IESA students publish article on hiking trails

Three students in the University of North Georgia's (UNG) Lewis F. Rogers Institute for Environmental and Spatial Analysis recently published an article along with faculty member Dr. Amber Ignatius.

Their article, "Spatiotemporal Vegetation Dynamics, Forest Loss, and Recovery: Multidecadal Analysis of the U.S. Triple Crown National Scenic Trail Network," was published in March in the journal Remote Sensing.

Ashley Annis, Casey Helton and Alec Reeb appreciated the chance to collaborate with Ignatius, an associate professor of geography and geospatial science.

"I wouldn't have been confident enough to go through the whole process without Dr. Ignatius," Helton, a senior from Dawsonville, Georgia, pursuing a degree in environmental spatial analysis, said. "She guided us every step of the way. This gave us a taste of collaboration in the publication process."

The work examined satellite imagery of the Appalachian Trail, Continental Divide and Pacific Crest Trail.

Annis, a senior from Loganville, Georgia, pursuing a degree in environmental spatial analysis, is the president of UNG's Geospatial Alliance student club.

"It was very nerve-wracking and intimidating at first," Annis said. "I always wanted to work on a publication, and this was a nice way to test the waters. It was really enjoyable to work on this with this group of people and see what the process is like."

Reeb, an Atlanta, Georgia, resident who graduated in May with a degree in environmental spatial analysis, said Ignatius encouraged the students to create the publication.

"Dr. Ignatius lit the fire and made me feel like this is something I could do," Reeb said.

Previously, each student presented research on a specific trail at the Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers in November in Greenville, South Carolina. They received Center for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities grants to support their travel.

Ignatius was grateful to work on the article with her students and ecological research scientist Dylan F. Ricke, her brother. As a hiker herself, she was interested to see the impact of fires particularly on the Pacific Crest Trail.

"The recovery is very slow, and sometimes it never returns to the same type of system," she said.