Mapping and Assessing Fire Damage on Broadleaved Forest Communities in Big Cypress National Preserve

Due to the high incidence of both natural and anthropogenic fires within Big Cypress National Preserve (BICY), it is important for ecologists and resource managers working within BICY to 1) document and understand how fire interacts with these forested communities, and 2) understand how biodiversity and successional processes within these forested communities are affected by fire. Among the first steps in accomplishing these tasks is to have a spatially and thematically accurate map of these forested communities and a geodatabase that includes information regarding their structure and composition as well as their fire history. This information would then be used to document and monitor fire effects and post-fire recovery and succession over time.