National Park Service Vegetation Inventory Program: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Hop, Kevin; Lubinski, Sara; Dieck, Jennifer; Menard, Shannon; Drake, Jim

The National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Inventory Program (VIP) is an effort to classify, describe, and map existing vegetation of national park units for the NPS Natural Resource Inventory and Monitoring Program. The NPS VIP is managed by the NPS Biological Resources Management Division and provides baseline vegetation information to the NPS Natural Resource Inventory and Monitoring Program. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Vegetation Characterization Program lends a cooperative role in the NPS VIP. The USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, NatureServe, NPS Great Lakes Network, and NPS Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore have completed vegetation classification and mapping of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (PIRO) and surroundings. Photointerpreters, ecologists, and botanists collaborated to identify and describe vegetation types within the National Vegetation Classification Standard (NVCS) and to determine how best to map them by using aerial photographs. The team collected 158 vegetation sampling plots within the PIRO project extent. Furthermore, data from 837 accuracy assessment (AA) sites were collected (of which 813 were used to test accuracy of the vegetation map layer). These data sets led to the identification of 56 vegetation associations in the NVCS at the PIRO. Additional vegetation types are recognized at the alliance and group levels of the NVCS. A total of 74 map classes were developed to map the vegetation and general land cover of PIRO and environs, including the following: 68 map classes representing natural/semi-natural vegetation types at various levels in the NVCS, two map classes representing cultural vegetation (e.g., developed, orchard) in the NVCS, and four map classes representing non-vegetated units (e.g., open water bodies). Features were interpreted by using high-quality stereoscopes over light tables and 1:12,000-scale, color-infrared aerial photographs dated October 2005 (during fall leaf change). Polygon units were mapped to a 0.5 ha minimum mapping unit. An ancillary set of 1:12,000-scale, true-color aerial photos dated May 2005 (during leaf-off conditions) covering the entire PIRO lands were used for additional reference during mapping. The interpreted data were digitally and spatially referenced, making the spatial database layers usable in geographic information systems. A geodatabase containing various feature-class layers and tables show the locations of vegetation types and general land cover (vegetation map), vegetation plot samples, AA sites, project boundary extent, and aerial photographic centers. The feature class layer for the PIRO vegetation map provides 4,820 polygons of detailed attribute data covering 33,772.9 ha, with an average polygon size of 7.0 ha. Of the area mapped, 4,712 polygons (97.8%) represent natural/semi-natural types in the NVCS, encompassing 29,972.9 ha (88.7%) of the total map extent. Summary reports generated from the vegetation map layer indicate that forest types dominate the vegetation landscape (NVCS types), populating 82.3% of polygons and covering 95.3% of area, and are largely dominated by the Maple - Yellow Birch Northern Hardwoods Forest community. A thematic AA study was conducted of map classes representing floristic types in the NVCS. Results present an overall accuracy of 77.1% (kappa index of 76.0%) based on data from 813 of the 837 AA sites. Most individual map-class themes exceed the NPS VIP standard of 80% with a 90% confidence interval.

National Park Service Vegetation Inventory Program: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

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