USFWS selected geographic analyses
The geographic information system (GIS) used by the National Wetlands Research Center (NWRC) of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been valuable in assisting natural resource managers in planning and managing coastal fish and wildlife resources. In the past 5 years, NWRC has conducted about 60 studies employing this technology. Applications have ranged from simple natural resource inventories to documentation of trends in wetland changes and complex predictive modeling of impacts of harbor expansion on biological resources. Maps, tables, and data bases from these studies have been presented before local, State, and Congressional committees as well as numerous scientific and public organizations. This paper describes and summarizes selected GIS projects related to resource inventories, analyses of wetland change, and cartographic modeling of coastal areas of the United States.