In My Backyard
How to practice responsible Land Management no matter the characteristics of your property.
By Nick Machinski
How to practice responsible Land Management no matter the characteristics of your property.
By Nick Machinski
Part 4: Pre-settlement Vegetation
It looks like winter has decided to show up this year after-all. So while you dream of getting out there and planting your garden or any trees you hope to pick up at our tree sale, why not take a look back; back to a time where the first Europeans were arriving to the area, to see what was growing over 200 years ago.
Why would you want to do that? Well, some people find it interesting to know what the landscape was prior to European settlement. Don’t get me wrong; the landscape has always been changing. For example, Native Americans burned the landscape to assist in hunting. However, lately there has been a push to return the land to what it was. Plus, this type of research will help in determining what is capable on the landscape. If a particular piece of land was a wetland 200 years ago, there is a chance it can become one once again.
So today, I’ll show you where you can find such a map and how to interpret it.
First, you actually need to know what section you live in. For this we must return to Map Washtenaw (https://gisappsecure.ewashtenaw.org/MapWashtenaw/). Locate the area you are interested in and zoom in (or out) until you see green boxes with green numbers. Each box is a section and pertains to a different township. See the picture below for an example.
Figure 1: Two rows of sections in Lyndon Township
Now open another tab and go to the following address: https://mnfi.anr.msu.edu/resources/vegetation-circa-1800. This page explains the history of the pre-settlement vegetation map and how the data was obtained. At the bottom of the page is a place where you can select your county. Go ahead and select Washtenaw. This will take you to a pdf of the image below.
Figure 2: Pre-Settlement Vegetation Map
This is a fascinating map. I have it hanging by my desk actually. There aren’t any cities or roads, the only thing to give you any sort of reference are the section numbers and you have to zoom in to find those. This is where it is important to know where you are located in the county. Each township has the same number of counties (36) and each county is numbered the same way from right to left beginning in the northeastern corner of the county and snaking as you head south through the township section (refer to figure 1).
For simplicity sake (and so I don’t lose any of you) I encourage you to follow along with my example unless you are confident enough to use your own section that you just took note of.
So, start by looking zooming to the northwestern corner of the county (upper left for those not great with cardinal directions). You’ll notice the section is labeled “6.”
For simplicity sake (and so I don’t lose any of you) I encourage you to follow along with my example unless you are confident enough to use your own section that you just took note of.
So, start by looking zooming to the northwestern corner of the county (upper left for those not great with cardinal directions). You’ll notice the section is labeled “6.”
|
|
Figure 3: Section 6 of Lyndon Township with the Map Legend
You’ll notice several shapes and colors in this section. Each color represents a different habitat. The legend to the right of the county map will reveal what habitat is what. (pic of section and legend)
If you go back and forth between the section on the Pre-settlement Vegetation Map and Map Washtenaw, you’ll notice that some things will line up. That blue spot in the middle of the section corresponds to the body of water that is there today. The wetland prairie matches up with the stream running through the northeastern corner of the section. Even the wetlands on the southern part of the section exist today. What doesn’t exist though, is the Black Oak Barren habitat. That habitat has been transformed into farm fields. However, if a landowner ever wanted to turn one of those fields back to a wildlife habitat, a Black Oak Barren (or something similar) would be a possibility.
Now, you can take this section to create an image using something like Snip. However, if you’re comfortable with computers you can take that one step further and overlay the Pre-settlement Vegetation image onto Google Earth or upload it as a shape-file to Map Washtenaw. The process is too long to describe in this article; however, if you know what you’re doing you’ll get an image similar to the one below.
If you go back and forth between the section on the Pre-settlement Vegetation Map and Map Washtenaw, you’ll notice that some things will line up. That blue spot in the middle of the section corresponds to the body of water that is there today. The wetland prairie matches up with the stream running through the northeastern corner of the section. Even the wetlands on the southern part of the section exist today. What doesn’t exist though, is the Black Oak Barren habitat. That habitat has been transformed into farm fields. However, if a landowner ever wanted to turn one of those fields back to a wildlife habitat, a Black Oak Barren (or something similar) would be a possibility.
Now, you can take this section to create an image using something like Snip. However, if you’re comfortable with computers you can take that one step further and overlay the Pre-settlement Vegetation image onto Google Earth or upload it as a shape-file to Map Washtenaw. The process is too long to describe in this article; however, if you know what you’re doing you’ll get an image similar to the one below.
Figure 4: An overlay of the Pre-settlement vegetation over a Google Earth image of Lyndon Township, Sec. 6. Notice how the past vegetation lines up somewhat with what exists in the area today.
Looking back at the past can offer quite a bit of information. Using this information, we can gain an idea of what is possible on the landscape and what it may look like in the future, depending on our goals. And that is what I’d like to discuss next time. Although there are still many other tools out there that can be used to evaluate your property (which we’ll cover another time), it will be March next time and it is a good idea to think of what you’d like to do on your property once the weather warms up.
