64 
An Ecological Assessment of the Louisiana Tensas River Basin Chapter 5 
_ 
Tensas River Basin 
Landscape Indicator Analysis 
Sub- 
basin 
U-Index 
Roads 
Km/Km 2 
<3 
# Roads 
Crossing 
Streams 
Forest 
Fragmentation 
Forest 
Change 
NDVI 
Change 
Riparian 
Forest 
Change 
Back- 
swamp 
Forest 
Change 
Forest 
Change 
with 
Restoration 
1970 
1990 
1970 
1990 
All 
65.0 
77.2 
0.98 
0.28 
88.7 
84.5 
-12.3 
-11.4 
-14.4 
-14.6 
-11.1 
2 
85.2 
82.3 
1.49 
0.32 
43.9 
53.8 
1.7 
-8.5 
1.7 
3.7 
1.7 
3 
95.3 
96.6 
1.07 
0.35 
48.4 
48.3 
-1.4 
-8.1 
-1.0 
-2.5 
-1.2 
75.5 
87.5 
1.03 
0.31 
86.2 
76.6 
-12.1 
-11.4 
-15.5 
-17.9 
-8.6 
5 
49.9 
66.0 
0.80 
0.19 
93.0 
91.8 
-16.1 
-11.7 
-16.3 
-13.6 
-15.3 
6 
30.0 
38.9 
0.42 
0.07 
95.2 
94.9 
-8.8 
-5.5 
-8.8 
-3.9 
-8.8 
7 
38.3 
39.0 
0.87 
0.27 
87.2 
88.1 
-1.0 
-3.7 
7.2 
-5.5 
6.4 
8 
48.5 
69.6 
0.98 
0.28 
90.3 
85.3 
-21.2 
-18.7 
-23.7 
-18.4 
-21.2 
9 
69.9 
78.9 
1.06 
0.33 
80.9 
75.0 
-9.2 
-6.9 
-8.4 
-15.4 
-9.2 
Table 5.1 gives'a summary of all the landscape indicators given in this report. The colors along with the values represent the Tensas River Basin’s 
ecological condition. Red for concern, yellow for caution, and green for sound. 
Recommendations 
There are many more types of landscape analyses 
which could be done to provide information to land 
managers, farmers and environmental quality special¬ 
ists. The landcover map shown in Chapter 3 (Figure 
3.4) could be used to perform much more detailed 
analysis investigating different types of agricultural 
use. These data could be analyzed to further identify 
locations of landuse and landcover in relation to 
features on the landscape. If wildlife species-spe¬ 
cific questions arise, these data can be used to 
model habitat requirements. For example, if a given 
species requires a certain size forest patch and has a 
distance to water requirement, the data can be que¬ 
ried to identify land parcels that meet those require¬ 
ments. 
As discussed in Chapter 3 in the Wetland Restoration 
section, the data layers included in this data set can 
be used to help identify sites for potential wetland 
forest restoration. The data can be queried based on 
a set of “rules” defined by local land managers, 
farmers, and environmental quality specialists. For 
example, one could identify (as we did in Chapter 3) 
all patches of land within 360 meters of the Tensas 
River that are currently agriculture but were histori¬ 
cally forested, have hydric soils, and have a high 
potential to flood. Perhaps current agricultural use 
would be a factor. Maybe it would be more economi¬ 
cally feasible to convert land from one type of agricul¬ 
tural use that it would from another (e.g., more 
economical to convert from soybean than from rice). 
