Biodiversity Stewardship Study: Harriman State Park

 I've put together a short slideshow below outlining some of the tree and shrub species you're likely to encounter out on the trails in Harriman State Park, with a few more details about each species outlined below, enjoy! Harriman Dendrology by Alicyn Formica  Introduction : Harriman State Park spans approximately  47,500 acres  across Orange and Rockland Counties in southeastern New York, making it one of the largest protected forest landscapes in the lower Hudson Valley (New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation [NYS Parks], n.d.). Located within the  Appalachian Highlands , the park's glacial history, rugged terrain, and diverse soil types create a wide range of habitats, including oak-hickory forests, northern hardwood forests, wetlands, rocky ridges, and cool hemlock ravines (New York Natural Heritage Program [NYNHP], 2021). These forests are dominated by native hardwoods and conifers that provide essential ecosystem ser...

 This week we'll be focusing on invasive species and their impact on the study area, and I put together some slides below outlining specific invasive threats to Harriman State Park's native flora & fauna! Be sure to check out the speaker notes for more in depth information.

To better understand the ecological conditions that support biodiversity in Harriman State Park, I explored the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service's Web Soil Survey (WSS). Because Harriman State Park spans both Orange and Rockland counties, I had to generate separate soil maps for each county to cover my study area, since the survey data are organized by county. The Web Soil Survey allows users to explore detailed information about soil types, drainage, hydric soils, vegetation productivity, and other characteristics that influence habitat conditions. While the interface takes a little time to learn, it provides a valuable way to examine how soil properties vary across the landscape.  Orange County NY portion of the park: Rockland County NY portion of the park: One feature I found especially useful was the ability to click on individual soil polygons and immediately access detailed information about each map unit, making it easy to interpret soil characteristics while work...

Studying biodiversity in Harriman State Park requires understanding not only species and habitat patterns but also the climate processes that influence them. Temperature, precipitation, drought, seasonal timing, and extreme weather events all shape forest ecosystems, wetlands, wildlife movement, and plant communities. Climate data are especially relevant in Harriman State Park because the region contains diverse habitats including mixed forests, lakes, streams, wetlands, and rocky ridge systems that can respond differently to changing environmental conditions (New York State Department of Environmental Conservation  [NYSDEC] , 2015). For this project, I selected several climate resources that provide information at different scales, ranging from local weather records to broader climate trends. Together these sources create a useful toolkit for understanding both present environmental conditions and long-term ecological changes. 1. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information...

I put together a simple map below using data from NYSDEC highlighting environment types within the park and a few unique geologic features to help establish a better sense of the study site!  This was my first time using Google My Maps. Since I did not have access to GIS software on my computer this summer, I used My Maps as an alternative for completing this project. As someone who has taken several GIS courses, I found the interface a little confusing and less intuitive than I expected. For very simple projects where users are manually placing points or drawing polygons, it seems like a useful and accessible tool, but I found working with imported spatial data to be more difficult. The program does not handle traditional GIS file types as smoothly as other mapping software, and I ran into several issues getting my data into a usable format. I had to spend additional time reformatting files and working through data in Excel before it could be imported correctly. Even for a relativ...