Seeing Red Over Wetlands

An infrared aerial photo shows varied land cover patterns in northern Indiana.
Photo © Indiana Geographic Information Council

Protecting Ohio's wetlands

Scorned for generations, wetlands are now valued as highly beneficial ecosystems, acting as kidneys to filter out pollutants from water, working as natural sponges to avert flooding, and serving as vital fish and wildlife habitat for the more than one-thid of the country's endangered and threatenend species that live in them.

For nearly 50 years, The Nature Conservancy has been working to protect and restore Ohio's remaining wetlands. At places like Glade Wetland, White Pine Bog, and Morgan Swamp, we're working to sustain fully functioning wetland systems for future generations of Ohioans.

Read more about our work to protect wetlands.

Project will map Ohio's vanishing wetlands

Infrared photography

From an airplane, Ohio’s landscape unfolds in myriad shades of green, interrupted often by black roads and rooftops, gleaming silver skyscrapers, ripening fields of golden grain, and the sparkling aquamarine of open water.

That’s all well and good for photographers looking for scenic shots, or researchers wanting to know more about the extent of Ohio’s forests, farmlands, or lakes. But if you want data about Ohio’s swamps, bogs and other wetland resources, you need to see red. More accurately, you need to record the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum – the portion of that spectrum that lies beyond the red and is invisible to human eyes.

Infrared photography allows us to see what photos taken in visible light cannot – the subtle variations of soil types and saturation levels that bear witness to wetlands that might not otherwise show signs of open water

Wetland mapping project under way

A project that will record aerial infrared images across the length and breadth of Ohio is under way, with help from The Nature Conservancy and many other partners. When it is completed, we hope to know more about Ohio’s wetlands including where they are, where they were, and where they could most likely be restored.

“Infrared imagery depicts water differently than vegetation or asphalt,” explains August Froehlich, the Conservancy’s geographic information systems analyst in Ohio. These photos will be especially helpful, he said, in locating vernal pools, the temporary wetlands that serve as vital amphibian breeding locations in Spring. “Using this data, we’ll be able to identify wetlands by searching for soils that are saturated in the spring. It’s a very big deal for us.”

It’s a big deal because Ohio has already lost more than 90 percent of the wetlands that existed when Europeans arrived on the continent. Drained for farms and towns, these wetlands once provided important services to the people in the state, including water filtration and flood control. They also provide homes, breeding grounds, or temporary refuge for amphibians, waterfowl and a host of other species.

Wetland maps exist, but most are still on paper (inaccessible by computers) and at least 15 to 20 years old. The information gathered by this project will be used to assist Ducks Unlimited, a conservation group that has been hired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to update the National Wetlands Inventory maps for Ohio. With more precise maps, conservation groups like the Conservancy will be able to better target our wetland protection efforts throughout the state, Froehlich said.

“We’ll have a much better, more accurate understanding of the status and distribution of wetlands in Ohio,” he said.

Wetland mapping part of a larger effort

The Ohio Infrared Mapping Project is just part of a larger effort to capture high-resolution, digital images of the entire state, or about 41,276 square miles. The Ohio Statewide Imagery Program, sponsored by the Ohio Office of Information Technology, is contracting with consultants to fly over the state and produce photos that can be used in mapping projects to assist emergency response agencies, state forestry and other land management agencies, and county planning departments.

Adding infrared photos to this project cost extra, however, and would not have happened without the support of the Conservancy and several partners, including ODNR’s Division of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Soil and Water Conservation Service, the Ohio Department of Transportation, and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

The Conservancy is still raising funds for this project, and you can help. A contribution to the Ohio Infrared Mapping Project will help ensure that none of Ohio’s few remaining wetlands is overlooked.

“For a fairly small contribution, we will help create something that has been sorely needed in Ohio for many years,” Froehlich said.