Creation of a Digital Archive of Historical Aerial Photographs for Everglades NP and the Greater Everglades Ecosystem

Knowledge of the spatial organization and structure of pre-drainage landscape communities such as mangrove forests, marshes, sloughs, wet prairies, and pinelands, is essential to provide potential endpoints, restoration goals and performance measures to gauge restoration success Information contained in historical aerial photographs of the Everglades can aid in this endeavor. The earliest known aerial photographs, from the mid to late 1920s, and resulted in the production of T-Sheets (Topographic Sheets) for the coasts and shorelines of south Florida.

The T-Sheets are remarkably detailed, delineating features such as shorelines, ponds, and waterways, in addition to the position of the boundary between differing vegetation communities. If followed through time changes in the position of these ecotones could potentially be used to judge effects of changes in the landscape of the Everglades ecosystem, providing a standard by which restoration success can be ascertained.

The overall objective is to create a digital archive of historical aerial photographs of Everglades national park and surrounding area of the greater Everglades and south Florida. The archive will be in readily available Geographic Information System formats for ease of accessibility. Each set of photos will be broadly disseminated to client agencies, academic institutions and the general public via Open-File Reports and through the Internet.