Wetland-Change Data Derived from Landsat Imagery, Assateague Island to Metompkin Island, Maryland and Virginia, 1984 to 2015: Wetland Persistence Analysis

This U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data release includes geospatial datasets that were created for the analysis of Virginia and Maryland Atlantic coastal wetland changes over time. Wetland change was determined by assessing two metrics: wetland persistence and land-cover switching. Because seasonal water levels, beach width, and vegetation differences can affect change analyses, only images acquired during the spring (March, April, and May) were included in the wetland-change metrics (N=10). To assess wetland-area trends, including wetland persistence, the total marsh and mixed vegetation classes land-cover types defined by Bernier and others (2015) were reclassified as 1 (wetland presence) and all other classes were reclassified as 0 (wetland absence). When the baseline data (1985) is subtracted from a later dataset, the outcome results in cells with three possible values: 0, 1, or -1, where -1 is wetland loss, 0 is no change (persistence), and 1 is wetland gain.