Herbaceous Wetland Vegetation Structure Across Louisiana Salinity Gradient

Field measurements document the vegetation structure of herbaceous wetlands across six sites in Louisiana's Atchafalaya and Terrebonne basins. Collected during the NASA Delta-X Spring and Fall 2021 deployments, the data includes mean stem diameter, height, dominant species, hydrogeomorphic zone, and stem density. This dataset is provided by ORNL_CLOUD and is designed to capture variability across freshwater, brackish, and saline ecosystems.

Use Cases

• Analyzing relationships between hydrogeomorphic zone (HGM) and vegetation metrics like stem density and height.
• Comparing vegetation structure (mean stem diameter, dominant species) across a salinity gradient from freshwater to saline sites.
• Validating remote sensing biomass estimates with ground-truthed field measurements of vegetation height and stem density.
• Studying within-site variability in wetland plant communities using data from duplicate sampling stations at 25m and 50m intervals.

Strengths

• Data captures a deliberate salinity gradient across six sites in two major coastal basins.
• Designed to capture within-site variability using duplicate sampling stations spaced 30m apart.
• Five of the six field sites are co-located with established Coastwide Reference Monitoring System (CRMS) stations, aiding comparative studies.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as exact row count, column names, and dataset size are unavailable across all sources.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date, reporting either 2021-08-27 or 2026-03-13.
• Spatial coverage is limited to six specific sites in southeastern coastal Louisiana.

Provenance

Source

ORNL_CLOUD / NASA Delta-X project

Collection Method

Field measurements collected during Spring (2021-03-21 to 2021-03-31) and Fall (2021-08-19 to 2021-08-27) deployments.

Time Range

2021-03-21 to 2021-08-27

Freshness

2026-03-13 03:11:18.429612

Geography

Atchafalaya and Terrebonne basins, southeastern coastal Louisiana, USA.