Historical analysis of development and its impact on the ecology of the Grassy Waters Preserve

The purpose of this thesis was to document human impacts to Grassy Waters Preserve and correlate that to environmental change. Aerial photographs and archives provided a history of human impacts. These impacts included roadways, canals/levees, development, and landfills. To determine if environmental change occurred vegetation maps were digitized and compared from three study areas using 1940 and 1999 aerial photography. These vegetation maps included open water, transitional marsh/prairie, cypress, upland forest and human feature categories. Within all study areas the vegetation maps indicated decreases in the open water community. Within two areas major increases in cypress and uplands occurred. Vegetative shifts varied based on the locations of features like canals and levees. Due to image quality differences statistical analysis of the maps was not possible. However, the magnitude of change suggests that Grassy Waters became more densely vegetated and forested over time.