Greenbelt Corridor, Denton Texas

Thursday, 6/24/2013  Field Trip

GBC: Green Belt Corridor

This morning the RET Team went on a field trip to the Greenbelt Corridor (GBC) north of Denton, Texas. Dr. Acevedo and Dr. Franco discussed this unique forest and highlighted the weather and soil station used for TEO data.  Teachers were able to see how a wireless sensor network was used in the field.

Dr. Acevedo

Dr. Franco

Elm Fork of the Trinity River

 This wilderness area has numerous hiking, biking and horse trails.  This area is mostly a floodplain of the Elm Fork of the Trinity River and is considered a research forest. The history of the Greenbelt is interesting. UNT, City of Denton, and the Texas Parks and Wildlife collaborated  to form the TEO (Texas Environmental Observation) which would provide near-real time data on environmental parameters along the  GBC.  This area is located between Lake Ray Roberts and Lewisville Lake.  There are 1500 acres of land which have been protected since 1980 when the area became a state park..  This area was used for agriculture but was slowly abandoned due to inundation of water during flood events. According to the USGS (1960) 70% of the land used was pasture land and 30% crop land

Bottom Land Hardwoods

The GBC has patches of bottomland hardwoods that date back to the 1950's when Lake Lewisville.  The original dam was build in 1927 (Garza Little Elm), Lewisville Lake Dam was built and the state park in 1980.  Forest succession  was influenced by flooding and seed banks from the old forest and trees left or planted by farmers.  The dominant trees found along the riparian area are Elm, Hackberry, Mulberry, and Green Ash.   Cottonwoods are also found in this area with some estimated to be 70 - 80 years old. A recent bird survey recorded 5500 birds from 91 species during the breeding season in 2009/20010.

Deliah Johnson standing beside a ancient cottonwood

One of the research areas was in soil moisture across the floodplain. An East to West transect across the floodplain,. using wireless sensors,  measure soil moisture, air temperature, rain, wind speed and direction  solar radiation, soil water tension and humidity. The purpose of these sensors was to compare soil water dynamics between four different soil sites:  river levee, meander levee,, poorly drained clay soil under grass and scattered tree vegetation and poorly drained clay soil under a Ceder Elm forest.This data has be archived and is available from the TEO.

Hiking to the weather station 

Weather Station

Wireless sensor instruments