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Kansas Geological Survey, Current Research in Earth Sciences, Bulletin 248, part 1
Response of Forest to Climatic Events and Human Management at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas--page 2 of 13

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Introduction

In 1996, we began research on applications of remote sensing for evaluation of forest cover in northeastern Kansas. We selected two study forests on the Fort Leavenworth military reservation. The first is an upland forest composed of oaks and other hardwood species; the second is a bottomland forest of cottonwood and other softwoods on the Missouri River floodplain. Although managed in somewhat different ways, both forests experienced minimal human impact during the past two decades. The goal of our investigation was to establish relationships between satellite observations of vegetation, actual growth of trees, and climatic events of the past three decades. We employed Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) datasets as our primary source of remotely sensed information for the period 1987 to 1997. These datasets were supplemented on the ground with kite aerial photography (KAP), tree-ring analysis of the upland forest, climatic records for northeastern Kansas, and various ancillary data on geology, soils, and topography.

The study period included a major drought in 1988-1989 and the 1993 flooding of the Missouri River, which completely innundated the bottomland. The study, thus, spans years of climatic extremes as well as near-normal intervals. The study revealed complicated and unexpected relationships between climatic events, response of forest growth, and satellite observations (Aber et al., 1998; Wallace, 2000). These results have important implications for use of satellite imagery in the interpretation of vegetation cover and environmental conditions for similar forest types in the central United States.

Study Area

The study forests are located on the Fort Leavenworth military reservation, immediately north of the city of Leavenworth in northeastern Kansas (fig. 1). The upland forest occupies a bedrock ridge in the western portion of the military reservation, and the bottomland forest is located within a large meander loop of the Missouri River (fig. 2). The region ranges in elevation from 232 m (760 feet) on the Missouri River to 332 m (1,090 feet) at Hancock Hill in the upland forest. The bottomland forest includes approximately 550 hectares (1,360 acres) and is relatively continuous in coverage. The upland forest, in contrast, is somewhat disjunct; it is broken by openings for roads, buildings, and other structures. The upland forest covers about 400 hectares (990 acres).

map of study area

Fig. 1. General location map for study forests at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: 1 = upland, hardwood forest, 2 = bottomland, softwood forest (adapted from Aber et al., 1999).


aerial photo of study area

Fig. 2. Orthophotograph of the study area at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Data from the Kansas Geological Survey.

An ecological survey of the Fort Leavenworth vicinity was carried out by Brumwell (1951), who described the types of forest on the military reservation; the forests were further documented by Kuchler (1974). More recently, detailed mapping by the State Biological Survey of Kansas provided a comprehensive inventory of plant and animal species on the military reservation (Freeman et al., 1997).

The upland forest is composed of two portions (fig. 3). The main portion is classified as Quercus alba-Carya ovata/Ostrya virginiana (white oak-shagbark hickory) forest (Freeman et al., 1997). A smaller portion is identified as Acer saccharum-Tilia americana-Quercus rubra/Ostrya virginiana (maple-basswood) forest. The upland study forest represents a mature vegetation succession that has existed for 150-200 years. It is composed of drought-resistant trees including white oak, northern red oak, burr oak, bitternut, and shagbark hickory. Other trees in the upland forest are American elm, green ash, box elder, backbrush, hackberry, basswood, pecan, silver and sugar maple, sycamore, walnut, and redbud. Small tracts of native (warm-season) and introduced (cool-season) prairie exist within the upland forest. Also present within the upland forest are roads, buildings, water tanks, and other structures.

map of study forests

Fig. 3. Composition of study forests at Fort Leavenworth. A = upland white oak-shagbark hickory forest, B = upland maple-basswood forest, 1 = bottomland cottonwood-sycamore forest, 2 = bottomland pecan-sugarberry forest (adapted from Freeman et al., 1997).


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Kansas Geological Survey
Web version January 25, 2002
http://www.kgs.ku.edu/Current/2002/aber/aber2.html
email:lbrosius@kgs.ku.edu