The U.S. National Park Service proposes to restore the landscape of the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site in Cameron County, Texas, to the putative conditions at the time of the 1846 battle between Mexico and the U.S.A. This includes restoration of resaca (meander channels of the Rio Grande) wetlands and adjacent gulf cordgrass prairie. The objective of this study was to determine if dominant species in the resaca and adjacent coastal prairie battlefield can be discriminated with aerial color-infrared photography. Fourteen species of vascular plants were present in the mesohaline brackish resaca adjacent to Zachary Taylor's encampment (Site 1). The most important species were Typha domingensis, Borrichia frutescens, and Eleocharis austrotexana. Thirteen species were present near the site occupied by Mariano Arista's Mexican forces (Site 2). The dominant species was E. austrotexana followed by Spartina spartinae and Borrichia frutescens. The most conspicuous difference between the two sites was the absence of T. domingensis at Site 2. Color-infrared photography was useful in confirming dredging operations at Site 1 and was useful for discriminating emergent vegetation from open water. The images serve as a permanent record of the sites and can be used in the future to measure contraction or spread of different land cover types.
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