Vascular plant inventory, vegetation community classification, mapping, and accuracy assessment report information for Guilford Courthouse National Military Park as part of the NPS Vegetation Mapping Inventory Program
2003. Vascular plant inventory, vegetation community classification, mapping, and accuracy assessment report information for Guilford Courthouse National Military Park as part of the NPS Vegetation Mapping Inventory Program
The inventory report for Guilford Courthouse National Military Park covers the NPS Inventory and Monitoring program's vegetation mapping program. Ecologists from NatureServe established eight permanently marked one-hectare circular plots within the park in a grid system and another five circular plots in unique ecological areas that were not covered by the initial grid-based plot layout. Ecologists collected data on all unique vegetation communities within the park and identified four natural and seven human-modified or successional vegetation associations (unique ecological assemblages of plants) within the park boundary. Ecologists collected and vouchered 255 species new to the park. The species count for the park stands now at 353 documented species, varieties, or subspecies of vascular plants in the park (346 species). NatureServe ecologists estimate that between 76% and 92% of the vascular flora of the park is documented. NatureServe worked with photo-interpreters from the Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science (CRMS), Department of Geography, University of Georgia, to complete a vegetation map of all of the communities in the park (Jordan and Madden, 2010). Using the National Vegetation Classification System (NVCS) developed by Natureserve, with additional classes and modifiers, overstory vegetation communities 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. The final step of this project was an accuracy assessment on the map. The overall accuracy of the GUCO map at its finest scale is 83%, with a kappa statistic of 0.81 (81%). This number meets the 80% accuracy standard of the NPS. A stricter interpretation of map classes at GUCO, which considers only the dominant mapped vegetation, gives an overall accuracy of 76% with a kappa statistic of 0.72 (72%).
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Date of Issue
- 2003-07
- Units
- CUPN , GUCO , VMI
- Keywords
- Accuracy assessment, CUPN, Ecological associations, Exotics, GUCO, Inventory, Natureserve, Plant, Plant Inventory, Plants Inventory Reports, Survey, United States National Vegetation Classification, Vascular Plants, Vegetation, Vegetation Communities, Vegetation mapping