When pilot Mike Brennan flew low over the Plymouth coastline last summer, his view of Ellisville Marsh was breathtaking (see photo below). Mike’s camera captured what most of us had already noticed – that the marsh looked healthier than it has in many years. Thick, green Saltmarsh Cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) is popping up in new places that twelve months ago were bare mudflats.  Cordgrass also seemed to be repopulating areas in the back marsh where most of the vegetation had disappeared. But can we use Mike’s photos to prove that this year’s reopening of the inlet was beneficial to the ecosystem? Probably not.

On the afternoon of September 9th, another low-flying aircraft swooped over Ellisville Marsh, its high-resolution camera loaded with color infrared film. After waiting several weeks for the right combination of clear weather, sun angle and tides, our contractor Col East captured our second, high-resolution photo (called an orthophoto for its stereoscopic characteristics) of the marsh and adjacent areas. The first such orthophoto was taken for the Friends by Col East in August 2008. Each photo is referenced to a series of ground control points whose exact location and elevation are known and the infrared film provides insights into the health as well as extent of coverage of vegetation. Since the orthophotos are rendered to identical scale and reference points, they can be compared to determine how wetlands vegetation and water flows have changed in the intervening years, reflecting both the impacts of the January 2011 dredging of the inlet and other factors such as storms and natural movements of sediment. Photogrammetric analysis, which is planned, will yield further, detailed information about the types of vegetation and its condition. Together with Ellen Russell’s on-the-ground analysis using almost 100 vegetation sampling plots, scientific conclusions will be reachable.  Stay tuned!