Digital Vegetation Maps for the NPS Cumberland-Piedmont I&M Network: Final Report November 1, 2010

Jordan, Thomas; Madden, Marguerite

This report describes the vegetation mapping procedures employed by the Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science (CRMS), Department of Geography, University of Georgia, This report describes the procedures and results of the vegetation mapping activities undertaken by the CRMS under Cooperative Agreements No. H5028 01 0651, entitled, “Digital Vegetation Databases and Maps for National Park Service Units in the Appalachian Highlands and Cumberland/Piedmont Networks” and No. H 5000-03-5040, Task No. J2-113-05-5004, entitled “Vegetation Databases, Orthoimages and Buffer-Area Land Cover in Four National Park Units of the Cumberland/Piedmont Network.” The fourteen parks included in this report range in size from 50 to 20392 hectares (122 to 50390 acres) and include Abraham Lincoln NHS, Carl Sandburg Home NHS, Cowpens NB, Cumberland Gap NHP, Fort Donelson NB, Guilford Courthouse NMP, Little River Canyon NPRES, Ninety Six NHS, Stones River NB, Chickamauga and Chattanooga NMP, Kings Mountain NMP, Mammoth Cave NP, Russell Cave NM, and Shiloh NMP. Using the National Vegetation Classification System (NVCS) developed by Natureserve, with additional classes and modifiers, overstory vegetation communities for each park were interpreted from stereo color infrared aerial photographs using manual interpretation methods. Using a minimum mapping unit of 0.5 hectares (MMU = 0.5 ha), polygons representing areas of relatively uniform vegetation were delineated and annotated on clear plastic overlays registered to the aerial photographs. Polygons were labeled according to the dominant vegetation community. Where the polygons were not uniform, second and third vegetation classes were added. Further, a number of modifier codes were employed to indicate important aspects of the polygon that could be interpreted from the photograph (for example, burn condition). The polygons on the plastic overlays were then corrected using photogrammetric procedures and converted to vector format for use in creating a geographic information system (GIS) database for each park. In addition, high resolution color orthophotographs were created from the original aerial photographs for use in the GIS. Upon completion of the GIS database (including vegetation, orthophotos and updated roads and hydrology layers), both hardcopy and softcopy maps were produced for delivery.Metadata for each database includes a description of the vegetation classification system used for each park, summary statistics and documentation of the sources, procedures and spatial accuracies of the data. At the time of this writing, an accuracy assessment of the vegetation mapping has not been performed for most of these parks. Thus, those procedures and results are not included in this report.This report describes the procedures and results of the vegetation mapping activities undertaken by the CRMS under Cooperative Agreements No. H5028 01 0651, entitled, “Digital Vegetation Databases and Maps for National Park Service Units in the Appalachian Highlands and Cumberland/Piedmont Networks” and No. H 5000-03-5040, Task No. J2-113-05-5004, entitled “Vegetation Databases, Orthoimages and Buffer-Area Land Cover in Four National Park Units of the Cumberland/Piedmont Network.”

Digital Vegetation Maps for the NPS Cumberland-Piedmont I&M Network: Final Report November 1, 2010

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