Description: The National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Mapping Inventory (VMI) Program is an effort to classify, describe, and map existing vegetation communities in national park units across the United States. The NPS VMI Program is managed by the NPS Natural Resource Stewardship and Science (NRSS) Inventory and Monitoring Program (IMP) and provides baseline vegetation information to natural resource managers, researchers, and ecologists. The U.S. Geological Survey Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, NatureServe, and NPS Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM) have completed vegetation classification and mapping of GRSM for the NPS VMI Program.
Mappers, ecologists, and botanists collaborated to affirm vegetation types within the U.S. National Vegetation Classification (USNVC) of GRSM and to determine how best to map them by using aerial imagery. To map the vegetation and land cover of GRSM, 52 map classes were developed. Of these 52 map classes, 46 represent natural (including ruderal) vegetation types consisting of 90 USNVC association types, 1 park-special type, 1 map-special type, and 1 USNVC cultural type. For the remaining 6 of the overall 52 map classes, 4 represent USNVC cultural types for agricultural and developed areas, and 2 represent non-USNVC types for non-vegetated open water and non-vegetated rock. Features were interpreted from viewing digital aerial imagery using onscreen three-dimensional stereoscopic workflow systems in geographic information systems. (Digital aerial imagery was collected at three separate time periods in September and October 2015.) The interpreted data were digitally and spatially referenced, thus making the spatial-database layers usable in a geographic information system. Polygon units were mapped to either a 0.5-hectare (ha) or 0.25-ha minimum mapping unit (MMU), depending on vegetation type.
This feature class (vegetation-map polygons) provides locations of map-class information to 36,589 polygons covering 210,875.1 ha, with an average polygon size of 6.2 ha; the vegetation map covers the extent of the GRSM and Foothills Parkway. This feature class is associated with a series of relate tables providing classification to natural (including ruderal) and cultural vegetation types in the USNVC and to accuracy assessment (AA) results of map classes representing natural (including ruderal) vegetation types in the USNVC.
Copyright Text: USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, NatureServe, NPS Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and NPS Vegetation Mapping Inventory Program
Description: The National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Mapping Inventory (VMI) Program is an effort to classify, describe, and map existing vegetation communities in national park units across the United States. The NPS VMI Program is managed by the NPS Natural Resource Stewardship and Science (NRSS) Inventory and Monitoring Program (IMP) and provides baseline vegetation information to natural resource managers, researchers, and ecologists. The U.S. Geological Survey Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, NatureServe, and NPS Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM) have completed vegetation classification and mapping of GRSM for the NPS VMI Program.
Mappers, ecologists, and botanists collaborated to affirm vegetation types within the U.S. National Vegetation Classification (USNVC) of GRSM and to determine how best to map them by using aerial imagery. To map the vegetation and land cover of GRSM, 52 map classes were developed. Of these 52 map classes, 46 represent natural (including ruderal) vegetation types consisting of 90 USNVC association types, 1 park-special type, 1 map-special type, and 1 USNVC cultural type. For the remaining 6 of the overall 52 map classes, 4 represent USNVC cultural types for agricultural and developed areas, and 2 represent non-USNVC types for non-vegetated open water and non-vegetated rock. Features were interpreted from viewing digital aerial imagery using onscreen three-dimensional stereoscopic workflow systems in geographic information systems. (Digital aerial imagery was collected at three separate time periods in September and October 2015.) The interpreted data were digitally and spatially referenced, thus making the spatial-database layers usable in a geographic information system. Polygon units were mapped to either a 0.5-hectare (ha) or 0.25-ha minimum mapping unit (MMU), depending on vegetation type.
This feature class (vegetation-map polygons) provides locations of map-class information to 36,589 polygons covering 210,875.1 ha, with an average polygon size of 6.2 ha; the vegetation map covers the extent of the GRSM and Foothills Parkway. This feature class is associated with a series of relate tables providing classification to natural (including ruderal) and cultural vegetation types in the USNVC and to accuracy assessment (AA) results of map classes representing natural (including ruderal) vegetation types in the USNVC.
Copyright Text: USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, NatureServe, NPS Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and NPS Vegetation Mapping Inventory Program
ID: Mixed Oak - White Pine Forest
Name: Mixed Oak - White Pine Forest
Domains:
Field Name: VITAL_VEG Inherited
Templates:
Name: Mixed Oak - White Pine Forest
Description:
Drawing Tool: esriFeatureEditToolPolygon
Prototype:
Attributes:
MC_NAME: Mixed Oak - White Pine Forest
ID: Southern Appalachian White Pine Forest
Name: Southern Appalachian White Pine Forest
Domains:
Field Name: VITAL_VEG Inherited
Templates:
Name: Southern Appalachian White Pine Forest
Description:
Drawing Tool: esriFeatureEditToolPolygon
Prototype:
Attributes:
MC_NAME: Southern Appalachian White Pine Forest
ID: Blue Ridge Table Mountain Pine - Pitch Pine Woodland (High-Elevation Type)
Name: Blue Ridge Table Mountain Pine - Pitch Pine Woodland (High-Elevation Type)
Domains:
Field Name: VITAL_VEG Inherited
Templates:
Name: Blue Ridge Table Mountain Pine - Pitch Pine Woodland (High-Elevation Type)
Description:
Drawing Tool: esriFeatureEditToolPolygon
Prototype:
Attributes:
MC_NAME: Blue Ridge Table Mountain Pine - Pitch Pine Woodland (High-Elevation Type)
ID: Yellow Pine - (Dry Oak) Woodland
Name: Yellow Pine - (Dry Oak) Woodland
Domains: