Fine Resolution Mapping of Houston Toad Breeding Pond Habitat

Laura Chapa and Wendy Anderson

Texas Parks & Wildlife

Transcript

1. Fine Resolution Mapping of Houston Toad Breeding Pond Habitat Laura Chapa and Wendy Anderson
2. Range HCS Houston Toad
3. Houston Toad Male Call
4. Houston Toad: Endangered Species — Threats to Houston Toad ¡ 1950s severe drought ¡ Habitat destruction ¡ Road Mortalities ¡ Pollution from cattle/hog activity, and pesticides (1950-1975) ¡ Invasive species ¡ Increase of stock tanks — Legislative history ¡ October 1970: Federally listed as an endangered species ¡ January 1978: Critical habitat designated ¡ Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) by the State of Texas
5. Houston Toad Recovery Efforts — TPWD Landowner Incentive Program (LIP) ¡ Provide financial incentives and technical assistance to private landowners interested in conserving rare species and unique wildlife communities on their property — Houston Toad Safe Harbor Agreement ¡ Cooperative agreement with TPWD & landowners to facilitate participation in Houston toad recovery efforts on private land without fear of additional restrictions being placed on their activities as a result of their efforts. — Ongoing Recovery Efforts ¡ Land acquisition ¡ 2018: 1,082,000 Houston toad eggs were released into the wild from Houston Zoo
6. Range HCS Lidar .las file DEM .TIF Sinks Shapefile Houston Toad
7. Sink Methods Create DEMs Quick Terrain Modeler - 1 meter spatial resolution Standardize DEMs ESRI ArcMap - Projection * State Plane (feet) * NAVD88 (feet) - Delete No Data * Raster Calculator Set Null ERDAS Imagine - Convert vertical data to half foot Identify Sinks ESRI ArcGIS Pro - Flow Direction - Sinks - Raster to Polygon - Dissolve - Multipart to Singlepart - Delete sinks < 350 ft2 - Add Field “Water” and assign values 0 = no water 1 = water - Remove Polygons in Bottomland Soils
8. Open Water Mapping Remote Sensing - Aerial imagery ¡ TNRIS 2016 1m2 NAIP Aerial Imagery (RGB, NIR) ¡ Software: ÷ ERDAS Imagine Mosaic Pro ÷ Trimble eCognition Developer ÷ ESRI ArcMap — Ponds over 400m2 — Target species ¡ Houston toad ¡ Crawfish frog — Uses ¡ Recreation ¡ Habitat modeling ¡ Flooding/water resources — Data publicly available
9. Trimble eCognition Object Based Image Analysis — Pixels à Object Mean View — Segment image into objects of similar pixel values — Assign training data values to classify which objects are Water ¡ Eliminate shadows — Export water polygons
10. 2016 NAIP Imagery, Bastrop County, TX Open Water Methods • Downloaded imagery from TNRIS
11. Open water mapped using Trimble eCognition Open Water Methods • Downloaded imagery from TNRIS • Remote sensing for open water conducted in Trimble eCognition Developer
12. Bottomland soils removed from open water data Open Water Methods • Downloaded imagery from TNRIS • Remote sensing for open water conducted in Trimble eCognition Developer • Bottomland soils clipped from open water data
13. Sinks data and open water data Open Water Methods • Downloaded imagery from TNRIS • Remote sensing for open water conducted in Trimble eCognition Developer • Bottomland soils clipped from open water data • Sinks in landscaped generated from LiDARà DEM à ArcGIS Pro
14. Open water and sinks data merged and dissolved into one shapefile Open Water Methods • Downloaded imagery from TNRIS • Remote sensing for open water conducted in Trimble eCognition Developer • Bottomland soils clipped from open water data • Sinks in landscaped generated from LiDARà DEM à ArcGIS Pro • Sinks under a certain size removed • Merged polygons assigned value • 1 = open water present • 0 = sink with no water
15. Target Species: Houston Toad
16. Range HCS Houston Toad – Modeling Data • Houston Toad Range • Available Lidar • Study Area • LEP Enduring Features • Soils (NRCS) • Crops (USDA) • Flow Lines (NHD) • Sinks and Open Water Modeling Breeding Habitat • Houston Toad Occurrences
17. Final & Future Goals — Provide a map to decision makers for Houston Toad Potential Breeding Habitat locations — Provide sinks and open water data to the public — Identical project for Crawfish Frog
18. Thank you! Landscape Ecology Program landscape.ecology@tpwd.texas.gov Laura Chapa Laura.Chapa@tpwd.texas.gov Wendy Anderson Wendy.Anderson@tpwd.texas.gov