The areas flown at Great Meadows Marsh, Sluice Creek, and Bride Brook contain patches of degraded tidal marsh where there are plans for marsh restoration through the addition of a thin layer placement of sediment. These flights therefore serve as pre-management data collection efforts. The areas flown at Hammonasset Beach State Park and Barn Island Wildlife Management Area include patches of habitat that have been surveyed for the tidal marsh breeding birds since 2002. These flights therefore serve as benchmark data collection efforts to relate future changes in habitat composition to future changes in saltmarsh bird populations at each site.

Data collected during these drone flights will be used to understand how habitat changes manifest in Connecticut’s tidal marshes as sea levels continue to rise. These data will also be used to inform our understanding of the fine scale elevation and habitat responses following restoration activities that use thin-layer sediment placement. The dataset provides elevation data for sections of five tidal marshes through a variety of remote sensing products including point cloud, DEM, and DSM products. It also contains thermal imagery data and multispectral imagery, which can be used to estimate aboveground plant species composition and biomass. These data will be valuable to all individuals interested in tidal marsh elevation, landcover, or future changes in coastal Connecticut.

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