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Long-Term Experiments and Monitoring |
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(Long-Term Expirements and Monitoring Page, LUQ Home Page)
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Long-Term Experiments and Monitoring |
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SPATIAL DATA SETS :
Note: the LUQ gis data are being corrected and will be soon made availabe - posted 12/10/2011
The following are examples of different types of spatial data sets used at the Luquillo LTER site.
This shows the Atlantic on August 29, 1995. There are five named hurricanes/tropical storms visible in the image: Jerry is just off the coast of the Carolinas. Humberto is a little south of east (ESE) of Jerry. Iris is centered just north of the British Virgin Islands. Karen is ESE of Iris. Luis is ESE of Karen.
Landsat Image of East Puerto Rico
This is a part of a Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite image, showing the Luquillo Experimental Forest and the area to its east, including the Roosevelt Roads Naval Base (the runways are clearly visible). It is a false-color infrared image, which means that near infrared reflected light appears red, red light appears green, and green light appears blue. (You can not see blue reflected light in this image.) The original pixel size is 30 m, more or less. The image was captured in the mid 1980s.
This is a scanned aerial photograph, taken from the NASA ER-2 aircraft in December 1993. The photo was taken on false-color infrared film and then was scanned into the computer at a pixel size of 2.5 m. It shows the area north from the LEF to the coast at Punta Miquillo and Punta Picua. Different vegetation types are apparent, from mangroves on the coast, agricultural lands on the plain, and upland forest in the foothills of the Luquillo Mountains.
Hurricane Recovery Plot at El Verde (GIS file)
This is a GIS file that shows the distribution of two famous Hurricane Recovery Plot tree species, Dacryodes excelsa and Didymopanax morototoni. Typically, D. excelsa is found in the southern part of the grid, and D. morototoni occurs in the northern part. The figure also shows the distribution of different forest canopy closure classes observed on 1936 aerial photographs, in an attempt to provide clues about the effects of past land use on present-day tree distributions.
Soil Map of the Hurricane Recovery Plot at El Verde (GIS file)
This is a soil map from the recent (1993) Soil Conservation Service (now Natural Resources Conservation Service) survey of the HRP. The broad soil classes are draped over the topography of the grid in this view from the southwest, with a 3 times vertical exaggeration.
The LEF is surrounded by a highly dynamic landscape. Until the late 1940's, most of the foothills and coastal plain north of the LEF were cultivated, primarily in sugar cane, or in pasture. Since that time, there has been a rapid shift toward forest as agricultural lands have been abandoned. These changes can be seen on a sequence of three aerial photographs, original nominal scale approximately 1:20,000, Taken in 1936, 1964, and 1988.
