Vegetation mapping at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. Natural Resource Report

McManamay, Rachel

The Southeast Coast Network (SECN), with the support of the National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Mapping Inventory Program (VMI), described and mapped vegetation at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park (KEMO). This mapping effort was accomplished through collaboration with the Southeast regional office of NatureServe (Raleigh/Durham, N.C.). The mapping area was 2,543 hectares (ha), encompassing the entire boundary of the park plus an additional buffered area of adjacent land. NatureServe ecologists identified plant associations for the park and a remote sensing specialist from the Southeast Coast Network conducted the vegetation mapping using 1:12,000-scale, color-infrared aerial photography and digital orthophotography. NatureServe collected vegetation and environmental data from 35 vegetation classification plots, and the remote sensing specialist assessed 91 observation points. The Atkins consulting firm was contracted by the Southeast Coast Network to conduct an accuracy assessment (AA), which entailed sampling 243 additional points. Fieldwork and mapping were completed between 2005 and 2015. A total of 24 map classes were developed to map the vegetation and general land cover of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park and surroundings, including the following: 16 map classes representing natural/semi-natural vegetation at the association level in the National Vegetation Classification System (NVCS), 3 map classes representing cultural vegetation (e.g. developed) in the NVCS, and 5 map classes representing non-vegetated units (e.g. open water bodies, buildings, roads). Features were interpreted using 1:12,000 scale digital color-infrared aerial photography (flown 31 May 2009) through heads-up-digitizing in ArcGIS (Version 10.0, © 2010 Environmental Systems Research Institute, Redlands, California). Polygons were mapped to a 0.5-hectare minimum mapping unit (MMU). A geodatabase containing various feature class layers and tables was constructed to 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 KEMO vegetation map provides 296 polygons of detailed attribute data covering 1419.2 hectares, with an average polygon size of 9.4 hectares. Of the area mapped, 195 polygons (65.9% of all polygons) represent natural/semi-natural vegetation types in the NVCS, encompassing 1,129.1.6 hectares (79.6%) of the total map extent. Summary reports generated from the vegetation map layer indicate that the Early- to Mid- Successional Loblolly Pine Forest dominates the vegetated landscape (73 polygons covering 465.9 ha). The combined map class Tuliptree Forest Alliance / Piedmont Dry- Mesic Acidic Oak Hickory Forest / Interior Southern Red Oak – White Oak Forest (61 polygons, 392.9 ha) also covers a considerable portion of the park. Both of these map classes occur along the lower elevations in Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

Vegetation mapping at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. Natural Resource Report

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