Abstract

Monitoring Southern California Habitat Reserves using Satellite Imagery and LIDAR
Track: Conservation
Authors: Mark McGinnis, Laura Eisenberg, Pete Coulter

Over the past decades and continuing into the future, thousands of acres of Rancho Mission Viejo land in southern California have been or will be perpetually protected as a habitat reserve for federally listed species . A vegetation map for the Habitat Reserve was completed by Dudek Environmental (Encinitas, CA) in 2007-08 based on the Orange County Habitat Classification System (OCHS). As required under the terms and conditions of a Southern Subregion Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) and Implementing Agreement (IA), vegetation data for the 32,818 acre habitat reserve is to be updated at 5-year intervals. To meet the updating requirement for the 2012-2013 period, Dudek performed change detection with QuickBird multispectral satellite imagery from 2006 and 2012 to identify areas that had changed. LIDAR data for the reserve was collected in August 2012, and the LIDAR points were utilized to create vegetation height and density products.