National Vegetation Polygons from GAP & Landfire, with California High Resolution Vegetation Ecp Webmap
Geonet Name: National Vegetation Polygons from GAP & Landfire, with California High Resolution Vegetation
ArcGIS Online Link: NPS-CNPS-PADUS-22 West ALL nodns temp fix & https2019
Description
The CNPS Vegetation Program has worked for over 15 years to provide standards and tools for identifying and representing vegetation, as an important feature of California's natural heritage and biodiversity. Many knowledgeable ecologists and botanists support the program as volunteers and paid staff. Through grants, contracts, and grass-roots efforts, CNPS collects field data and compiles information into reports, manuals, and maps on California's vegetation, ecology and rare plants in order to better protect and manage them. We provide these services to governmental, non-governmental and other organizations, and we collaborate on vegetation resource assessment projects around the state. CNPS is also the publisher of the authoritative Manual of California Vegetation, you can purchase a copy HERE. To support the work of the CNPS, please JOIN NOW and become a member!
The CDFG Vegetation Classification and Mapping Program develops and maintains California's expression of the National Vegetation Classification System. We implement its use through assessment and mapping projects in high-priority conservation and management areas, through training programs, and through working continuously on best management practices for field assessment, classification of vegetation data, and fine-scale vegetation mapping.
HOW THE OVERLAY LAYERS WERE CREATED:
Nserve and GapLC Sources: Early shortcomings in the NVC standard led to Natureserve's development of a mid-scale mapping-friendly "Ecological Systems" standard roughly corresponding to the "Group" level of the NVC, which facilitated NVC-based mapping of entire continents. Current scientific work is leading to the incorporation of Ecological Systems into the NVC as group and macrogroup concepts are revised. Natureserve and Gap Ecological Systems layers differ slightly even though both were created from 30m landsat data and both follow the NVC-related Ecological Systems Classification curated by Natureserve. In either case, the vector overlay was created by first enforcing a .3ha minimum mapping unit, that required deleting any classes consisting of fewer than 4 contiguous landsat cells either side-side or cornerwise. This got around the statistical problem of numerous single-cell classes with types that seemed improbable given their matrix, and would have been inaccurate to use as an n=1 sample compared to the weak but useable n=4 sample. A primary goal in this elimination was to best preserve riparian and road features that might only be one pixel wide, hence the use of cornerwise contiguous groupings. Eliminated cell groups were absorbed into whatever neighboring class they shared the longest boundary with. The remaining raster groups were vectorized with light simplification to smooth out the stairstep patterns of raster data and hopefully improve the fidelity of the boundaries with the landscape. The resultant vectors show a range of fidelity with the landscape, where there is less apparent fidelity it must be remembered that ecosystems are normally classified with a mixture of visible and non-visible characteristics including soil, elevation and slope. Boundaries can be assigned based on the difference between 10% shrub cover and 20% shrub cover. Often large landscape areas would create "godzilla" polygons of more than 50,000 vertices, which can affect performance. These were eliminated using SIMPLIFY POLYGONS to reduce vertex spacing from 30m down to 50-60m where possible. Where not possible DICE was used, which bisects all large polygons with arbitrary internal divisions until no polygon has more than 50,000 vertices. To create midscale layers, ecological systems were dissolved into the macrogroups that they belonged to and resymbolized on macrogroup. This was another frequent source for godzillas as larger landscape units were delineate, so simplify and dice were then run again. Where the base ecol system tiles could only be served up by individual partition tile, macrogroups typically exhibited a 10-1 or 20-1 reduction in feature count allowing them to be assembled into single integrated map services by region, ie NW, SW.
CNPS / CDFW / National Park Service Sources: (see also base service definition page) Unlike the Landsat-based raster modelling of the Natureserve and Gap national ecological systems, the CNPS/CDFW/NPS data date back to the origin of the National Vegetation Classification effort to map the US national parks in the mid 1990's. These mapping efforts are a hybrid of photo-interpretation, satellite and corollary data to create draft ecological land units, which are then sampled by field crews and traditional vegetation plot surveys to quantify and analyze vegetation composition and distribution into the final vector boundaries of the formal NVC classes identified and classified. As such these are much more accurate maps, but the tradeoff is they are only done on one field project area at a time so there is not yet a national or even statewide coverage of these detailed maps. However, with almost 2/3d's of California already mapped, that time is approaching. The challenge in creating standard map layers for this wide diversity of projects over the 2 decades since NVC began is the extensive evolution in the NVC standard itself as well as evolution in the field techniques and tools. To create a consistent set of map layers, a master crosswalk table was built using every different classification known at the time each map was created and then crosswalking each as best as could be done into a master list of the currently-accepted classifications. This field is called the "NVC_NAME" in each of these layers, and it contains a mixture of scientific names and common names at many levels of the classification from association to division, whatever the ecologists were able to determine at the time. For further precision, this field is split out into scientific name equivalents and common name equivalents.
MAP LAYER NAMING: The data sublayers in this webmap are all based on the US National Vegetation Classification, a partnership of the USGS GAP program, US Forest Service, Ecological Society of America and Natureserve, with adoption and support from many federal & state agencies and nonprofit conservation groups. The USNVC grew out of the US National Park Service Vegetation Mapping Program, a mid-1990's effort led by The Nature Conservancy, Esri and the University of California. The classification standard is now an international standard, with associated ecological mapping occurring around the world. NVC is a hierarchical taxonomy of 8 levels, from top down: Class, Subclass, Formation, Division, Macrogroup, Group, Alliance, Association.
The layers in this webmap represent 4 distinct programs: 1. The California Native Plant Society/Calif Dept of Fish & Wildlife Vegetation Classification and Mapping Program (Full Description of these layers is at the CNPS MS10 Service Registration Page and Cnps MS10B Service Registration Page . 2. USGS Gap Protected Areas Database, full description at the PADUS registration page . 3. USGS Gap Landcover, full description below 4. Natureserve Ecological Systems, full description below
LAYER NAMING: All Layer names follow this pattern: Source - Program - Level - Scale - Region
Source - Program = who created the data: Nserve = Natureserve, GapLC = USGS Gap Program Landcover Data PADUS = USGS Gap Protected Areas of the USA program Cnps/Cdfw = California Native Plant Society/Calif Dept of Fish & Wildlife, often followed by the project name such as: SFhill = Sierra Foothills, Marin Open Space, MMWD = Marin Municipal Water District etc. National Parks are included and may be named by their standard 4-letter code ie YOSE = Yosemite, PORE = Point Reyes.
Level: The level in the NVC Hierarchy which this layer is based on: Base = Alliances and Associations Mac = Macrogroups Sub = Subclasses
Scale: One of 3 basic scales at which this layer will appear: Base = base scale, approx 1:1k up to 1:36k Mid = 72k to about 500k Out = 1m to 10m
Region: The region that this layer covers, ie USA=USA, WEST= western USA, Marin = Marin County. May not appear if redundant to the Source-Program text.
LABEL & COLOR: These overlays utilize a separate labelling layer to make it easy to include or not include labels, as needed. These are named the same as the layer they label, with "LABEL" added, and often the color used for that label layer in order to help tell them apart on the map. Note there can be multiple different label layers for the same set of polygons, depending upon the attribute or naming style desired, ie scientific names or common names. Finally the order of these services in the sublayers of a map service is normally designed so that ALL of the label services appear above ANY/ALL of the vector services they refer to, to prevent a vector service writing on top of a label and obscuring it.
MAP LAYER CATALOG
This map includes a test segment of Natureserve Ecological Systems in the US Southwest, with the following layers and sublayers:
GapNsUSA BoundaryMasksALB2: A grid showing the boundaries that define each partition tile of the national vegetation map services, with regional and state boundaries in the USGS Gap US Albers projection
Padus Gap13 WM Base Scale plus Label: (Full PADUS FGDC Metadata here) Overlay vectors at 1k to 288k scale with separate 1k-288k Labelling services for one of 3 different attributes:
--Landowner Name: Land owner and primary entity responsible for managing parcel when ‘Manager Name’ is not attributed (e.g. USFS, State Fish and Game, City Land, TNC) standardized for the US. See MSL Owner Name Domain descriptions in PAD-US Standards Manual or geodatabase look up table for detailed descriptions.
--Protected Area Type: General land owner description (e.g. Federal, Tribal, State, Private) standardized for the US. See MSL Owner Type Domain descriptions in PAD-US Standards Manual or geodatabase look up table for detailed descriptions.
--GAP Conservation Status: The GAP Status Code is a measure of management intent to conserve biodiversity defined as: Status 1: An area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover and a mandated management plan in operation to maintain a natural state within which disturbance events (of natural type, frequency, intensity, and legacy) are allowed to proceed without interference or are mimicked through management. Status 2: An area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover and a mandated management plan in operation to maintain a primarily natural state, but which may receive uses or management practices that degrade the quality of existing natural communities, including suppression of natural disturbance. Status 3: An area having permanent protection from conversion of natural land cover for the majority of the area, but subject to extractive uses of either a broad, low-intensity type (e.g., logging, OHV recreation) or localized intense type (e.g., mining). It also confers protection to federally listed endangered and threatened species throughout the area. Status 4: There are no known public or private institutional mandates or legally recognized easements or deed restrictions held by the managing entity to prevent conversion of natural habitat types to anthropogenic habitat types. The area generally allows conversion to unnatural land cover throughout or management intent is unknown. See the PADUS Standards Manual for a summary of methods.
PadusGAP13USA_Mid-Outer Scale: (Full PADUS FGDC Metadata here) Overlay vectors at a midscale vector boundary design for use at mid scales of 250k to 4m, and a solid fill polygon designed for use at national scales of 4m to 36m, with separate Labelling services
PadusGAP13 Mid-Outer scale3 Label: Separate Labelling services for PADUS names or PADUS Types, for use at 250k to 9m
GapLcNW2 Eco Base scale (full Gap Landcover FGDC Metadata here) USGSS Gap Ecological Systems, served as individual national partition tiles grouped into one of 9 national sections (NW, SW, NC=North Central, SC, NE, SE and E=East, AK=Alaska HI=Hawaii . Each tile has basically only classification naming attributes, plus the original GAP gridcode used in the initial ecosystem classification. Fields present include Ecolsys_LU= Ecological System, System_ID=Internal Natureserve Ecol System ID Code used for linking to Natureserve Explorer, NVC_MACRO = NVCS Standard Macrogroup to which this ecol system belongs, Macro_ID: Nvc standard macrogroup code, used for linking to macrogroup descriptions at the USNVC.org website, CL=NVC Formation Class, SC=NVC Formation Subclass, FRM=Nvc Formation, DIV=Division, Gridcode and Value= Original raster cell value assignment for classification, NVCMES= code combining all NVC codes and Ecological systems codes into one value.
GapLcSW Eco Base scale (full Gap Landcover FGDC Metadata here) see above
GapLcNW2 Eco Base_LABEL (full Gap Landcover FGDC Metadata here) Separate Labelling Service by ECOLSYS_LU for the eco base polygons described above.
GapLcSW Eco Base_LABEL Separate Labelling Service by ECOLSYS_LU for the eco base polygons described above.
GapLcWEST MacBaseMid_plusLABEL (full Gap Landcover FGDC Metadata here) Eco base vectors for use as map or feature services, by dissolving into Macrogroup membership (see above), then generalized for use at 72k scale and above by deleting all polygons below visible limit at 72k (ie all polygons < 36,000 m2 area (albers)). Gap Landcover Macrogroups are then ntegrated into sections (see above) and served at both mid scales (72k-288k) and base scales (1k-36k). The base scale service is to provide a visual map of macrogroup membership in relation to the base ecological systems themselves, by using a wider boundary symbol for macrogroups and positioning them above the base ecological systems. The midscale vectors instead use a 1.15-point line to allow cleaner polygons permitting reasonable visibility of the basemap up to about 288k. The included Labelling service operates at both base and mid scales, from 1k out to 288k. The "WEST" region defined in the title represents the 4 national partitions NW, SW, NC, SC that are roughly the area west of the mississippi.
GapLcWEST2 Macro Outer Scale: Gap Macrogroups as a separate map service designed for cacheing into a static service for use at scales above 288k where dynamic services are too slow, ie 500k on up to 18m
GapLcWEST Macro Outer_label: Gap Macrogroup LABELS as a separate map service designed for cacheing
USGS Natl Ecosys GRID: Original solid-fill map service design for the GAP Landcover data, normal for current state of vegetation data services. Used to allow comparisons and testing against the new ecological overlay designs.
Nserve Label 72to1m SW: A cached layer of Subclass and Macrogroup Labels
Subclass Labels - blue: Subclass labels in blue, visible from 18 million to 2 million scale (scale bar value 300m to 30m)
Macrogroup label teal: Macrogroup Labels in teal, visible from 1 million to 72k scale (scale bar value 20m to .1m)
Nserve 72to1m SW: A cached layer of Subclass and Macrogroup vectors
EslfSubOut_SW: Subclass vectors at the outer scales of 18 million to 2 million
EslfMacMid_SW: Macrogroup vectors at the middle scales of 1 million to 72k
NserveMacro FS 72k only: A test layer of Macrogroup Midscale vectors as a vector feature service. Draws more slowly.
Nserve Eco Labels-green: Base scale Ecological System Labels at 36k to 1k scale (scale bar value .6m to 100')
(Sublayers will show all 31 different tiles included in the Southwest region)
Nserve Ecosys FS 1k-36k: Base scale Ecological System vectors as a vector feature service, 1k to 36k scales
(Sublayers will show all 31 different tiles included in the Southwest region)
Layers
Terms of Use
xVegetation xwebmap consgis consmap
