Cheyenne Bottoms, Kansas

HYSPIRE -- HYper SPatial Imagery of Rural Environments
Kansas NASA EPSCoR Rural Resources Cluster
Emporia State University
James S. Aber and Firooza Pavri

Table of Contents
Introduction Nature Conservancy
HYSPIRE research Related sites

**Table of Contents**
Introduction	Nature Conservancy
HYSPIRE research	Related sites

Introduction

Cheyenne Bottoms, a Ramsar wetland of international importance, is the focus for remote-sensing investigations during the period 2002-2004. Cheyenne Bottoms represents a critical habitat for millions of shorebirds, which visit the site during their annual migrations between summer Arctic breeding grounds and winter ranges to the south. Many consider Cheyenne Bottoms to be the most important stopover site for bird migration in all of North America, if not the entire western hemisphere. This significant wetland is located in central Kansas, just north of the Arkansas River near Great Bend.

Location of Cheyenne Bottoms in relation to Landsat scene path 29, row 33.
Map adapted from USGS Eros Data Center.

Landsat ETM browse image adapted from USGS Eros Data Center. ETM bands 3, 4 and 5 color coded as blue, green and red. Active vegetation appears in green colors. Cheyenne Bottoms is the dark spot in lower center of scene. Date of acquisition June 25, 2001.

Winter view looking toward the northeast over the Kansas state wildlife refuge at Cheyenne Bottoms. Nature Conservany land is located to the northwest (left) of the area shown in this scene. Taken from a small plane, image date 2/02, © J. Zupancic.
Winter view looking toward the east over the Kansas state wildlife refuge at Cheyenne Bottoms. The inlet canal is prominent at bottom-right of this scene. Larger water bodies have ice/snow cover. Taken from a small plane, image date 2/02, © J. Zupancic.

Nature Conservancy

Beginning in the early 1990s, the Nature Conservancy started to acquire land in the upstream portion of Cheyenne Bottoms, north and west of the state wildlife area. Cheyenne Bottoms is a network of shallow lakes and marshes within a basin of 16,400 hectares (41,000 acres), of which the state wildlife area comprises about 8000 hectares (20,000 acres), and the Nature Conservancy owns more than 2880 hectares (7200 acres). The management goal of the Nature Conservancy is to protect habitat for shorebirds and waterfowl through reclamation of natural marshes, ephemeral wetland, mudlflats, and adjacent grassland. In pursuing this goal the Nature Conservancy has undertaken substantial alterations of the previous agricultural land use in the areas it owns and manages.

Index map for Cheyenne Bottoms vicinity, based on Landsat TM band 5 (mid-infrared) image; 10 July 1989. This Landsat TM scene illustrates conditions prior to changes in land management introduced by the Nature Conservancy in the 1990s. Click on small image to see a larger version (247 kb).
Digital elevation model for Cheyenne Bottoms and surroundings. NC = Nature Conservancy, CBWA = Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area. Data obtained from the Kansas Geological Survey--DASC. Map created by Andy Schmidt. Click on small image to see a larger version (104 kb).

The methods of HYSPIRE will be employed to document the nature of changes in land cover that have taken place in the Nature Conservancy areas during the past two decades. This will require ability to recognize and distinguish various types of water bodies, soils and vegetation within the overall wetland context. All levels of remote sensing will be applied to the problem of accurate identification of land-cover types and mapping their seasonal and annual variations through time.

Land use and land cover map of the Cheyenne Bottoms vicinity. Note the large number of vegetation cover types present in the area. Derived from 1992 & 1995 Landsat TM datasets; obtained from the Kansas Geological Survey--DASC. Map created by Andy Schmidt.
Land use and land cover details for the Nature Conservancy portion of Cheyenne Bottoms. Extracted from GAP database on land cover in the state of Kansas. Data obtained from the Kansas Geological Survey--DASC. Map created by Andy Schmidt.

HYSPIRE Research

The goal of HYSPIRE is to develop techniques of hyper-spatial and hyper-spectral remote sensing for investigation of diverse rural resources. Hyper-spatial refers to sensor and image resolution that is centimeter-decimeter (inches) in scale. Imagery of this type allows recognition and interpretation of objects as small as one foot (30 cm) in size. Hyper-spectral refers to the number and width of each spectral band included in the dataset. The visible and near-infrared spectrum are divided into hundreds of quite narrow bands, so that spectral signatures of near-laboratory quality can be acquired in field settings. With hyper-spectral datasets, it's possible to distinguish many kinds of plants, minerals and other types of materials based on their spectral characteristics. Hyper-spatial and hyper-spectral datasets are necessary to bridge the scale and resolution gap between conventional satellite-based remote sensing and ground-based observations.

Cheyenne Bottoms has experienced substantial changes in surface water and land cover conditions during the past quarter century, as a consequence of climatic variations and human management. Remote sensing will be utilized to document and analyze these changes in the context of natural and cultural impacts on Cheyenne Bottoms and the surrounding drainage basin. HYSPIRE research will include a full suite of remote sensing techniques from satellite systems to ground-based methods. The main types of systems and datasets are summarized below.

Landsat -- Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM) datasets provide moderate resolution, multispectral coverage in three visible and four infrared bands. Operation from the mid-1980s to present. These datasets represent an important archive for documenting regional changes in land/water cover and human land use. Data source: EROS Data Center of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Landsat at Cheyenne Bottoms.
Ikonos -- A commercial satellite that began operation in 1999 provides high-resolution, panchromatic (1 m) and multispectral (4 m) datasets in visible and near-infrared bands. Highest resolution datasets available to civilian users from space-based platform. Data source: commercial.
Ikonos at Cheyenne Bottoms.

Digital orthophotos -- Digitally resampled and rectified images are derived from conventional airphotos; they have pixel resolution of 1 m and interpretability resolution of 2-5 m. Usually black-and-white images acquired in panchromatic (visible) light. Data source: DASC of the Kansas Geological Survey.

Composite digital orthophoto image of Cheyenne Bottoms vicinity. Assembled from six digital orthophoto quarter quadrangles. Compare with Landsat image above. Click on small image to see a larger version (168 kb).

Small-format aerial photography -- Large-scale images are taken from kite or blimp platforms 50-150 m above the ground. Typical digital resolution is 5-10 cm with interpretability resolution of less than 30 cm (one foot). Based on 35-mm film, digital, or video cameras operating in visible and near-infrared portions of the spectrum. Data source: field acquisition at Cheyenne Bottoms.
SFAP at Cheyenne Bottoms.
Ground-based radiometer -- The FieldSpec Handheld is configured for near-ultraviolet/visible/near-infrared wavelengths (0.325 to 1.075 µm). This encompasses the spectral range for color-infrared photography. Utilized for collection of high-quality spectral signatures from selected target objects under natural conditions. Data source: field acquisition at Cheyenne Bottoms. For more information--see FieldSpec.

Related sites

Wetland of International Importance-- the Nature Conservancy at Cheyenne Bottoms.
Cheyenne Bottoms--a general guide from the Great Bend Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Ramsar convention on wetlands.

NASA EPSCoR at ESU.
Last update: Jan. 2004.

	Winter view looking toward the northeast over the Kansas state wildlife refuge at Cheyenne Bottoms. Nature Conservany land is located to the northwest (left) of the area shown in this scene. Taken from a small plane, image date 2/02, © J. Zupancic.
	Winter view looking toward the east over the Kansas state wildlife refuge at Cheyenne Bottoms. The inlet canal is prominent at bottom-right of this scene. Larger water bodies have ice/snow cover. Taken from a small plane, image date 2/02, © J. Zupancic.

	Index map for Cheyenne Bottoms vicinity, based on Landsat TM band 5 (mid-infrared) image; 10 July 1989. This Landsat TM scene illustrates conditions prior to changes in land management introduced by the Nature Conservancy in the 1990s. Click on small image to see a larger version (247 kb).
	Digital elevation model for Cheyenne Bottoms and surroundings. NC = Nature Conservancy, CBWA = Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area. Data obtained from the Kansas Geological Survey--DASC. Map created by Andy Schmidt. Click on small image to see a larger version (104 kb).