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Wetland surface area may be strongly influenced by changing climate regime, land use change, and/or alterations in local and regional hydrological regime. Monitoring surface area provides a coarse level assessment of ecosystem change in response to potential stressors in the region. Digitized aerial photographs provides a way to track the area of non-vegetated peatlands over time. The area of non-vegetated wetland surface is tracked every 10 years using aerial photographs.

The Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) program provides data and information to track Canada's performance on key environmental sustainability issues. The Extent of Canada's wetlands indicator is a measure of the extent of Canadian wetlands, and provides a baseline from which change can be measured. A wetland is defined as a land that is saturated with water long enough to promote aquatic processes as indicated by poorly drained soils, hydrophytic vegetation and various kinds of biological activity which are adapted to a wet environment. Information is provided to Canadians in a number of formats including: static and interactive maps, charts and graphs, HTML and CSV data tables and downloadable reports.

An estimated 65% reduction in Lake Erie Sand Spit Savannas (LESSS) has occurred over the last 72 years. A land cover mapping standard is used to classify the types of landscape cover in the park and assess change over time. Both remote sensing and ground data are utilised to complete this inventory work using established protocols. Using this method, changes in LESSS area over time can be detected and evaluated.

To support the WAWA program at the Department of Environment and Local Government and alert primary users to the location of wetlands and possible regulatory requirements for land development. The wetlands map is intended for planning purposes only. The wetland boundaries are only approximate.

Elk Island National Park monitors spatial changes to open water features throughout the park. This measure relies on an unsupervised classification of remotely-sensed multispectral satellite imagery (Landsat). Analysis is performed roughly every five years, using images from mid-July.

The national wetland layer contains wetland data compiled from the best available data from each region, classified by wetland type. Wetlands are mapped as polygons in geographic layers, which are integrated into a master geodatabase at the national scale.Information from each contributing dataset was classified based on the Canadian Wetland Classification System, which contains five main wetland classes (Bog, Fen, Marsh, Swamp, and Shallow Water) that represent the types of wetlands encountered in Canada. An additional category, “partially classified” was used to preserve boundary information for wetlands that could not be classified into the main categories with existing information.

Elk Island National Park uses land cover classification to determine spatial changes of forest vegetation throughout the park. This measure relies on a supervised classification of remotely-sensed multispectral satellite imagery (Landsat). Analysis is performed roughly every five years, using images from mid-July.

Elk Island National Park uses land cover classification to determine spatial changes of grassland vegetation throughout the park. This measure relies on a supervised classification of remotely-sensed multispectral satellite imagery (Landsat). Analysis is performed roughly every five years, using images from mid-July.

Park staff monitor invasive wetland plants at marsh monitoring sites in May-June each year (8 plots/year). In each wetland, pairs of 1 m x 1 m quadrats placed 2 m apart are sampled along 3 transects at 5 and 15 meters in wet meadow, emergent and submergent vegetation zones. The percent cover is recorded within each quadrat for 10 exotic invasive plant species including European Common Reed, European Frogbit and Purple Loosestrife.

Wetland vegetation is strongly related to water level and nutrient availability. These variables can be influenced by many stressors including, acid deposition, long-range transport of air pollutants and climate change. Monitoring vegtation in wetlands will help us better understand changes observed in wetland water quantity and water quality. Monitoring occurs once every 5 years along 2 transects at each of the 10 wetland sites.