• Productivity
• Erosion Control
• Pollution Impoundment
• Flood Control

Vegetative wetlands are nurseries for many bay and ocean species providing food and protection. It is estimated that 80 % of bay and ocean species are directly or indirectly influence by wetland habitats (EPA, 1997). Wetlands help to prevent tidal and storm erosion by mediating the force delivered to the land and through deposition of sediments. By slowing freshwater to the bay, sediments are deposited. The deposition of pollution attached to the sediments from excess nutrients to pesticides and other compounds provides the opportunity for storage and decomposition. Lastly, wetlands help to prevent flooding by retaining water from heavy rains mitigating the overflow in channels and serving to lessen city flooding.

These natural functions are being impacted by the loss of wetland acreage due to human induced subsidence and human encroachment. It is estimated that 720 ac/yr are currently lost with an approximate total of 33,000 acres lost in the past 50 years (GBNEP-44, 1994). The Galveston Bay Wetland Inventory seeks to provide a current status of wetland acreage. The last National Wetland Inventory for the area was completed in 1992 (USFWS, 2001).

For resource managers and the Galveston Bay Estuary Program (GBEP), there is a clear need to know the quantity, type and location of wetlands in the Lower Galveston Bay Watershed. The continued growth in terms of population and build out in the 5 county area surrounding Galveston Bay has placed tremendous pressures on this resource. The information learned from this project will enable program managers to measure the impact of each program and to determine the direction for the future. The Galveston Bay Wetland Inventory fits directly into the goals of the Gulf of Mexico Program under Sub-objective 3(B) that seeks to update the status and trend of seagrass and coastal wetlands for the entire Gulf of Mexico coastline by 2004.

The number one priority of GBEP identified in its Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan, is the protection and restoration of wetlands. The Galveston Bay Wetland Inventory Project is a partnership to conserve effort and money of local, state and federal agency stakeholders. From its partners, GBEP has sought technical and funding assistance. A technical assistance workgroup was formed to develop a needs and task list and partnership functions. The project has established through the workgroup, a broad set of deliverables that focuses on producing wetland delineations for marsh types, wetland trend analysis, land cover and use, and shoreline change.

The partnership includes the following organizations:

• Gulf of Mexico Program
• Texas Coastal Program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
• Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
• U.S. Geological Survey
• Texas Natural Resource Information System (TNRIS)
• Texas General Land Office
• Houston-Galveston Area Council
• Houston Center for Advanced Research
• University of Houston at Clear Lake
• Texas Southern University
• Texas A&M University at Galveston-Galveston Bay Information Center
• GBEP staff

This will be a multi-year project with the work divided into the following three phases:

• I: A time series collection of the existing Digital Ortho-Quads and photographs (1950 to present) for the Lower Galveston Bay Watershed would be developed. Included in this collection would be existing wetland and spatial maps, Landsat data, and other spatial data layers, as appropriate. Data would be housed as a data library on a database set up specifically for an interactive mapping website available to scientists, resource managers, decision makers, and the general public through USGS and TNRIS's geography network.
  
  
• II: GBEP and Partner funds will be used to produce new (2002-2003) Digital Ortho-Quads (DOQQ) for the Lower Galveston Bay Watershed.
  
  
• III: Produce, through the interpretation of existing and new data, a current wetland map and an update to the GBEP publication, Trends and Status of Wetland and Aquatic Habitats in the Galveston Bay System, Texas that was printed in April of 1993 and the USFWS's 1992 National Wetland Inventory Data.

The first phase will be the data identification, retrieval, and archive of the information into a data library. This phase will be completed by March 2003.

The second phase will be the organization and implementation of aerial photographs for the production of new DOQQs for the Galveston Bay Watershed. This will be completed in mid-2003.

The last phase will be the photo rectification and interpretation to produce the updated condition of wetlands and associated habitats of Galveston Bay. This last phase will be completed in 2004 and will include wetland type, location, accretion, degradation, and loss.

We will also focus our attention to potential areas of interest for our partners such as shoreline change, land use patterns, and habitat mapping.