See where the wetland boundary sits this year.
An annual wetland type map and drying flag for your permit area, read from high-resolution imagery before anyone drives out.
01The job today
What the file says about the boundary
A permit application lands on your desk with a delineation report from a consultant. Someone walked the site on one or two days, in some growing season, flagged the edge, and drew it on the plan sheet. Your other reference is the inventory layer the agency has held for years, drawn from photo interpretation of imagery that was old when you got it. Neither tells you what the wetland looks like now.
So you lay the plan sheet over the inventory and squint. If the two agree, you move on. If they don't, or the boundary sits right against the proposed fill, you have a judgment call to make about whether the trip out is worth it, and the calendar is already full of trips. For a mitigation bank the same gap shows up every year. The sponsor's monitoring report says the site is holding, and between visits you have little of your own to set beside it.
Water level swings from year to year, shrubs move into a marsh, a ditch pulls a fringe dry, and none of that shows up in a report written once. What you want before you drive out is a read of this year's imagery that says which parcels look different from last year's. That is what this layer is. It does not draw the legal line. It tells you where to look first.
What you get
Delivered once per year for the permit or monitoring area you draw, after the growing-season imagery is in.
2.1
Wetland type layer
Shapefile or GeoJSON
Polygons for open water, emergent marsh, scrub-shrub and forested wetland, classed from the NIR water signal and the vegetation signature. Opens in ArcGIS or QGIS beside your inventory layer.
2.2
Drying flag layer
Shapefile or GeoJSON
Polygons where wetland looks smaller than it did last year. It is a change flag from imagery, so it marks where to look, and it says nothing about why.
2.3
Summary for the file
PDF
A short write-up of the area, the imagery date and what changed, written to attach to a permit file or a mitigation bank monitoring record.
How it works
Draw the area
Send the permit or monitoring boundary as a shapefile or GeoJSON, or mark it on a map. Say which programme it is for.
We source the imagery
A cloud-free high-resolution pass is picked from the growing season. Which day depends on the sky, so the summary states the date used.
Classify and compare
NIR water absorption and vegetation signature sort the area into wetland types. Set against the prior year, the same read produces the drying flag.
You get the layers
Type layer, drying flag and summary, ready to open in your GIS and attach to the file.
Where it fits in your work
- Before a site visit
- Narrow down which parcels probably shifted, so the trip goes to those first.
- During permit review
- A second read alongside a submitted delineation, to see whether this year's imagery agrees with the line on the plan sheet.
- Mitigation bank monitoring
- An annual condition check on the bank, set next to the sponsor's report, without a separate flight over the site.
Limits
These are the ways a desk read of imagery can mislead. The summary repeats the ones that apply to your area.
Not a delineation
This is a first pass from imagery. It is not a certified delineation and it makes no jurisdictional determination. Hydric soils, hydrology indicators and the legal line stay a field and agency call.
The surface only
Optical imagery stops at the top of the canopy and the top of the water. It cannot see through closed forest canopy or turbid water, and it does not observe hydrology itself, only what hydrology does to the surface.
Small wetlands and narrow fringes
The GSD sets a floor. A small isolated wetland, or a fringe only a few pixels wide, may not separate cleanly into classes. At the coarse end of 0.5–2 m that is a larger patch than at the fine end.
A drying flag is a change, not a cause
A dry year against a wet one can look like loss. A flag says the imagery differs from last year's. You judge whether it is a trend.
Annual, and the sky decides the date
One layer per year, from the best cloud-free pass in the window. It is not seasonal tracking and not real-time, and a cloudy window can push the date.
Who it's for
- Wetland delineation officers and permit reviewers at state agencies who check submitted boundaries.
- Teams that oversee mitigation banks and want a yearly condition check of their own.
- GIS staff who will load the layers next to the agency's inventory.
Who it's not for
- Teams that need a certified delineation or a jurisdictional call. That takes people on the ground.
- Monitoring of water levels, soils or groundwater. Imagery does not observe them.
- Seasonal or real-time tracking. The layer is annual.
- Mapping of small isolated wetlands finer than the imagery can resolve.
Questions from reviewers
Does this replace a delineation?
No. It is a desk-based first pass. The delineation, and any legal determination, stay with the consultant and the agency.
Can it see under closed canopy or through turbid water?
No. Optical imagery stops at the canopy and the water surface.
How often is it updated?
Once a year, timed to the growing season. It is not real-time.
What is the smallest wetland it can resolve?
That is limited by the 0.5–2 m GSD. Small isolated wetlands below what the pixel can separate may not come out cleanly.
Does cloud cover affect delivery?
Yes. You get the best cloud-free pass available in the window, and the date depends on the sky.
How do we check it against our own ground truth?
Lay the layers over your field data, your inventory and past delineations in your GIS. The summary gives the imagery date so you can compare like with like. Tell us where your ground truth sits when the area is scoped.
Does it fit the wetland classes we use?
The type layer uses four classes: open water, emergent marsh, scrub-shrub and forested wetland. A project team can talk through how they line up with the scheme your agency uses.
Who owns the layers?
Use and ownership terms are set in the contract before work starts. The satellite archives the imagery comes from keep their own licences.
How is it priced?
Each project is scoped on its own, from the size of the area and the years you want. You get a written scope you can take through procurement.
Send us the permit area and we'll tell you what a pass would cover.
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