Effects of Hurricane Katrina on Land Cover Within the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Mississippi, USA

Abstract

Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005 as a Category 3 hurricane at the mouth of the Pearl River, on the Mississippi/Louisiana border. Katrina is considered one of the costliest natural disasters in United States history. Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge (GBNWR) is located in the coastal zone of Jackson County in Mississippi, and Mobile County in Alabama. The Mississippi portion of GBNWR is part of the 18,400-acre Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), which was designated in 1999. The objectives of this study were to map changes to wetland and forest habitats resulting from hurricane Katrina and to discuss the implications of changes in these habitats on biodiversity within the Grand Bay NERR. Pre- and post-Katrina subsets of the Grand Bay NERR were derived from Landsat images downloaded from The Coastal Change Analysis Program’s (C-CAP) website. Unsupervised classification and change detection analysis were applied to each Landsat-derived, 3-band datasets. The land cover change analysis revealed that hurricane Katrina caused a decrease in evergreen forest, and the conversion of evergreen forest into grassland. The major land cover changes were due to the expansion of open water. The increase in open water caused the decrease in estuarine emergent wetlands (salt marsh habitats) and the conversion of one type of land cover into another. These land cover changes could have a profound effect on the flora and fauna located within the reserve. Remote sensing technology appears to be a valuable tool for monitoring and implementing restoration and conservation strategies by the Grand Bay NERR managers.