Leafy Spurge Field Mapping
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Introduction
From its inception in 2015, the Yampa River Leafy Spurge Project has recognized the importance of documenting the extent and degree of the leafy spurge infestations in the Yampa River's riparian corridors. John Husband first got the ball rolling when he floated the Little Yampa Canyon in July 2016. John recorded a mile-by-mile inventory of the leafy spurge that he could see from his boat, while marking the locations on a set of paper maps. These maps and his inventory report are now available from the YRLSP Archives pages.
Dinosaur National Monument also began conducting an inventory of leafy spurge within its boundaries in 2016, after observing an explosion of infestation in the years immediately following the high water in 2011. Using digital GIS mapping technology, the monument's resource management team created a comprehensive dataset for infestations along the Yampa River, and along the Green River downstream of its confluence with the Yampa (leafy spurge has not yet been observed in the Canyon of Lodore). The Yampa River results, as compiled in 2018, appear in the Dinosaur National Monument map series, below.
Using the Dinosaur National Monument GIS methodology as its model, in 2019 the YRLSP then began its own two-year project to map leafy spurge in the riparian corridors of the upper Yampa River. The first mapping season addressed the Yampa reaches from the town of Hayden downstream through the Little Yampa Canyon—approximately 60 miles of the river were completed in 2019. Our thanks to the many landowners along the river who graciously allowed us access to their properties for the mapping project. These results are shown in the Hayden through Little Yampa Canyon map series, below.
YRLSP plans for 2020 include additional mapping from the mouth of the Little Yampa Canyon downstream to the east boundary of Dinosaur National Monument.
Key to Detailed Field Maps
