Eastern Region Geography Land Cover Trends Task
Field Trip Report

Northeastern Coastal Zone Ecoregion

An intensively developed waterfront in the Northeastern Coastal Zone Ecoregion. (Photo by Dan Sechrist)

August 17 – 22, 2002 
Dan Sechrist

Participants:
Darrell Napton, EROS Data Center
Roger Auch, EROS Data Center
Chris Laingen, EROS Data Center
Daniel Sechrist, Eastern Region Geography

Fieldwork for the Northeastern Coastal Zone was conducted from August 17 thru August 22, 2002, with the participants returning on August 23, 2002. Within this ecoregion, the team worked on approximately 25, 10-km by 10-km sample blocks in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York.  In addition, they also worked on Long Island, New York, to complete fieldwork for the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens. 

Fieldwork in the Northeastern Coastal Zone began shortly after leaving Boston's Logan Airport.  After all of the members of the team were assembled and the rental car was loaded with luggage and equipment, the group proceeded to the first 10-kilometer square sample block to begin working.

Within a short time the group began to function as a team.  On this trip, many of the roles were traded back and forth so that everyone could gain experience in more than one of the different functions. 

Darrell Napton continued doing what has become known as the "Darrell job."  Darrell takes several hundred photographs while maintaining a running journal of geographic, geologic, cultural, and historical sites encountered on our journey.  It would be difficult to find someone who possesses the ability and knowledge of Dr. Napton while demonstrating an incredible level of enthusiasm, and the patience to explain to and educate team members on the features he is observing.  His unique combination of skills and talents are acknowledged as being superlative and invaluable to the field experience.  Consequently, when he is available, Darrell will always be doing the "Darrell job!"

The other team roles were more flexible.  Roger, Chris, and Dan traded the jobs of navigator, driver, and keeper of the field book.  The change of roles proved to be quite enlightening.  A person sees the world differently based on the mindset the job requires.  For instance the driver, obviously, must focus on traffic, road intersections, the next turn, etc.  The driver, unless he stops to take pictures, can't look at the scenery.  Consequently, the driver can't easily formulate hypothesizes of land cover change and its drivers.  The navigator uses peripheral vision more than the driver but is still unable to observe some of the geography since they spend a lot of their time looking in atlases and planning routes through the blocks that provide the best opportunity to see the features of a block and to best utilize time.  The person keeping the field book keeps record of the geographic coordinates, a brief description of the feature being observed, and a record of the photograph numbers so that all information can be organized at a later date. 

The photographs, coordinates, and narratives are combined to produce presentations, block summaries, and photographic archives to promote decision-making, better image analysis and interpretation, and visual documentation of the narrative document. 

View of bog with cranberry bushes. (Photo by Dan Sechrist)

Cranberry bogs looked considerably different than one team member expected.  On the imagery, they have a very strong spectral signature due to the high moisture content, and the ditching and irrigation systems used to cultivate them.  In reality, the cranberry is a less imposing plant than its signature might indicate. 

Shaded tobacco is a crop that may be hard to determine from imagery unless the analyst were familiar with this farming technique.  Its canopy could easily be misinterpreted as a completely different crop or even as bare ground or buildings.

By photographing and documenting difficult to interpret land covers, a historical record is produced that can be accessed at some later date to help future geographers understand and analyze the physical and social properties within the statistical block.  First, the block documents are necessary for the analysis and interpretation of the block for the trends project.  Second, they will serve as base information for the analysis of the block for future time intervals.  Finally, the documents can assist in other research activities.  Field-work helps to resolve difficult to interpret features, produces better image analysis, and documents a portion of time in evolution of the block.

Stone fences in forests were features unique to the area that was observed by the team.  These fences indicate the continuing cycle of land being cleared for farming and then reverting back to forest.  The rocks are stacked around the perimeter of the field that is being farmed.  Over time, these fields are abandoned.  Trees re-inhabit these areas, completing the cycle, though the stone fence remains.

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