THE DEVELOPMENT OF GULL POINT'S SHORELINE AND PONDS AT PRESQUE ISLE STATE PARK FROM 1939 TO 2022

Presque Isle State Park is a sandspit peninsula on the southern shore of Lake Erie, located in Northwestern Pennsylvania. The peninsula plays an important ecological role as home to two Pennsylvania endangered bird species, the Least Bittern (Ixobrychus exilis) and Black Tern (Chlidonias niger), and serves as a breeding site for the federally endangered Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus). Presque Isle is recognized as a Pennsylvania Important Bird Area (IBA) by the Pennsylvania Audubon Society due to its utilization by over 320 species of migratory and native bird species for nesting and breeding, and the peninsula is within the Atlantic Flyway, a major North American seasonal migration route. Additionally, Presque Isle supports unique plant communities and invertebrate species found nowhere else in the Commonwealth. Physically, the peninsula can be subdivided into three morphological zones; the westernmost Neck segment, central Lighthouse Beaches, and easternmost Gull Point. For this project, Gull Point is the primary focus due to its dynamic shoreline and ponds. To aid ongoing research on the unique ecosystems which have formed in ponds of Gull Point, an interactive GIS map has been generated, characterizing the development of Gull Point over time. The geodatabase and corresponding map utilize a total of nine images of Gull point dating from 1939 until 2022 in approximate decadal intervals to demonstrate a time lapse of the region. The images were georeferenced with control points onto points of reference common to both the imagery and basemap. The georeferencing tools warp the aerial imagery to properly scale to one another and the satellite derived basemap. Once georeferenced, the shoreline perimeter and ponds of Gull point were traced into a series of polygon layers that may be displayed individually, hidden, or laid atop one another for direct comparison. Additionally, the area of each polygon layer can be extracted from their respective attribute tables, such that Gull Point’s total landmass area, total pond area, and number of ponds present in each image can be analyzed. According to the extracted data, from 1939 to 2022, the total landmass area of Gull Point has increased by approximately 314,978 square meters, while the total pond area has increased by 11,362 square meters.