Vascular plant inventory, vegetation community classification, mapping, and accuracy assessment report information for Cumberland Gap National Historical Park as part of the NPS Vegetation Mapping Inventory Program
2006. Vascular plant inventory, vegetation community classification, mapping, and accuracy assessment report information for Cumberland Gap National Historical Park as part of the NPS Vegetation Mapping Inventory Program
The inventory report for Cumberland Gap National Historical Park covers the NPS Inventory and Monitoring program's vegetation mapping program. Ecologists from NatureServe established 39 permanently marked one-hectare circular plots within the park in a grid system and another 24 permanently marked 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 24 natural and nine human-modified or successional vegetation associations (unique ecological assemblages of plants) within the park boundary. Ecologists collected and vouchered 139 specimens representing approximately 133 species, varieties, and subspecies new to the park. These vouchers were added to the existing list of vouchers already collected. The vouchers were delivered to NPS with the delivery of this report and will reside with the rest of the collection at the University of North Carolina Herbarium. The species count for the park stands now at 882 documented species (not including subspecies and varieties). NatureServe ecologists estimate that close to 100% of the vascular species of the park are 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 accuracy assessment report presents an accuracy assessment for the digital vegetation map of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park (CUGA). Vegetation at CUGA was mapped by The University of Georgia Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science (Jordan and Madden 2008) with ecological consultation and assistance from NatureServe. The mapping was conducted as part of the National Park Service Vegetation Mapping Program.For CUGA, the overall accuracy of the final map, which includes seven grouped map classes, is 77.4%, with a kappa statistic of 0.46 (46%). The strictest analysis of the data (before any combining of map classes or NVC associations occurred and considering a point a match only if the vegetation observed on the ground matched the dominant vegetation type attributed by the mappers showed an overall map accuracy of 30.3% with a kappa statistic of 0.20 (20%). This lower accuracy reflects the difficulty in differentiating the vegetation associations that were combined in the final analysis because of similarities in composition and/or in appearance on aerial photography.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Date of Issue
- 2006-03
- Units
- CUGA , CUPN , VMI
- Keywords
- Accuracy assessment, CUGA, CUPN, Ecological associations, Exotics, Inventory, Natureserve, Plant, Plant Inventory, Plants Inventory Reports, Survey, United States National Vegetation Classification, Vascular Plants, Vegetation, Vegetation Communities, Vegetation mapping