home
The Arizona GAP project is nearly completed. The state
vegetation map is undergoing final modifications. In addition to
generalizing the 30-m map that resulted from TM classification,
riparian information compiled during PI Dr. Lee Graham's work
with the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZ G&F) is being
incorporated.
All of the 550 vertebrate maps have been drafted and sent out for
expert review. Some of the maps have already been returned with
comments. These reviews are being used to revise the maps for
final production. So far, reviewers have been very generous with
their time and comments, and their input will definitely improve
the final maps. Rich Glinski, biologist for AZ G&F and one of
the reviewers, has inquired about the possibility of using GAP
maps to illustrate a book he is editing on raptors of Arizona.
Preparation of metadata for AZ-GAP maps has commenced, only
slightly hampered by lack of examples of metadata for vertebrate
maps. While information on map parameters (scale, projection,
lineage, etc.) required for metadata was described in great
detail in the GAP Handbook, no guidelines were given for required
information on animals. With those questions now answered,
preparation of metadata is expected to be successfully completed
soon.
Vicky Meretsky
University of Arizona, Tucson
Vegetation Map
Much effort has been focused on a GAP vegetation product that
will be useful for both national and state cooperator needs. The
Phase I draft vegetation map was completed in December 1994.
Currently, nearly 90% of the state has been classified. The
methodology has included tassel cap transformation of the full
Landsat TM scenes and subsequent segmentation by SCS STATSGO map
units. Segmented map units were then subjected to an
unsupervised, per pixel classification. The classified images
were further aggregated into vegetation map units using existing
digital ground-truth data. Over the last year, the state-wide
vegetation committee developed a scheme of 160 vegetation
community types for Arkansas under UNESCO guidelines. Based on
this larger framework, a subset of 53 vegetation cover types was
targeted for use on the Arkansas GAP vegetation map.
In 1995, an intensive accuracy assessment of the vegetation
product will be the main focus. Efforts have already been made to
collect other digital vegetation reference data sets for accuracy
assessment of the Draft I vegetation map. In addition, many
federal and state resource management agencies are providing
assistance with this assessment.
Vertebrate Maps
Birds - Data for this taxonomic group are the most complete. The
source data for the book "Arkansas Birds" is being used
as a starting point for the county distribution maps.
"Holes" in these maps will be filled in by local
ornithological experts. The data have been coded by season into a
database. For each species, the distribution map will be tied to
the vegetation map by a matrix of acceptable vegetation units.
The maps will be ground-truthed by other databases that have been
collected, including: Audubon Christmas Bird Counts, U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Breeding Bird Surveys, Bird Banding Lab reports, and
specimen collections from scientific institutions. The Arkansas
Breeding Bird Atlas has just started its first year of field work
and will be of use in the near future. Data collected at two
BBIRD sites and one EMAP site in Arkansas may be used in Phase II
of Arkansas Gap Analysis. Of the 356 birds that have been
reported in Arkansas, 281 will be included in the Arkansas Gap
Analysis.
Reptiles/Amphibians - Currently, there is no book on
distributions of reptiles and amphibians in Arkansas. Large
specimen collections at Arkansas State University and University
of Arkansas, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's records for
collections within the state, and the Arkansas Natural Heritage
Commission's data for threatened and endangered species will be
used to compile the county distribution maps for these taxa.
These data sets will have to be split, and some will be used to
"ground- truth" the Arkansas Gap Analysis for these
taxa. Of the 114 reptiles and amphibians in Arkansas, sufficient
information is anticipated to be available to include 106 species
in the Gap Analysis.
Mammals - The book "Mammals of Arkansas" is of limited
use as a source for Gap Analysis. Therefore, large university
collections for the state and the Arkansas Game and Fish
Commission's records on specimen collection, furbearing mammal
records and scent station reports will be relied upon. Of the 74
species of mammals that have historically occurred in Arkansas,
70 species will be included in Gap Analysis.
Management Map
This digital layer is composed of management boundaries
(polygons) in the following broad categories: state, federal,
private, and other non-governmental organizations. Each polygon
will be assigned a "level of management" value based on
the National GAP guidelines. The following organizations have
contributed their land management boundaries: Arkansas Game and
Fish Commission, Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, Arkansas
Department of Parks and Tourism, Arkansas Forestry Commission,
USDA Forest Service , U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Fort
Chaffee (U.S. Army) and Camp Robinson (State Military
Installation). Areas of current acquisition are the National Park
Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Kimberly G. Smith
Dept. of Biological Sciences
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Regional Status
The analysis for the Southwestern California Region was published
as a technical report in January 1994. Nineteen of 62 mapped
communities appear to be "at risk", as determined by
their poor representation in existing special management areas,
parks, or wilderness areas. Communities restricted largely to the
lower elevations, such as grasslands and coastal sage scrub
types, are at considerable risk of conversion to agricultural or
urban uses. Forty-two vertebrate species were also identified by
Gap Analysis as being at highest risk from lack of habitat
protection. For details on obtaining the full report describing
the methods and results through Internet by ftp, send e-mail to
biod@horton.geog.ucsb.edu. A hard copy of report #94-4 can be
ordered by phone for $15.50 from the National Center for
Geographic Information and Analysis at (805) 893-8224.
The California Gap Analysis project has teamed up with the Sierra
Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP) of the U. S. Forest Service,
which has contributed funding to GAP to analyze the Sierra Nevada
Region. The mission of SNEP is to define the spatial extent and
dynamics of key features of the ecosystem; identify the benefits
humans draw from it; and identify management alternatives and
their effects on ecosystem integrity and its sustained capacity
to provide the full range of benefits. Frank Davis, the GAP PI,
is also on the SNEP Science Team and is coordinator of SNEP's GIS
database. Copies of the SNEP progress report can be obtained
through the SNEP office at the University of California, Davis.
Vegetation mapping has been completed for the Sonoran and Mojave
Desert regions. A master's thesis was produced from the analysis
of these two regions, and a Ph.D. dissertation is in progress.
The Mojave map was distributed as 1:100,000 scale paper quads to
15 botanists for review. Mapping of the Central Western and Modoc
Plateau regions of California is nearing completion. Blair Csuti,
the Oregon PI, compared the Oregon and California vegetation maps
along the border in the Modoc Plateau region. Although the maps
were compiled in different ways, the general consistency found in
polygon boundaries and labeling across the border was
encouraging. Minor revisions were made in both maps to
incorporate shared information. (A technical report is available
in postscript format from the ftp site; send e- mail to
biod@horton.geog.ucsb.edu for instructions).
Wildlife Modeling
Two programs have been written to facilitate wildlife modeling
for the GAP project. They provide graphical user interfaces to
link the GIS data on habitat distribution with tabular data on
species-habitat relationships without having to convert all files
to ARC/INFO format. The first program, called Fauna-List, relates
a wildlife database to a GIS habitat coverage to produce species
lists, either by habitat polygon or a sampling grid. The second
program, called Fauna-Map, allows a user to display the predicted
distribution of a selected species. Anyone interested in these
programs should contact Allan Hollander at adh@geog.ucsb.edu. A
paper on the effects of grid size on species richness maps, using
the Idaho GAP data, was published in a recent issue of The
Professional Geographer.
Validation
GAP models the distribution of native terrestrial vertebrates by
their known habitat preferences and overall range limits. Much of
the existing field-based information is used in developing the
habitat suitability relationships, making independent sources of
data for validation scarce. Extensive new field sampling is
prohibitively expensive and is of limited value because many
species will not be observed during the short sampling period.
One approach to validation is to compare species lists for
managed areas, or other clearly delineated geographic areas, with
model predictions. For the Santa Monica Mountains National
Recreation Area, species modeling provided a robust technique for
predicting the occurrence of terrestrial vertebrates. The same
level of agreement was achieved using only the range maps without
the habitat relationships models. A technical report is planned
on the methods and results. In the future, we hope to conduct
comparisons at 25-30 sites of varying size throughout California
to determine the range of sizes at which GAP modeling is reliable
for each taxonomic group.
Validating the vegetation layer for GAP has proceeded by a number
of routes. It was compared to a very detailed map of a small
spatial extent (a "maplet"). Results showed that most
polygons were reasonably delineated and labeled at the GAP scale.
It was compared for a set of random points to other maps and by
polygons to a more detailed map of a single cover class. It was
also compared to the target elements for Forest Service Research
Natural Areas (which average about 300 ha in size). While these
evaluations all led to the conclusion that the vegetation map for
the Southwest California region is reasonably good, no formal
statistical measures of accuracy could be provided. An in-state
workshop in February, attended by GAP investigators and
representatives from federal mapping agencies and The Nature
Conservancy, developed preliminary guidance for a formal accuracy
assessment protocol. The report of that workshop is included in
the GAP handbook. The proposed protocol still needs to be
reviewed and tested, however, before it can be adopted as a
standard.
database Uses
With the guidance of the Carlsbad Office of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and the Geography Department at U.C. Santa
Barbara, a number of planning efforts are now recognizing the
contribution the GAP database makes to planning over a regional
domain. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in cooperation with
the California Department of Fish and Game, is coordinating a
major planning effort to address conservation of biological
diversity on federal lands in the Southwestern California region.
GAP data will be used to provide initial insights on those
natural communities at risk and lead to more detailed studies and
management recommendations for conservation throughout the
region.
The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) has
prepared a regional open space plan for a six county area that
includes over 100,000 square kilometers. This plan includes an
open space/conservation element that will provide guidance to the
cities and counties regarding conservation and future land
development. They have used the GAP data extensively to provide a
regional overview of the current and future threats to major
terrestrial plant communities. Regional conservation planning
efforts are underway that will use the GAP database as a first
assessment of the conservation status in two other areas.
David Stoms
University of California, Santa Barbara
Colorado Gap Analysis efforts have been focused on two areas
this past year: attribution of the vegetation/land cover base
layer and development of collateral species distribution
information for range/distribution modeling. Tom Thompson, under
Dr. William Reiners' direction (Botany Department, University of
Wyoming), has completed preliminary vegetation polygon
attribution for about 60% of the 100K quad blocks for Colorado.
Vegetation polygons for an additional sixteen 100K blocks (30% of
Colorado) were delineated and attributed by the National
Ecological Research Center of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
(now known as the Mid-Continent Environmental Science Center of
the National Biological Survey). These vegetation polygons are
currently being edge-matched and cross-walked to the work
performed by the University of Wyoming group. Colorado Division
of Wildlife (Schrupp and Cade) has prepared 100K plots of the
draft classification maps, with 100K road networks overlaid, for
distribution at regional interagency review meetings in
September.
Assembling collateral information for species range/distribution
modeling has involved major updates to the Colorado Wildlife
Species Database. These include Partners-in-Flight information,
processing of herptile observation records, and continuing
support in assembling the geographic information system
components of the Colorado Bird Atlas project. In the formative
stages is a Great Outdoors Colorado project to develop the
Colorado Wildlife Heritage Inventory data-set, in cooperation
with Colorado State University and the Colorado Natural Heritage
Program. A developing MOU is anticipated to leverage inventory
data available through the Division's Wildlife Resource
Information System and the Colorado Natural Heritage Program's
Biological Conservation Database efforts.
The Colorado Gap Analysis land ownership data layer has been
completed by the National Ecology Research Center. Therefore,
Colorado can begin development of the land management/land status
models this winter. Regional review teams will be relied on to
facilitate these efforts.
Don Schrupp
Colorado Division of Wildlife, Denver
(See Maryland/Delaware/New Jersey)
The Everglades and Florida Bay are the focus of national and
international attention due to their unique environments and
historical support of wildlife and fish populations. These
environments have been critically stressed and fragmented by
opposing land uses and hydrological alterations. Restoration of
South Florida ecosystems is a pressing national issue requiring
intense largeûscale efforts and cooperative research and
management among many agencies and organizations. A federal
interagency science task force has been established to address
restoration of South Florida ecosystems. The Federal Geographic
Data Commission has selected South Florida as a test case
watershed for facilitating the transfer and use of spatial data
between cooperating agencies for improved management. For these
reasons, the Florida Biological Diversity Project (Florida GAP)
is concentrating first on the subûecoregions of South Florida.
To maximize delineation of natural communities from satellite
imagery, close to a year has been spent in preparing other types
of coverages as masks and sources of a priori knowledge in
association with the imagery. After nearestûneighbor
rectification of the imagery, land use coverages from the South
Florida Water Management District were corrected to the imagery
and updated. The land use coverages are being used to mask out
urban and agricultural lands before classification. These areas
are sources of high spectral variability, and their presence adds
to classification confusion. Land use coverages have been
obtained for the rest of the state and are now being corrected to
eastern Florida subûecoregions as well.
Digital National Wetland Inventory maps were prepared and
aggregated to broad classes to further segregate the imagery and
enhance the delineation of classes. The imagery is being masked
by the aggregated NWI classes, therefore delineation of a smaller
range of communities within a masked area is occurring. SCS Soil
Series maps at a scale of 1:24,000 were also aggregated to broad
classes of Xeric, Mesic Upland, Mesic Flatwoods, and Hydric. The
soil classes will be used after classification to refine image
separable classes into physiognomic positions (e.g. xeric,
sandhill pine is a very different community from mesic, flatwood
pine). Labeling of the classes generated by classification is
proceeding, using aerial survey, aerial photography, and ground
observation. Ground-truthing is greatly augmented by volunteer
cooperators such as the Native Plant Societies and biologist from
agencies and private firms.
Vertebrates. Mapping of the distribution of Florida's breeding
mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, including established
nonûindigenous species, is occurring. Mammal distribution has
been determined from a nationûwide survey of museums, bird
distribution from the Florida Breeding Bird Atlas and Survey, and
herpetofauna from a compilation of records from 49 local and
national museums. Habitat relationships and additional
information important for species modeling such as home range,
limiting factors, etc., have been compiled for the mammals and
herpetofauna utilizing >500 sources to date.
The inclusion and species richness mapping of nonûindigenous
species (as a separate layer) is expected to reveal much about
ecosystem health and intactness. Established breeding
nonûindigenous vertebrate species number about 70 in Florida.
Due to the migratory nature of many bird species, and because
subûtropical Florida is an important wintering area for many
birds, breeding bird distribution and wintering bird distribution
are both being mapped. Nodes of high species richness may differ
for breeding and wintering bird populations and may necessitate
different management approaches. Among the invertebrates,
butterflies and skippers (Lepidoptera and Formicidae) will be
mapped. Because they may be more habitat restricted,
invertebrates allow higher resolution biodiversity mapping with
the Florida Biodiversity Project's 30 m resolution.
Leonard Pearlstine
University of Florida, Gainesville
Idaho Gap Analysis is proceeding. New uses and procedures for
GAP data are being explored. Digital land ownership and
management status maps are complete, and wildlife habitat
relation (WHR) models are being updated in collaboration with
Montana-GAP. The pilot digital vegetation map for the state of
Idaho is also complete. A new vegetation map based upon TM
imagery is being compiled for Northern Idaho by Dr. Roland
Redmond at the University of Montana, and the Southern
Intermountain Sagebrush portion of the state will be developed by
Utah State University. The completed data layers are available
through the Internet at the Gap Analysis Home Page,
http://www.gap.uidaho.edu/gap
Edge-matching with the adjacent states of Oregon and Washington
has begun. Vegetation classification schemes for the adjacent
states are being correlated with Idaho's classification. Once the
edge-matching is complete, the Gap Analysis will be performed
over the ecoregions encompassing the Pacific Northwest.
Stan Sobczyk
ID Coop. Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
University of Idaho, Moscow
As a result of a memorandum of agreement signed in January
1994, between the National Gap Analysis Project Office and the
Illinois Natural History Survey, INHS has become an MRLC
cooperating agency. Since October 1993, INHS personnel have
assisted the National Gap Analysis Project Office, the EROS Data
Center, and EOSAT Corporation in conducting the Landsat Thematic
Mapper (TM) scene selection for the State of Illinois.
Single-date, cloud-free coverage acquired during October of 1992
and 1993 is available statewide, and multitemporal coverage
(mostly May-August of 1992-93) is available for 60 percent of the
state. A total of twenty-three TM scenes, system corrected in
EOSAT Fast Format, were received in April 1994. INHS has begun
geocoding and analyzing these data.
Since the landcover database for Illinois will be largely
developed utilizing a computer-based, unsupervised approach, a
number of important ancillary databases have already been
collected. The predominant landscape within the state is
agricultural. To guide the classification, and assess the
accuracy, of this spectrally diverse and spatially complex
landscape, USDA-ASCS Crop Compliance information has been
collected for a sample of thirty-seven counties. These data
provide detailed crop and farm management information for each
crop year since 1982 and were provided to INHS through the
cooperation of the USDA- SCS state office. To characterize the
more persistent landscape elements, an approximate ten percent
sample of color-infrared 1988 NAPP photography has been obtained.
In addition, complete statewide coverage of black-and-white 1988
NAPP photography is readily available from the University of
Illinois Map and Geography Library, and 1993- 1994
black-and-white NAPP acquisition is currently underway. Lastly,
existing land ownership, land management, and species digital
databases have been identified.
Some innovative approaches are being utilized to develop the
landcover database. U.S. Bureau of the Census 1992 TIGER data has
been used to create block-level, urban- rural masks for the
entire state. This mask is imposed upon the TM data during the
unsupervised clustering and classification stages to improve the
interpretation of the two quite diverse landscapes. In addition,
experiments are underway to evaluate the use of vector field
segmentation for the purpose of partitioning the original TM data
into a set of regions which correspond to objects on the
landscape. Initial results from a cooperative study between INHS
and the University of Illinois, Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, reveal that the potential exists for this
technique to discriminate both spectrally and spatially
homogeneous landscapes within a TM scene.
Mark Joselyn and Donald Luman
Illinois Natural History Survey, Champaign
The absence of funding and satellite data have severely
limited the project's ability to progress beyond the pilot
project concluded in late December 1993. A minimum effort has
been maintained at both Indiana State University (ISU) and
Indiana University, School of Public and Environmental Affairs
(SPEA) using borrowed funds. Indiana GAP is positioned to begin
statewide Gap Analysis now that funding and satellite data have
become available.
Accomplishments since January 1994 include: cooperative
agreements signed with the Indiana Department of Natural
Resources (IDNR) and developed with the Hoosier Environmental
Council (HEC); coordination with other partners; numerous
presentations about the Indiana Gap Analysis Project; the
establishment and subsequent meeting of the Region 3
Intra-Regional Gap Analysis Coordinating Group; refinement of
wildlife modeling, metadata, vegetation classification, and other
components of the project; a meeting with The Nature Conservancy
(TNC) and IDNR to discuss a butterfly data layer for Indiana-GAP;
meetings and proposal development with the Purdue University
Working Group for Woody Plant Ecosystems toward application of
the basic Gap Analysis data; and discussions and a meeting with
the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Great Lakes National
Program Office about a cooperative venture with Indiana-GAP.
Indiana Gap Analysis Pilot Project
In December 1993, the Indiana Gap Analysis Project formally
concluded their pilot project with a plenary meeting of
representatives from all groups involved. Preliminary partnership
building and planning for the Indiana Pilot Project at the
Department of the Army's (DOA) Jefferson Proving Ground (JPG)
began in summer of 1992. A year later, Indiana received $10,000
from the National Center, $5,000 from the IDNR, and $5,000 from
the DOA for the project. The construction phase of the pilot
project occurred at ISU and SPEA. The actual vegetation and
vertebrate data layers are developed by ISU, which has a strong
Life Sciences faculty and extensive experience with remote
sensing in their Department of Geography and Geology. SPEA houses
the Midwest Center of the National Institute for Global
Environmental Change that provided an outstanding facility to
carry out GIS responsibilities for the Indiana Pilot Project.
Resources essential for Gap Analysis also exist within the IDNR.
Endangered, threatened, and rare (ETR) species data and Managed
Areas data were available from IDNR with whom a working
relationship was established early in the pilot project. GAP
partnership discussions were also initiated with the USFS, USGS,
SCS, Indiana Department of Environmental Management, TNC, and the
HEC and the 80 Percenters (state non-government environmental
coalition groups).
The Indiana Pilot Project's primary goal was to serve as a system
development trial run for the full state Gap Analysis. Therefore,
the project was pursued as a small Gap Analysis in an attempt to
address the approximately 70,000-acre study area in the same
manner that Gap Analysis would be applied to the entire state.
The secondary goal was to produce data relevant to the biological
assessment for the base closure proceedings at JPG; in this
sense, the Indiana Pilot Project has been application-based. This
assessment had particular importance because of the outstanding
wildlife habitat, especially endangered species and neo-tropical
migrant habitat, within JPG. Both goals have been successfully
achieved.
Summary of Accomplishments
1)compiled a vegetation map of the study area to the UNESCO
Formation Group level of detail
2) designed a classification system based on UNESCO, Cowardin,
and the draft TNC vegetation classification for Indiana
3) produced approximately 55 complete vertebrate models related
to the preliminary vegetation map and made significant progress
modeling to remaining Indiana vertebrates
4) acquired the IDNR's managed area database and incorporated
study area data into the GIS
5) acquired the ETR species data from the IDNR's Heritage
Database and incorporated study site data into the GIS
6) incorporated the NWI data into the GIS
7) acquired digital elevation data where extant for the state and
incorporated that data and slope aspect data for the study area
into the GIS
8) initiated a pilot project with the SCS to digitize soils to
the series level for the study area (approximately 70% completed)
9) established and populated a metadata database within ARC-INFO
for the data layers developed for the Indiana Pilot Project.
10) delivered preliminary data to the DOA relevant to the
biological aspects of the base closure proceedings
Forest Clark
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bloomington
To prepare for start-up during FY 1995, potential cooperators
have been contacted and existing databases identified. This
effort is being coordinated by the Kansas Biological Survey (KBS)
at the University of Kansas (KU) and by Dr. Phil Gipson, Unit
Leader, and Dr. Jack Cully, Assistant Unit Leader of the
Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Kansas State
University (KSU). PI Chris Lauver attended the Second Annual
Southwest Region Gap Analysis Meeting in Albuquerque during
November 1993 to learn about the progress of neighboring states.
Three state programs have been identified as instrumental for
conducting KS-GAP. The staff and resources of the Kansas Applied
Remote Sensing (KARS) program at KU will be involved in
developing the vegetation map. KARS program personnel completed a
statewide digital land cover database from classifying 1989-1991
Landsat TM imagery. The classification included general cover
types (e.g. cropland, grassland, woodland), but the spatial
resolution is high with a 2-acre minimum mapping unit. The
original and classified data from this project will be a great
asset in creating and evaluating the GAP vegetation map. The GAP
map will adopt the modified UNESCO vegetation classification
being developed by KBS's Kansas Natural Heritage Inventory. In
addition, the Natural Heritage Inventory will provide animal
distribution information from its Vertebrate Characterization
Abstracts database and locality data on natural communities and
rare species throughout Kansas for verification purposes.
Ancillary GIS data to facilitate building the three major GAP
data layers are available through the Data Access and Support
Center (DASC) operated by the Kansas Geological Survey. DASC
maintains the central databases for the State of Kansas GIS
Initiative. On-line databases include STATSGO soils, elevation
models (DEM), hydrology, U.S. Census Tiger Files, and county
boundaries.
In April 1994, Dr. J. Michael Scott visited KSU and KU. During
two days of presentations and informal discussions, he offered
support and advice for initiating KS- GAP. The meetings were
attended by faculty, staff, and representatives from several key
organizations.
Chris Lauver
Kansas Biological Survey
University of Kansas, Lawrence
The Louisiana Gap Analysis Project was initiated in FY '94.
While resources are minimal for a project of this scope, progress
is being made at a steady rate.
Vegetation Mapping
Louisiana GAP is primarily utilizing Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM)
satellite imagery from Jan.-Feb. 1993 for the initial vegetation
classification for 17 categories, which is about 60% complete.
(This does not include ground- truthing, accuracy assessment, or
assigning each polygon to a dominant/co-dominant species.)
Finishing the image classification will require 1) classifying
all subsets, 2) stitching subsets together for master file, 3)
procedures for correcting stitch lines, and 4) aggregation to 40+
acre size units. Afterwards, the raster files will be converted
to a polygon format. Creation of a UNESCO-type classification
scheme, which will be linked back to the original Landsat TM
classified data set, is underway.
Breeding Bird Atlas and Wildlife Mapping
A breeding bird atlas (BBA), which will take three years to
complete, will be part of Louisiana GAP. In the first year, we
have designed the mechanisms to create the BBA and have initiated
year-one field sampling of approximately 200 different 7.5
quadrangles. This effort is primarily conducted by volunteers.
For the wildlife species range distribution, coverage is being
created for all herps and mammals on a parish(county)-wide
occurrence basis. Also, a database to associate priority habitats
for each animal is being initiated. When the BBA is completed,
the same procedures to create parish-wide coverages will be used
for birds.
Land Management
Presently available in digital format are maps of federal and
state wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, and National Forest
regions. Rank criteria are being assigned to each area based on
GAP's four levels of land management status. In addition, other
applicable data sets for land management are being identified.
The USFWS is currently studying critical habitats for the black
bear (bottomland hardwood forests), which may be revised to
include all hardwood forests. The primary loss of this critical
habitat is due to conversion to agriculture lands. To delineate
these critical habitats, classified Landsat TM imagery from the
Louisiana Gap Analysis Project were combined with USGS DLG data
(hydrography and roads).
Future Projects
1) Complete classified land cover map for the original 17
categories (at full resolution of 25 meters square) merged with
the existing 1988 NWI habitat data for the Louisiana coastal
zone.
2) Aggregate final land cover map for Louisiana.
3) Complete parish-wide species occurrence maps for herps,
mammals, and plants.
4 Complete database to associate priority habitats for each
animal.
5) Finish the land management component and produce state-wide
map of land management distributions using the 4-tier ranking
scheme.
6) Continue BBA and start to compile parish- wide bird species
occurrence maps.
7) Begin investigations into appropriate wildlife models.
Peter Bourgeois
EPA-NBS National Wetlands Research Center, Gulf Breeze, FL
Maine Statewide Gap Analysis has entered its third year.
During 1994, predicted species distributions and richness maps
are being developed. Ranges and habitat relations of amphibians
and reptiles were reviewed, mammal distribution maps were
submitted to experts, and bird synopses will go to review
shortly. The conservation land ownership map of Maine is
completed.
Vegetation Classification
University of Massachusetts (UMass) researchers are creating the
vegetation map for the New England Gap Analysis project. Mapping
existing vegetation using Landsat scenes has been difficult
because many habitat types have indistinguishable spectral
signatures. In response, the New England effort has reduced the
number of classes being mapped to about 15 and is exploring the
use of aerial videography for refining the vegetation map.
To assist UMass staff in creating the vegetation map, existing
ground-truthed vegetation maps from 60 areas covering about 4% of
Maine have been provided. Corresponding National Wetland
Inventory maps and stereographic pairs of National Aerial
Photography Program color-infrared photographs were also
provided. In cooperation with the New Brunswick Department of
Natural Resources and Energy, existing vegetation maps of known
accuracy, for a 50 km swath of New Brunswick bordering northern
and eastern Maine, were provided by Maine GAP. UMass acquired a
similar data set for New Hampshire. Some of these data are being
used to type vegetation within Maine, near its borders.
UMass researchers requested that preliminary existing vegetation
maps be checked for all or part of four 1:100,000 scale
quadrangles of Maine. Analyses were conducted to determine the
accuracy of the maps, and UMass staff are currently addressing
the problems identified.
Predicting species occurrence using maps with few habitat classes
is problematic. To increase the accuracy and number of classes
mapped, future plans include incorporating into the spectral
analyses: 1) aerial videography; 2) available GIS information
such as hydrography layers; 3) additional Landsat scenes; and 4)
existing ground-truthed vegetation maps. Visual interpretation of
National Wetland Inventory maps and reclassification of all of
the wetlands within the USGS Land Use Digital Analysis database
for Maine has been initiated.
Wildlife Ranges and Habitat Relations
For each terrestrial vertebrate species that breeds in Maine
(n_300), a short synopsis that summarizes its range and ecology
is being prepared. These synopses include a description of the
model to be used in Gap Analysis, a matrix of species-habitat
associations (including abundance information), and information
that will be used to derive a risk of extinction. The synopses
for amphibians and reptiles are being reviewed by experts
throughout the state. Published and unpublished data on birds
have been assembled, and writing of the synopses has been
initiated. In 1994, finalization of the mammal synopses for
submission to experts and completion of the bird synopses is
planned.
The Maine Gap Analysis project continues to support data entry
into the Maine Department of Inland Fish and Wildlife (MDIFW)
Natural Heritage database. This year, MDIFW personnel have been
concentrating on entering records of occurrence for mammals that
are rare in Maine (e.g., Lynx canadensis).
Land Ownership and Management
The Maine State Planning Office has completed a revision of the
Conservation Lands of Maine maps. The maps were produced at
1:250,000 scale and include all federal and state conservation
lands and those owned by conservation groups. Updating the
digital ownership map was completed in November. Codes are now
being applied to the areas to represent levels of biodiversity
conservation.
In cooperation with MDIFW, Maine GAP funded a project that
entailed digitizing mapped deer wintering areas and waterbird
habitats in south-central Maine. These areas, if regulated, can
potentially contribute as much to biodiversity conservation as
lands owned for conservation. This study will allow extrapolation
of the extent of deer wintering areas and waterbird habitats and
provide future assessments of how regulated versus fee-title
lands contribute to the conservation of vertebrates.
William B. Krohn and Randall B. Boone
ME Coop. Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
University of Maine, Orono
Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey began a joint Gap Analysis
Project late in FY '93. The Principal Investigator is Ann
Rasberry (Maryland Department of Natural Resources). She is
responsible for GIS and analysis components. Grace Brush
(Professor, The Johns Hopkins University) is the lead scientist
on habitat inventory and has a Ph.D. candidate, Rachel Shea,
assigned to the project. Rick McCorkle (USFWS Delaware Bay
Estuary Project) is responsible for the vertebrate distributions,
assisted by GAP biologist David Hannah.
GAP project staff in each state have held a number of meetings
with top ranking officials in their state's natural resources
agency. A cooperator's meeting was held in Delaware, and 10-12
smaller meetings have been held in Maryland with groups such as
the Partners in Flight Research Committee and Maryland
Conservation Council. The March 1994 meeting in Annapolis,
Maryland, that introduced the Multi- Resolution Land
Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium was attended. A pilot MRLC
cooperative landcover mapping effort which will include mapping
of agricultural and urban areas is being implemented in EPA
Regions 2 and 3, encompassing New York, New Jersey, Maryland,
Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Ann Rasberry
and Wayne Myers represented GAP at the June 1994 MRLC workshop on
SPECTRUM software for classifying TM imagery.
Personnel from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) met with project
staff regarding use of the TNC field forms for field inventory
and ground truthing. The Maryland Wildlife Division is also using
these forms to inventory wildlife management areas. TNC is
planning to assist with the EMAP hexagon data population through
the Natural Heritage programs in Maryland and Delaware in FY '94.
Ancillary data available include computerized fish and wildlife
information systems (CFWIS), breeding bird atlases and breeding
bird survey data, NAPP photography, digital ortho quarter quads
and elevation models, Anderson Level II forest inventory, SPOT 30
m panchromatic imagery, NOAA C-CAP data, and habitat inventory
assessments. National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) data is digitized
for the project as is land ownership data.
In Delaware, a Natural Communities Survey Report for Kent County
and a Wetlands Evaluation Pilot Project Report have been
obtained. Four volunteers were recruited to survey selected areas
for breeding birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, and habitat
information. A data base of wetland habitats has been developed
in order to map suitable habitat for wetland dependent species.
NWI data and a pilot project initiated in Bombay Hook and Prime
Hook National Wildlife Refuges were utilized in developing this
database.
For all three states, lists of resident terrestrial species have
been developed and ranked to determine whether habitat models
will be derived or actual occurrence data used. Some modeling is
being done for rare rails in Maryland, using NWI data in the
absence of vegetation maps. Additionally, breeding bird
occurrence and habitat association data is being obtained for
hundreds of sites surveyed in Maryland as a part of a project
conducted by the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.
In June, the TM imagery for the project began arriving.
Preliminary vegetation maps will be produced this winter.
Ann Rasberry
Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Annapolis
The University of Massachusetts and the MA Cooperative Fish
and Wildlife Research Unit are cooperating with the Vermont and
Maine Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units in the New
England Gap Analysis Project. A primary focus of GAP activities
in Massachusetts has been the development of the base vegetation
map for the six-state New England region. The extensive forests
of New England produce a landscape with 75% to over 90% forested
land cover. Furthermore, there are a wide variety of forest types
across the region. Many of these forest types are interspersed on
the landscape and occur in relatively small stands. This is
primarily the result of the land use history of the region. These
regional vegetation characteristics in New England pose new
challenges for developing a base vegetation map. Thus, an
important objective of the New England Project has been to
evaluate the applicability of the vegetation mapping procedures
used in Gap Analysis programs in the western U.S. for New
England.
There are two phases to the current vegetation mapping efforts
for New England. Phase 1 focuses on completion of a base map that
includes water areas, nonvegetated areas, and vegetated areas
that include at least five forest types (deciduous, coniferous,
mixed, clearcuts, and regeneration). In Phase 2, a high
resolution Gap Analysis for a pilot area in southern New England
will be conducted. The scene chosen for this pilot study includes
almost all of central and western Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Summer and fall TM imagery are available for the area as well as
some limited ground-truth forest stand databases. However,
additional ground-truth data will be needed to generate adequate
numbers of data points to classify the seasonal TM imagery. The
only feasible way to obtain adequate ground-truth data in this
heterogeneous forested landscape is via aerial videography.
Furthermore, seasonal videography will help to delineate
additional forest types. The comparison of TM data from different
dates in combination with seasonal aerial videography should
permit a significantly higher vegetation resolution to be derived
from the TM imagery. This should help in the production of a
vegetation classification with significantly more vegetation
categories than can be produced for the six- state vegetation map
in Phase 1.
This additional phase will serve as a pilot study to evaluate the
efficiency and efficacy of vegetation mapping methods for New
England and for much of the eastern deciduous forest. These
higher resolution products will provide the technologies and
assessment capabilities for future efforts needed to fully
complete the New England Gap Analysis.
With the cooperation of Dr. Lee Graham and Dana Slaymaker from
the University of Arizona, complete aerial videography coverage
of New England was obtained during late May and early June. UMass
staff have been trained in video interpretation, and video
analyses have begun. Complete aerial videography coverage of New
England was completed in the fall. The results of this work have
significantly increased the ability to discriminate among various
vegetation types.
Co-principal investigator, Curt Griffin, is continuing
cooperation with the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve in Romania.
With assistance from the World Bank, UMass will be training three
Romanian scientists during the next 12 months in remote sensing
and GIS technology. The goal is to develop and apply a Gap
Analysis approach to inventorying biological diversity in the
Danube Delta to assist in resource management and delta research
programs.
Curt Griffin and Jack Finn
MA Coop. Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
The Upper Midwest Gap Analysis Project (UMGAP) is in the
initial stages of implementation. Cooperative agreements with all
three states are in place. The Environmental Management Technical
Center (EMTC), a National Biological Service science and
technology center in Onalaska, Wisconsin, is coordinating this
effort. The EMTC hired a biodiversity coordinator who is
responsible for full- time coordination of UMGAP and development
of the species range mapping component in affiliation with state
and federal agency ecologists and biologists. UMGAP partners are
listed in the back of this bulletin. The EPA's Great Lakes
National Program Office contributed funding to UMGAP and was
instrumental in initiating the project. The EPA's interest is in
the Great Lakes Basin, and initial efforts to classify land cover
will be concentrated in that area.
UMGAP's land cover mapping effort is being coordinated through
the EMTC with the assistance of Dr. Thomas M. Lillesand, Director
of the Environmental Remote Sensing Center at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. In conjunction with the Geo Services Division
of the Wisconsin DNR, Dr. Lillesand has completed a pilot project
to evaluate methods and to develop procedures for processing
Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite data. A paper presented by
Dr. Lillesand at the International Society for Photogrammetry and
Remote Sensing Mapping and GIS Symposium in Athens, Georgia (June
1994), described the background and philosophies influencing
UMGAP's developing protocol. In his presentation, Dr. Lillisand
discussed the use of multi-date satellite data,
"guided" clustering in the classifier training process,
and the simultaneous collection of training and accuracy
assessment data.
Several Landsat TM scenes have been received from the EROS Data
Center under the multi-agency agreement embodied in the
Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium. These Landsat
TM scenes have been distributed to the UMGAP cooperator in each
state for processing. A classification system that crosswalks to
the modified UNESCO GAP classification system has been developed
and will be standardized across the three states.
The state of Michigan developed a land cover database in the
early 1970s at a scale of 1:24,000. A procedure will be developed
to use current Landsat TM data to update the existing database,
and land cover classes will be recoded to match the GAP
classification system. UMGAP states will also develop and update
their existing land ownership and managed area spatial databases.
The Upper Great Lakes Biodiversity Committee, consisting of
representatives from the three UMGAP states, has been formed to
promote cooperation in maintaining and restoring biological
diversity on a regional scale. The intent of the committee is to
initiate a regional overview of biodiversity status and needs in
an effort to guide ecosystem management. This effort supports and
enhances the GAP effort in the Upper Midwest.
Frank D'Erchia
Environmental Management Technical Center
National Biological Survey, Onalaska, Wisconsin
(See Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin)
The Missouri Biodiversity Council (MBC) is a group of fourteen
agencies and organizations who have agreed to collectively
address the conservation of biodiversity in Missouri. Over the
past two years, working groups of the MBC and the Missouri Gap
Analysis Project have been meeting to work on specific objectives
in this regard.
In February 1994, the MBC Coordinating Committee recommended that
the individual working group proposals be incorporated into a
collective plan of action for the state. This committee
specifically recommended the Gap Analysis Project be incorporated
into the overall resource assessment and planning scenario. The
Missouri Resource Assessment Project (MoRAP) is the result of
that recommendation. MoRAP incorporates Gap Analysis and other
projects into a comprehensive state-level resource assessment and
planning process.
MoRAP proposes the development of a facility at an independent
site to achieve the greatest degree of control and flexibility,
the least impact on existing GIS programs, and participation by
the greatest number of agencies. This approach would be more
cost- effective than contracting out for services. MoRAP staff
will coordinate database design and development in support of
natural resource planning and management in Missouri. Some of the
major projects (i.e. ecological classification system, current
land cover, aquatic resources, statewide elevation contours) will
be carried out by staff associated directly with the facility,
while other projects and tasks will be carried out at other sites
by MoRAP cooperators with technical guidance provided by the
MoRAP staff.
The various data development projects, their relationship to the
GIS facility and the production of Coordinated Resource
Management and GAP products, are illustrated in the flow chart.
The overall project timetable calls for the production of lower
resolution, statewide products in the short-term (year 1). The
higher resolution products necessary for implementation of
resource management objectives will be developed for a pilot
region (Lower Ozarks) in the first three years, and subsequently,
for the entire state over the following three years.
The projected six-year MoRAP budget totals $9,916,000; $2,381,000
for the technical facility staff and equipment, and $7,535,000
for project work. Initial start- up costs are necessarily high
and will be shared by MoRAP cooperators, as will overhead costs
such as salaries and benefits. Cooperators will be free to
participate in those projects which offer the greatest benefit to
them or for which they have the greatest responsibility.
Additional funding will be sought from outside sources.
The Research Work Order for MO-GAP is in place. TM imagery has
not been received yet. In the meantime, preliminary work has
focused on coordination among state agencies, establishment of a
classification system, and animal/habitat relationship models.
Ron Drobney and Tim Haithcoat
Missouri Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
University of Missouri, Columbia
The map of existing vegetation and land cover is being
developed across Montana according to a two-stage digital
process. Landsat TM bands 4, 5, and 3 are classified by an
unsupervised method which seeks to mimic the visual appearance of
the false-color composite. Pixel groups smaller than a 2 ha
minimum map unit (22 pixels) are identified and then merged with
their most similar neighbor according to a rule-based model. A
sample of the resulting spectral polygons is then ground-truthed
to provide training data for the second-stage supervised
classification to label all polygons. The efficacy of this
process was confirmed for two pilot study areas in forested
portions of western Montana and a rangeland site in central
Montana . It was also determined that an average TM scene
contained more than 300,000 raster polygons representing 25-35
different spectral classes. Given these numbers and the fact that
31 TM scenes are required to cover the state of Montana, the
ground-truthing challenge was fully appreciated!
During 1993-1994, three different ways to obtain sufficient
ground-truth data were pursued. First, timber stand data from the
U.S. Forest Service and Montana Department of State Lands were
evaluated. Unfortunately, even when these sources were readily
available in digital form, they required considerable manual
effort to import and query in ARC/INFO. Another drawback is that
these data were collected primarily from stands of merchantable
timber on public lands; consequently, they are not representative
of the landscape that MT-GAP is trying to map. A second approach
was to produce map overlays of the unsupervised spectral
classification scaled to 7.5 minute USGS topographic quads. Last
field season, more than 80 of these "spectral quads"
were taken into the field and ground- truthed by Forest Service
personnel in western Montana. Because the Forest Service crews
had other work to do, they were not able to collect as much data
as had been hoped. Nevertheless, the quality of the data provided
by these crews was consistently high, and their plots spanned a
wide range of cover types.
A third approach was to evaluate the use of airborne videography.
A contract with Lee Graham and Dana Slaymaker (Resource Mapping
Systems, Inc., Tucson, AZ) allowed them to fly several transects
across the pilot study area in the Seeley-Swan Valley and to
provide georeferenced video imagery. The challenge with this
method was how to reliably distinguish plant species composition
on a video monitor. Fourteen different coniferous tree species
occur in western Montana, and MT-GAP found that several species
were very difficult to identify from the airborne video. In
fairness to Lee Graham and Dana Slaymaker, not all options were
explored before abandoning their method; it may be that a crew
could have been trained to recognize different crown patterns.
Another alternative developed which, though more costly and
time-consuming, had certain strategic advantages - that was to
join forces with the Forest Service, Northern Regional Office,
and the Columbia River Basin Assessment Project to map existing
vegetation and land cover across western Montana and northern
Idaho. For this effort, MT-GAP is supplying approximately 500
spectral quads to 17 Forest Service field crews whose primary
responsibility is to ground-truth all the different spectral
classes in different landform groups. Data from 9,000 plots were
obtained in 1994; another 10,000 are planned for 1995. Twenty
percent of the data will be held aside for an accuracy
assessment.
MT-GAP is working with two advisory groups to develop rules to
predict the distributions of most threatened and endangered
species. Models have been implemented and refined for several
species based on the Seeley/Swan vegetation map. Considerable
work remains to be done to complete the wildlife distribution
models and to implement them in ARC/INFO. Finally, the 1:100K
statewide ownership map should be completed by the BLM, Montana
State Office by June 1995.
Roland Redmond
Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit
University of Montana, Missoula
Planning for the spring 1995 initiation of Gap Analysis in
Nebraska is underway. The program is being jointly led by Dr.
James W. Merchant (Center for Advanced Land Management
Information Technologies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and Dr.
Dennis E. Jelinski (Department of Forestry, Fisheries and
Wildlife, University of Nebraska- Lincoln). Cooperators currently
include the State Museum of Natural History, the Nebraska Game
and Parks Commission, and the Nebraska GIS Steering Committee. A
Nebraska Gap Analysis Workshop, designed to broaden participation
in the GAP Program, is being planned for spring 1995. Landsat
Thematic Mapper data covering the entire state have been
obtained, and efforts to develop a land cover database for
Nebraska are beginning.
James Merchant
University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Nevada Gap Analysis is proceeding. Land ownership has been
completed, and the first generation wildlife habitat relation
(WHR) models are largely done. All training points for cover-type
mapping have been collected and are being used to model
cover-types. Nevada cover-types in 5 ecoregion blocks are being
modeled in parallel. Anticipated completion date of the
vegetation modeling is 1 June 1995. Per agreement, a copy of the
information is transferred to the University of Nevada-Reno
conservation biology program as it is completed. For further
information contact biod@nr.usu.edu.
Thomas C. Edwards, Jr.
UT Coop Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
Utah State University, Logan
(See Vermont)
(See Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey)
Imagery Classification
Raw '93 imagery was obtained from EROS last May for the purpose
of filling some substantial cloud holes. The process of
conversion, geocorrection, tagging, and stitching the segments
into the final map was completed in June. Eighteen urban areas
with two classes were included. The final steps included two
rounds of single pixel "majority filtering" and then
eliminating all polygons <25 contiguous pixels; a "rubbersheeting" geocorrection to bring the entire statewide map into compliance with the 1:100,000 usgs dlgs. then a clean-up of elevation ranges was conducted on a regional basis, using information solicited from cooperators around the state. a 100 ha aggregation process was undertaken and completed. as with most states, the vegetation map production has been the most costly and frustrating aspect of the project, especially when problems arise that would be fairly easy to fix given more time and money.
Verification
The process is in place to begin shipping 1:100,000 maps to
approximately 100 cooperators statewide for field assessment. All
aspects of the process have been tested. However, the logistics
of producing and shipping several hundred plots, coordinating the
cooperators, and determining how much of the work the cooperators
will actually complete are daunting tasks. Temporary staff was
hired last fall to assess locations missed by the cooperators.
New Mexico is the first state to complete a statistically valid
field assessment of a "machine classified" TM
vegetation map. If the project is successful, the results will be
published.
Land Ownership and Management
The PLSS ownership data from EDAC at UNM has been received. It
was produced as a joint project between the state and BLM.
Assembly of management maps from all state and federal land
agencies, some tribes, and large landowners (e.g., the Turner
Ranches) is about 90% completed. A matrix of land management
types with generic descriptors which combine Ownership Status,
Level of Legally Mandated Management, and specific Land Types
such as "National Park" has been developed. This has
been mailed to approximately 25 people representing a broad
spectrum of interests. The participants have been asked to match
generic descriptors with specific land types and then categorize
both to the national scheme, allowing for subcategories as they
see fit. The results will be used to develop a standardized
method of categorizing all possible land uses according to its
management for biodiversity. This spring, the cooperator
management maps and the categorization scheme will be used to
attribute all 40-acre units of the PLSS.
Public Outreach
The project was presented to the Native Plant Society where more
volunteers were brought on-board for field assessment of the
vegetation map; it was also presented to the Los Alamos National
Laboratory summer workshop for science teachers, and an article
appeared in the December 1994 issue of the American Planning
Association's "Environment and Development" newsletter.
Note on Imagery Acquisition
EOSAT has been contacting us with some question as to the
legality of our cooperative purchase, namely, that the
geocorrected data may not be different enough from the raw
imagery to warrant broad distribution. In a recent communication
from them it appears that as long as our cooperators are using
the imagery for purposes directly related to ours, then we are in
compliance.
Patrick Crist
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces
A preliminary, unsupervised natural terrestrial vegetation
cover classification for twelve Landsat Thematic Mapper scenes
has been completed for New York State. Clustering algorithms in
the ERDAS ISODATA routine, specifying 100 clusters, were used for
the preliminary classification. Cluster labeling has been
completed. Edge matching and integration of TM data with other
GAP data layers was undertaken in August 1994. Ground-truthing of
completed scenes will continue through 1995 to improve
classification accuracy. The preliminary vegetation
classification coverage will be refined and field-checked in
cooperation with EPA during 1995 and 1996.
ERDAS*.SBD files have been converted to ASCII format and imported
into Quattro-Pro for computing band ratios so these ratios and
individual band cluster statistics are available during the
labeling process. In addition to the cluster statistics, NHAP
aerial photographs are being used for reference during the
labeling process. Clusters are being labeled according to Level
III of the Jennings GAP classification scheme.
A reasonable amount of success is being realized in classifying
TM scenes into the following categories: Natural Terrestrial
Cover (forest, deciduous; forest, evergreen; shrub, deciduous),
Natural Aquatic Cover, Water, and Developed Cover
(cropland/pasture, urban). Categories of aquatic cover below
Level I of Jennings are not classifiable. Spectrally, water looks
like water whether it is in a river, estuary, or lake. Wetlands
(palustrine) should be classifiable, but not without more field
knowledge required to distinguish forested from non-forested
wetland cover types. Difficulties have also been encountered in
the classification of woodlands, mixed forest, and pasturelands.
To assist in refining the preliminary classification of TM
imagery, several reference sites across New York State have been
identified for which detailed vegetation inventories already
exist. In addition, NY-GAP is cooperating with the New York
Natural Heritage Program to obtain ground truth information from
an ongoing project that is surveying the biodiversity of state
wildlife management areas.
The following GAP-related coverages have been acquired in digital
form or have been digitized during the course of the NY-GAP
Project and are available at the Cornell facilities: national
forest boundary, state and national parklands, state freshwater
wetlands, sensitive/threatened/ endangered species (from NY
Natural Heritage Program), butterfly distributions, breeding bird
atlas database, mammal distributions, state wildlife management
areas, and USGS digital elevation models (1:250,000). NYSDEC will
be providing information from its amphibian and reptile atlas as
it becomes available, and arrangements are underway to acquire or
create state forest land boundary files. In addition, the soils
geographic
database (STATSGO) and a growing degree-day (GDD) map for New
York State have been compiled. The STATSGO and GDD maps will be
combined with the digital elevation model and cluster statistics
to define and delineate vegetation regions within the state. The
degree to which these regions correspond to one of several
versions of "ecoregions" within the state will be
investigated.
Charles R. Smith, Stephen D. DeGloria, and Milo E. Richmond
Cornell University, Ithaca
The Oklahoma Gap Analysis Project (OK-GAP) is up and running!
The Oklahoma Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
(OKCFWRU) began preliminary work to initiate Gap Analysis in
1991. Since then, OKCFWRU staff have attended national and
regional (Region 2) Gap Analysis meetings and conducted or
participated in informal meetings with state and federal agencies
and private groups in Oklahoma to develop a core of project
cooperators.
In December 1992, the OKCFWRU conducted the first OK- GAP
Cooperators Meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to provide an
overview of the project and discuss its implementation in
Oklahoma. Twenty-three people representing four federal agencies,
six state agencies, two universities, and one private group
attended the meeting. Potential cooperators were asked to define
their anticipated level of cooperation from three categories:
contractual (responsible for development of the data layers),
contributing (willing to provide existing data), and consulting
(willing to provide technical advice). A few cooperators
expressed interest in a contractual arrangement. Many others
indicated a willingness to be contributors or consultants.
The second cooperators meeting in February 1994 was attended by
18 people representing 12 government agencies, universities and
private concerns. Groups separated by data layer discussed data
standards, availability, sharing, and ownership. The coordinator
for the Oklahoma Biodiversity Project, a planning effort funded
by Weyerhaeuser through the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife
Conservation, provided an update on the status of this three-year
study. The goal of the study is to make recommendations for the
conservation of Oklahoma's biodiversity and to integrate these
with human uses of natural resources. A state Biodiversity
Council, composed of private and public landowners and managers
and interested science and conservation groups, will be
responsible for overseeing the development and implementation of
this biodiversity plan. OK-GAP will be coordinating with this
research effort to help ensure the success of biodiversity
conservation in Oklahoma.
Development of OK-GAP data layers will be a cooperative effort
between the OKCFWRU, the Department of Agronomy at Oklahoma State
University (OSU), and the Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory
(ONHI). Staff at the OKCFWRU are coordinating the project as well
as performing data analysis and interpretation. The Department of
Agronomy currently has OSU's most up-to-date GIS and remote-
sensing hardware and software and considerable technical
expertise. Mark Gregory heads up this lab and will be responsible
for preparing the vegetation and land ownership layers. The ONHI
houses databases on many of Oklahoma's plants and animals,
particularly threatened, endangered, and declining species. Dr.
Mark Lomolino will be coordinating development of the animal
distribution data layer for ONHI.
The results to date are exciting. Nine TM scenes have been
received and are being processed. Unsupervised classification is
used for the first cut; the second pass will be supervised, once
videography data are obtained. A portion of the videography will
be held back for accuracy assessment. Wildlife habitat models are
being developed. The ownership layer is being digitized in
cooperation with the Heritage Program. Substantial progress
toward the creation of the vegetation and animal distribution
data layers is anticipated this year.
Bill Fisher
OK Coop. Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater
Although fine-tuning continues, the basic data layers for the
Oregon Gap Analysis Project (vegetation, land ownership, and
special management areas) are essentially complete. Work on the
species distribution maps is being closely coordinated with the
pilot program of the Biodiversity Research Consortium (BRC).
First drafts of predicted species distribution maps have been
generated with assistance from BRC cooperators and sent out for
expert review. The Nature Conservancy has developed a software
package using FOXPRO that allows on-screen editing of
distribution by EMAP 635 km2 hexagons. Species are predicted to
be present in appropriate vegetation polygons within a hexagon.
LANDSAT MSS 1:250,000 imagery was photo-interpreted to create the
first Oregon vegetation map. The map depicts the distribution of
133 vegetation cover types and contains over 6,900 polygons. The
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) has taken
responsibility for upgrading the map with LANDSAT Thematic Mapper
imagery to current national Gap Analysis standards. This two-year
project began in July 1994. ODFW contracted with Dr. Lee A.
Graham, Arizona Gap Analysis Principal Investigator, to provide
low altitude airborne video photography for Oregon. Seven days of
airtime in August and early September 1993 yielded about 19,000
georeferenced video frames which sample about 3% of the state.
With appropriate ground validation, these images will be used for
training sites, labeling, and accuracy assessment.
The Defenders of Wildlife has developed a proposal to prepare an
Oregon Biodiversity Plan based on the results of Gap Analysis.
The proposal calls for a two-year effort which would bring both
scientific and policy representatives from state, federal, and
private resource management interests together to review the
analysis of the Oregon data layers and take action to conserve
areas rich in underrepresented elements of biodiversity. The
EPA's Environmental Research Laboratory has recently hired a
programmer/statistician whose major responsibility will be
analysis of the Oregon GAP data sets.
Other Accomplishments
1) Digital coverage for the wetlands data that show areas 100
acres or greater from the NWI has been completed. The other
digital data layers have also been completed (i.e. managed areas,
ownership, and vegetation); however, none of these maps have been
field- verified.
2) A Star-Lan network with PC to UNIX workstation to allow
digital TM Landsat scenes to be accessed and stored on an optical
drive has been completed.
3) Oregon Species Information System (OSIS) has been updated to
an SQL standard with Advanced Revelations 3.0. Distribution of
species continues to be updated along with taxonomy, status,
habitat associations, and life history. Currently, 40 copies of
OSIS have been distributed within the state at ODFW, Bureau of
Land Management, Forest Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service offices.
4) OSIS to ARC/INFO programming has been streamlined.
5) A Wildlife Habitat Map has been developed from a cluster
analysis of the original 133 habitat types and their associated
species data.
6) An initial assessment of biodiversity is being conducted using
the existing vegetation map.
7) Eighteen of 23 TM Landsat scenes have been received and read.
8) An Aquatic Gap Analysis Proposal has been written and is being
circulated to potential funding agencies.
Blair Csuti
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Portland
Thomas O'Neil
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Corvallis
Our first GAP product, called PENN for Pennsylvania
Environmental Network Navigator, is environmental metadata as
hypertext on a self-contained diskette for PCs. PENN will be
distributed widely without charge and will be updated regularly.
If you are interested in receiving this information, send us a
high-density diskette.
The same shell used for PENN also supports a hyperforms system
for tracking progress on Pennsylvania GAP species. Our taxeme is
all vertebrates, both terrestrial and aquatic, that breed in
Pennsylvania. Progress is being made on distributional
information since range maps have been captured in digital form
for all mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. The recent
Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas has Atlas-GIS as its host
system. The Nature Conservancy has completed the EPA hexagon
encoding for Pennsylvania fauna. That leaves fishes and habitat
suitability models on the faunal side.
The first installment of MRLC Consortium TM data was received
shortly before the 1994 GAP Investigators Meeting in Seattle.
Staff participated in a MRLC Spectrum software workshop held in
July in Reston, VA. PA-GAP plans to be among the first states to
base their vegetation map on hyper- clustering with Spectrum.
Resolution of about 5 ha is being targeted to satisfy needs of
all MRLC interests. Therefore, intelligent generalization of
thematic rasters becomes important; customized software will be
developed. The G.P. Patil's Center for Statistical Ecologyand
Environmental Statistics at Penn State is cooperating on advanced
sampling approaches to quality assessment.
Objective approaches for defining centers of species richness are
being initiated. New concepts for object- oriented approaches to
virtual (in this case biotic) topographies received their first
public exposure at the August joint statistical meetings in
Canada.
Instead of seeking direct outside funding, Pennsylvania Gap
Analysis is concentrating on convergence of programmatic efforts.
The Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area will be the
testbed for high resolution vegetation mapping with Spectrum. The
Pennsylvania Game Commission is supporting an intensive landscape
ecological modeling project for bobcat. PA-GAP is playing an
integral part in the effort to delineate ECOMAP down to the
landtype association level. A variety of programmatic efforts are
contributing ancilliary GIS layers. Liaison with neighboring
states is being maintained to keep updated on their Gap Analysis
work.
In summary, Gap Analysis is viewed more as a stepping stone in
evolving landscape ecological understanding for Pennsylvania than
as an endpoint. It also provides an ideal testbed for development
of advanced approaches to spatial information. In this spirit, a
re- interpretation of GIS as Geographic Inferencing Systems is
advocated.
Wayne Myers, Gerald Storm, Robert Brooks, and Joseph Bishop
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
Vegetation Mapping Currently, the Tennessee Valley,
representing 54% of the state, has been classified to Anderson
Level II. The remaining 46% of the state should be completed at
this level by March 1995. Accuracy assessment of the
classification was done by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
using a stratified random sampling design for a majority of the
sample points. Further image processing to distinguish plant
communities will involve masking the image to select only the
class of interest. The new classes will then be labeled using
aerial photos, field checking, knowledge of natural resource
managers, and ancillary data layers. The vegetation
classification system used by The Nature Conservancy will be the
basis for naming plant communities. A crosswalk between this
system and the modified UNESCO classification scheme will be
conducted. The accuracy of the completed vegetation map will be
assessed by post- classification field checking.
The applicability of air-videography methodologies in Tennessee
will be tested in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service. In
the spring of 1994, transects were flown every nine miles in an
east-west direction in the Elk River watershed. A considerable
amount of analysis remains to be done with the video that was
obtained. If it is determined that this technique is applicable,
more flights can be flown in the spring of 1995.
Vertebrate Species Mapping
Tennessee's native fauna includes approximately 65 amphibians, 55
reptiles, 170 breeding birds, and 70 mammals. Range maps have
been produced with data from the Breeding Bird Atlas, Tennessee
Animal Biographies (TABS), and Vertebrate Characterization
Abstracts (VCA). Point data for rare animals was provided by
Ecological Services (Tennessee Heritage Program). Comments on the
maps are being solicited from biologists.
Habitat data resides in VCA and TABS. Updated information was
obtained from the Fish and Wildlife Information Exchange Master
Species Files. Paul Hamel's "Land Managers' Guide to the
Birds of the South" will be used as the major source of
avian habitat types. Habitat types in the GAP databases still
need to be cross-walked to the vegetation classification once the
satellite imagery processing has been completed. Graduate
research focussing on trapping small mammals from a variety of
habitats in the Catoosa Wildlife Management Area will test the
predictions of species' presence or absence.
Land Ownership and Management
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency's GIS system contains
coverages of public lands and acquired wetlands. The public lands
database is being updated through a cooperative effort between
the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation
Recreation Planning Division. This task should be completed by
March 1995. A subcommittee of the Biodiversity Team has begun to
categorize lands as to their management status. Proposed criteria
to be used in Tennessee were reviewed by the Protection Planning
Committee and will also be reviewed by a committee of state and
federal agencies who own and manage land in Tennessee.
Clifton J. Whitehead
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Nashville
The Gap Analysis project in Texas was formally initiated in
October 1993. Dr. Nancy Mathews, Assistant Wildlife Unit Leader
of the Texas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, is the
principal investigator of the project. Initial work focused on
establishing a network of collaborators. Cooperators for the
vegetation, vertebrate range and boundary layer maps have been
identified and contacted. In close cooperation with the Mapping
Sciences Lab at Texas A&M University, a new GIS Lab was
established at Texas Tech University, specifically for the GAP
program. Matching equipment funds were provided by the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory.
In February 1994, Lloyd B. McKinney from the Mapping Sciences
Lab, Texas A&M University, was hired as the temporary
Assistant Texas Gap Analysis Coordinator. His charge was to
design and set up the Gap Analysis Lab at Texas Tech University.
Two Sun workstations, peripherals, software (including ARC/INFO
and GRASS geographic information systems), and a digitizer were
installed. Ancillary databases were loaded onto the workstations
and included digital line graphs of road systems, soils,
counties, and cities of Texas. Joy Winckel was hired as the
full-time Assistant Texas Gap Analysis Coordinator in April 1994.
Vegetation Map
Vegetation mapping is in a startup phase. Because the State of
Texas is so large and varied, the task of interpreting satellite
imagery to prepare a draft vegetation map has been divided
between Texas Tech University and Texas A&M University. A
minimum mapping unit of 40 ha was chosen for the entire
vegetation map with map accuracy being a minimum of 80%. Final
maps will be produced at a scale of 1:100,000, although maps can
be produced at 1:24,000. The first nine TM scenes (raw data) were
received from EROS Data Center, as part of the nationwide
acquisition, in late June 1994. By last fall, 27 TM scenes had
been obtained. The estimated date of completion of the vegetation
map of Texas is June 1997. A vegetation advisory board comprised
of ecologists from agencies and universities has been assembled
to guide vegetation mapping efforts. A vegetation classification
scheme has been developed using the UNESCO format and vegetation
series recognized by the Texas Natural Heritage Program.
Because over 90% of Texas consists of private lands, and access
to these lands for ground truthing and correcting classified
satellite imagery is problematic, airborne videography was chosen
for truthing and accuracy assessment. The states of Texas and
Oklahoma were simultaneously flown on flight lines spaced at 30
minute intervals. For Texas, the flights covered 9,978 miles and
were completed in July 1994. Post-processing of videotaped
transects includes extraction of single digital frames from the
continuous video track, georectification of the image and writing
the image to tape with a unique file identification number. Fully
georeferenced images are then overlaid to the TM imagery or
unsupervised output and queried for ground coordinates. A user
interface program allows an operator to call up a video-frame
image, query latitude/longitude positions for vegetation types
displayed, and write both vegetation class codes and positions to
a file. Image files are exported to 8 mm exabyte tape for
transfer to the Sun workstations. The hardware required to
operate the user interface includes a PC with SVGA graphics, a
mouse, and an internal PC-NFS card to network with the Sun Sparc
Server.
Vertebrate Range and Boundary Layer Maps
Cooperators have been contacted to determine their interest in
compiling data on the vertebrate range and boundary layer maps.
They include ecologists from universities and state agencies who
are experts in their fields. Members of the advisory boards have
been identified, and a meeting is tentatively planned for spring
1995. It is anticipated that mapping of these data layers will
commence in FY '95 if adequate funding is available.
Nancy Mathews
Texas Tech University, Lubbock
Utah Gap Analysis is completed. All data are available through
the Gap Analysis Home Page, http://www.gap.uidaho.edu/gap.
Information available consists of the Gap-specified 100-ha MMU
cover map, land ownership, wildlife habitat relation (WHR)
models, and assorted reports. Ancillary information, such as
DEMs, are not on-line but are available on request. Utah Gap
information will be available on CD-ROM on February 27, 1995. A
version of the Utah CD, containing all information plus limited
interactive capabilities, is completed. All data dictionaries and
metadata are completed and await the completion of the final
report before they are published. Once completed, the final
report will be released on CD and a series of four 1:500,000
scale maps printed by the USGS. Manuscripts on vegetation
classification, WHR accuracy assessment, and cover map vegetation
assessment are available on request. Further information can be
obtained by contacting biod@nr.usu.edu.
Thomas C. Edwards, Jr.
UT Coop. Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
Utah State University, Logan
The GAP project in Vermont is part of a larger effort to map
biodiversity throughout New England, in cooperation with the
Massachusetts and Maine Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research
Units. Each unit involved in the project has region-wide as well
as state-specific responsibilities. The Vermont unit is
responsible for development of distribution maps of vertebrates
and baseline species-habitat association matrices over the New
England region. In addition, the Vermont unit is responsible for
development of other Gap Analysis data layers for Vermont and New
Hampshire. Though the New England project has experienced some
delays in the acquisition and processing of Landsat data, the
current phase of the overall project will be completed within the
original timeframe. A final report is expected in spring 1995.
Investigators will then be ready to begin follow-up work.
The second phase of data collection and analysis will focus on
refinement of vegetation cover maps for the region, development
of validation methods for the distribution of vegetation cover
and vertebrate species, and refinement of mapping and spatial
data analysis methods for these coverages. In preparation for
these efforts, researchers with the Vermont Cooperative Fish and
Wildlife Research Unit are evaluating aerial videography based on
transects flown over Vermont and New Hampshire in 1994. In
addition, system development has continued at the University of
Vermont spatial data lab, with the objective of integrating GIS,
photogrammetry, image processing of Landsat data, and analysis
procedures for spatially registered data.
Land Ownership and Management
The Vermont unit has compiled maps of conservation lands in both
Vermont and New Hampshire, in cooperation with the VT Department
of Fish and Wildlife, the VT Department of Forests, Parks, and
Recreation, the NH Department of Fish and Game, and the NH Office
of State Planning. These maps identify land ownership and, in
some cases, land use and protection status. More than 90% of
Vermont and New Hampshire land is dominated by private ownership
of small, disconnected parcels of land. Approximately 5% of the
land is under federal ownership and another 5% owned by the
states. Privately-owned lands with special protection status
(e.g., TNC lands) constitute only a very small and highly
fragmented component of the network of conservation lands in both
states. Almost all federally-owned lands are in a few large
tracts constituting the Green Mountain and White Mountain
National Forests. Most of the state land holdings are in a few
large state forests and recreation areas, along with a large
number of small parcels. The latter are highly dispersed,
geographically disconnected, and thus of limited value as
corridors in a conservation network.
Vegetation Maps
The Massachusetts Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is
nearing completion of the vegetation mapping of New England and
has delivered digital maps of Vermont and New Hampshire to the
Vermont unit. The classification of upland cover in these maps is
limited to deciduous, coniferous, and mixed classes, which allows
only a limited refinement of vertebrate range maps for Gap
Analysis. Additional resolution in vegetative cover maps will be
a focus of follow-up investigations in Vermont and New Hampshire.
Vertebrate Maps
Ranges and habitat associations have been processed for
approximately 380 terrestrial vertebrate species in New England,
including 25 amphibians, 29 reptiles, 651 mammals, and 265 birds.
Species names have been converted to a common coding scheme for
species listed in the breeding bird atlases for all six New
England states, and all breeding bird data have been converted to
ARC/INFO format. The Nature Conservancy Natural Heritage
databases for the New England states have also been converted.
Data from 165 breeding bird survey (BBS) routes in New England
have been summarized and digitized. Breeding Bird Atlas, Heritage
program, BBS, and other data sources were used along with the
EPA-EMAP hexagonal grid to produce standardized species range
maps for New England.
Regional species-habitat association matrices have been produced
from published associations for New England vertebrates, with
refinements at the state level based on local information and
data records. A number of matrices have been coded at several
levels of resolution in land cover, thereby facilitating a Gap
Analysis depending on the amount of refinement in the land cover
classification. ARC/INFO AMLs have been developed to allow for
refinement of species range maps based on the land cover
classification, either collectively with groups of species, or on
a species- by-species basis. An ARC/INFO user interface has been
developed that allows user-friendly access to GAP databases,
including vegetation cover maps, conservation land maps, and
predicted species distributions.
Ken Williams
VT Coop. Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
University of Vermont, Burlington
Various stakeholders in Virginia were contacted in preparation
for funding of the Virginia Gap Analysis Project (VA-GAP) in FY
'94.
The following agencies/programs were briefed and have expressed
an interest in participation:
Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF),
Virginia Natural Heritage Program,
Jefferson National Forest,
Virginia Tech College of Forestry and Wildlife
Virginia Tech Department of Entomology
U.S. Army Ft. Pickett and Ft. A.P. Hill
Virginia Water Resources Center, and
Environmental Protection Agency
A long list of other potential cooperators will be contacted and
invited to a state coordination meeting for the project. Staff
will also be participating in the Multi- Resolution Land
Characteristic Interagency Consortium for the Mid-Atlantic
region.
VDGIF has agreed to be a contributing partner by providing a GIS
systems analyst and equipment and has committed resources to
updating existing wildlife information systems, particularly
distribution and habitat relationships data. VDGIF has included
VA-GAP in its long- term strategic plan for information systems
and has agreed to maintain and distribute VA-GAP products at the
close of the project.
To distribute fish and wildlife information in Virginia,
including VA-GAP products, the Virginia Fish and Wildlife
Information System has been revised and placed in a dial-up
network for access by cooperators and the public. The system will
enable any biologist in the Commonwealth to use a microcomputer
and a modem to access all the data on distribution, ecology,
scientific collections, and taxa- specific surveys for all
vertebrates and selected invertebrates that occur in Virginia, as
well as threatened or endangered plant and insect data compiled
by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Virginia has received GAP funding as of September 15, 1994 and
looks forward to receiving its Landsat imagery. In the meantime,
data on wildlife distribution and wildlife/habitat relationships
are being prepared. Work on the land ownership data layer is
being done by Virginia Commonwealth University. Through
cooperation with the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget,
SPOT Panchromatic data for the entire state may become available.
The Department of Planning and Budget has also increased funding
for VA-GAP. The excitement level is quite high in Virginia.
Although the state has a long history of GIS and wildlife
information system development, this project will be the first to
pull together a statewide land use and vegetation coverage. With
the exceptional support from VDGIF, the issue of implementation
at the end of the project is already resolved.
Jeff Waldon
Fish and Wildlife Information Exchange, Blacksburg
In 1994, WA-GAP made significant progress toward a Gap
Analysis for the State of Washington. A draft landcover map was
completed using a hierarchical cover type classification based on
the U.S. Forest Service's Ecoregion/Ecozone system. Nearly all
vertebrate databases have been compiled, and efforts are being
channeled into producing preliminary habitat association models
for expert review. In addition, close contact has been maintained
with WA-GAP's extensive cooperator network, working closely with
individuals around the state to provide crucial last minute input
for land cover and vertebrate distribution refinement.
Vertebrate modeling began in early August with the completion of
the landcover map. Currently, 50 maps from the bird database have
been completed. These are primarily east-side breeding birds
which inhabit shrub-steppe and grassland habitats. Maps are being
created using a combination of published data on habitat
associations and location data from the Breeding Bird Atlas
(approximately 100,000 records). Bird modeling was completed in
December 1994 with the preparation of habitat association maps
for 250 species. Mammal draft models (142 species) will be
completed in January 1995. Approximately 3,600 point locations
for the 51 herp species in the state have been digitized. The
National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) files for Washington are
already available in digital format. This information will be
used in modeling the habitat associations of species,
particularly amphibians, which utilize the micro-habitats
included in the NWI, but which are smaller than the minimum
mapping unit (100 ha).
In addition to meeting the obligations to the National GAP
Program, WA-GAP is working on several Gap Analysis related pilot
projects. One project with Dr. Gary Machlis, from the University
of Idaho, will incorporate socioeconomics into a Gap Analysis for
the Puget Sound Region. Under this project, socioeconomic data
will be overlaid onto the traditional Gap Analysis to determine
socioeconomic zones of influence for identified gap locations.
WA-GAP is involved in a pilot ecoregion analysis for the
Nisqually and Turnbull National Wildlife Refuges. In addition,
WA-GAP was awarded $100,000 by the Environmental Protection
Agency to further delineate agricultural lands within the state.
A preliminary Gap Analysis for the state will be completed early
in 1995.
Kelly Cassidy
WA Coop. Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
University of Washington, Seattle
In fiscal year 1993-94, the West Virginia GAP Project was
fully funded for the first time. Significant progress was
realized during the year in all aspects of the project. For
example, a statewide GIS data base was completed for a variety of
coverages - surface hydrology, historic land use/land cover,
elevation and topography, transportation, watershed boundaries,
wetlands, and soils. In addition, a variety of ancillary data
have been incorporated into the project database (e.g. multiple
AVHRR images and classifications, historic TM and MSS data, and
derived climate rainfall and temperature data). Models of
species/habitat relationships are under development and will be
linked with available databases from a variety of state and
federal agencies. The West Virginia project received the majority
of its imagery in June 1994 as part of the Multi-Resolution Land
Characteristics (MRLC) image acquisition. Prior to this, a mix of
available historic imagery had been utilized.
Vegetation Analysis
In WV-GAP's remote sensing work over the years, it has been
difficult to obtain suitably detailed vegetation classifications
for the highly diverse forested landscapes of the central
Appalachian Mountains. This has been particularly true for data
such as Landsat TM, using traditional remote sensing techniques.
Therefore, two different approaches that are promising for using
multi- temporal (spring/fall) images have been explored.
The first approach is a variation on Ducks Unlimited's hybrid
unsupervised/supervised clustering which was successfully used
for delineating and classifying wetlands in the northern Great
Plains. The second utilized the n-Dimensional Probability
Function algorithm, as developed by Cetin and Levandowski (1991).
The technique, while similar to traditional methods such as
Principal Components, appears to be superior in its efficiency in
processing numerous bands of data.
Work is proceeding on application of the n- dimensional algorithm
to a pilot study area in one 1:100,000 map area that includes the
most significant slope, elevation, soils, and vegetation
gradients in West Virginia. The area also includes a wide
sampling of vegetation communities and potential ranges for
terrestrial vertebrates of special concern.
Species/Habitat Relationships
Development of a first-time data base of comprehensive
habitat/species relationships has been underway since August
1993. Data are being input into the project habitat/species
database which will include all bird, mammal, herptile, and
butterfly species. Experimentation with alternative database
designs that will efficiently satisfy the aggregate data needs of
the project, while maintaining unaggregated data in forms useful
to some of the in-state cooperators, is progressing.
Additional Data Development
The necessary public lands data for West Virginia have been
collected and digitized from stable 1:100,000 and 1:24,000 base
mylars. Coordination with other state and federal efforts has
impacted the project in a variety of ways. For example, the GAP
vegetation types for West Virginia are being coordinated with the
Forest Service ECOMAP Project (which is using the Bailey
hierarchical classification) and the Mid-Atlantic Highlands EMAP
Project. Using a variation of the Arizona GAP approach, airborne
videography will support image classification. About 8,000 video
plots are planned along regular transects. These plots will be
used to classify and field-verify cover types, treating them as
ground training sites for supervised classification. In addition,
a percentage of the plots will be reserved for verification of
results and accuracy assessment.
Regular project updates are being produced for WV- GAP
cooperators and interested parties. The first of these, a
non-technical introduction to the project for study cooperators,
was mailed to over 40 individuals during spring 1994. The second,
which will be a technical introduction to project methods and
results to date, is planned for distribution during spring 1995.
Subsequent updates will address specific project components in
greater detail.
Reference: Cetin, H. and D.W. Levandowski, 1991. Interactive
classification and mapping of multi-dimensional remotely sensed
data using n-dimensional probability functions (nPDF).
Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 57(12):
1579-1587.
Sue Perry
WV Coop. Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
West Virginia University, Morgantown
Charles Yuill
West Virginia University, Morgantown
(See Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin)
Wyoming Gap Analysis (WY-GAP) is now seeing the fruits of its
hard work. Positive feedback was received from cooperators during
the April 1994 Annual WY-GAP Meeting, which Mike Jennings
attended. In 1994, the first iteration of a land cover map was
produced following the methods used by California Gap Analysis.
The map is based on 46 types which meet the National GAP
Standards. Portions of the map are currently being field-verified
by a number of cooperating agencies. The second iteration and its
data dictionary are expected to be completed by the end of
February 1995.
WY-GAP staff have also completed an initial draft of the land
status map and data dictionary. Land status was digitized for
approximately 70% of the state from paper maps at 1:100,000, and
data was adapted for 30% of the state from the Bureau of Land
Management's digitized data at 1:24,000. The digital map is
generally available and has been distributed to a number of
agencies for review.
Compilation of point data bases of vertebrate species
distributions from across the state has been completed and
includes some 660,000 data records. As part of the first phase of
mapping species distributions, WY-GAP has adopted the
Environmental Protection Agency's hexagon grid system and
"populated" the hexagons for each terrestrial
vertebrate species according to a ranking of confirmed, probable,
or possible. The hexagon distributions of species are currently
under review by state experts. Species distributions by cover
types within hexagons is expected to be completed and reviewed by
early 1995.
Staff: Tom Kohley, Ken Driese, Brad Ball, Margo Herdendorf, and
Pete Gillard. Principal investigators are Evelyn Merrill,
Department of Zoology and Physiology; William Reiners, Department
of Botany; Stanley Anderson, WY Coop Unit, and Ronald Marrs,
Department of Geology.
Evelyn Merrill
University of Wyoming, Laramie