Big Sagebrush Percent - Provisional Remote Sensing Shrub/Grass NLCD Products for the Great Basin
Dates
Publication Date
2016-03-31
Start Date
2013
End Date
2014
Citation
U.S. Geological Survey, 20160331, Provisional Remote Sensing Shrub/Grass NLCD Products for the Great Basin: .
Summary
Accurate and consistent estimates of shrubland ecosystem components are crucial to a better understanding of ecosystems condition in arid and semiarid lands. We developed an innovative approach by integrating multiple information to quantify shrubland components as continuous field products within the National Land Cover Database (NLCD). The approach consists of five major parts: field sample collection, high-resolution mapping of shrubland components using WorldView-2 imagery and regression tree models, Landsat 8 radiometric balancing and phenological mosaicking, coarse resolution estimate of shrubland components across a large geographic extent using Landsat 8 phenological mosaics and regression tree models, and product validation. [...]
Summary
Accurate and consistent estimates of shrubland ecosystem components are crucial to a better understanding of ecosystems condition in arid and semiarid lands. We developed an innovative approach by integrating multiple information to quantify shrubland components as continuous field products within the National Land Cover Database (NLCD). The approach consists of five major parts: field sample collection, high-resolution mapping of shrubland components using WorldView-2 imagery and regression tree models, Landsat 8 radiometric balancing and phenological mosaicking, coarse resolution estimate of shrubland components across a large geographic extent using Landsat 8 phenological mosaics and regression tree models, and product validation. Fractional cover of annual herbaceous, bare ground, big sagebrush, herbaceous, litter, sagebrush, shrub, as well as sagebrush and shrub heights, were estimated. Results show that most components have relatively significant correlations with validation data, small normalized root mean square errors, and correspond well with expected ecological gradients While some uncertainties remain with height estimates, the model formulated in this study provides an operational, cross-validated, and unbiased approach to quantify shrubland components at a regional scale and advances knowledge of horizontal and vertical variability of these components.These products also provide a foundation for future monitoring of change.
The goal of this project is to provide a rigorous large-area shrubland-habitat classification and inventory with statistically validated products and estimates of precision.This first release is of the provisional products.
