MONITORING VEGETATION CHANGE BY USING REMOTE SENSING: AN EXAMINATION OF VISITOR-INDUCED IMPACT AT CADILLAC MOUNTAIN, ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

MONITORING VEGETATION CHANGE BY USING REMOTE SENSING:

AN EXAMINATION OF VISITOR-INDUCED IMPACT AT CADILLAC MOUNTAIN, ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

By Min Kook Kim

Advisor: Dr. John Daigle

A Lay Abstract of the Thesis Presented

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

(in Forest Resources)

May, 2010

Cadillac Mountain, the highest peak along the eastern seaboardin the United States, is a major visitor destination at Acadia National Park.  Managing vegetation impact on the summit of CadillacMountain is extremely challenging given the number of users and dispersed nature of visitor use at this fragile environmental setting.  Since 2000, more intensive management strategies based on placing physical barriers to protect threatened vegetation and leave no trace signs have been employed to reduce vegetation impactand enhance vegetation recovery in the vicinity of the summit loop trail.  A number of different change detection techniques and high resolution remote sensing datasets were utilized to identify vegetation impact and recovery from 1979 to 2007.  Study results showed detailed measurable vegetation regrowth and reduction at distances up to 90 meters from the summit loop trail, indicating overall positive effects in enhancing vegetation recovery in the vicinity of the summit loop trail compared to a nearby control site with similar environmental conditions but no visitor use.  As expected, the vegetation recovery was higher as one moved away from the trail itself, and recovery was observed at a higher rate in the intermediate zone where visitor disturbance and ability for sites to regenerate would be higher than more natural variation of regrowth in the outer buffer zone with less visitor activity.  The results also showed that, although with much less resolution than typical recreation ecology studies, vegetation diversity was lower at the experimental site at the level of plant family, suggesting limited success with enhancing vegetation diversity during the analysis time frame.  Vegetation change detection using high resolution remote sensing datasets offers an approach for monitoring vegetation change dynamics and to some degree biological diversity, especially for a recreation setting in a sub-alpine environment with limited overstory vegetation such as the case at the summitof Cadillac Mountain.  Remote sensing analysis could provide valuable baseline information for future visitor-induced impactmonitoring programs and especially for dispersed recreation sites such as Cadillac Mountain.

Key words: recreation ecology, trampling, management, vegetation change detection, remote sensing