A polygon shapefile of bottomland vegetation cover and geomorphic features of the Escalante River, Utah mapped from 1981 aerial imagery

We used the 1981 historical imagery of the Escalante River, Utah in ArcGIS to quantify channel area and average width and quantify woody riparian vegetation cover in two reaches of the river. Reach 1 was approximately 15 river kilometers (rkms) long and located between Sand and Boulder creeks within Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Reach 2 was approximately 16 rkms in length, extending from the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area boundary to just upstream of Choprock Canyon. We delineated the extent of active channel. Active channel was defined as the portion of the channel free of vegetation. We also delineated fluvial geomorphic features such as point bars, mid-channel bars, lateral bars and floodplain. Finally, we delineated woody vegetation patches in the imagery. Woody vegetation patches were defined by the surfaces on which they occurred. Because there is wide variation in cover, we used cover classes to differentiate among unvegetated to dense cover as follows: 1) Unvegetated (0% cover); 2) Very Sparse (1-10% cover); 3) Sparse (11-40%); 4) Moderate (41-70%) and 5) Dense (71-100%).

[
  "010:12"
]

[
  "geospatial"
]