Vegetation Information for the Wind Cave National Park Vegetation Inventory Project
Cogan D. 1999. Vegetation Information for the Wind Cave National Park Vegetation Inventory Project. Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota
The USGS Biological Resources Division (USGS/BRD) under contract with the Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program of the National Park Service has initiated a multi-year project to produce vegetation maps for 235 national parks. As a contractor under this program, the Bureau of Reclamation's Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Group (RSGIG) with assistance from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has mapped the vegetation occurring in and around Wind Cave National Park (near Hot Springs, South Dakota). Thirty-two vegetation map classes representing 28 plant community types and six Anderson Level II land-use classes were used for interpretation for approximately 139 square miles encompassing the Park and surrounding environs. Vegetation map classes were determined through extensive field reconnaissance, data collection, and analysis in accordance with the National Vegetation Classification System (NVCS). The vegetation map was created initially by interpretation of 1997, 1:12,000 scale color infrared aerial photography (0.5 hectare minimum mapping unit). All vegetation and land-use information was then transferred to USGS digital orthophoto quarter-quads (DOQQ’s) using a combination of on-screen digitizing and scanning techniques. Arc/Info™ (ESRI, Inc.) software was used throughout the project for digitizing, scanning, transforming, registering, and plotting the interpreted data. Overall map accuracy for the entire mapping effort was assessed initially at 73%.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Authors
- Cogan, Dan
- Date of Issue
- 1999-04-30
- Units
- VMI , WICA
- Keywords
- Accuracy Assessment, Aerial Photography, alliances, Associations, community association, Digital Orthophoto, Digital Spatial Database, DOQ, DOQQ, Field Data, flight line, GIS, GPS, habitat mapping, Inventory Projects, Landcover, Landscape, National Park, National Park Service Inventory, National Vegetation Classification Standard, National Vegetation Classification System, NVCS, Orthophoto, Plots, U.S. National Vegetation Classification, USNVC, USNVCS, Vegetation Inventory, Vegetation Inventory Report, Vegetation Map Report, Vegetation Mapping, Vegetation Plots