A study of wetlands using geochemical, remote sensing, and multivariate analytical techniques

Wetlands, one of the most valuable resources, have been ignored for a long time. Now the attention is growing and efforts are being made to restore them. Still, after all the growing concern, reliable methods for their study are not available. Presently available methods are based on the study of vegetation and surface water regimes; both of these methods are very much affected by man-made processes. During land development projects these factors are reshaped and once these factors are modified, it becomes difficult to conclude any information about the previous environment on the basis of these factors.

Soils have always been considered as a reliable source of study but no definite technique has been available to conduct their study. In this dissertation work, geochemical analysis was done to study the physical and chemical variations in wetland soils with respect to their adjoining upland soils.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service conventional remote sensing techniques were used to study and map the wetlands in the test area. The National High Altitude Photography (scale about 1:60,000) was very useful to conduct this study.

For the situations where no data other than topographic maps can be found, a mathematical model was developed to study the wetlands based on the limited data available from the topographic maps. An algorithm was developed to evaluate the factors involved in the model for digital terrain data. Based on the algorithm, a computer program was written and used to study and map the wetlands in the test area.