a specific preliminary condition, all vegetation such as scrub-shrub, emergent vegetation, and forested areas will fall under the land classification, while open water, non-vegetated, regularly flooded mud flats, and aquatic vegetation beds will be characterized as water.

CRMS imagery contracts are managed and issued by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Wetland and Aquatic Research Center.