Description: Background:Existing vegetation mapping provides basic information on the current condition of vegetation structure and composition. Beginning in 2004 the Southwestern Region developed Mid-Scale Existing Vegetation Mapping on all National Forests and Grasslands (Mellin et al. 2008). The Southwestern Region is now working with OSU’s Institute of Natural Resources to develop new mid-scale mapping with the INREV project. Mid-scale mapping is compliant with agency technical guidance for existing vegetation (Brohman and Bryant 2005, Nelson et al. 2015). For business needs of natural resource organizations, existing vegetation mapping represents an important component in an overall inventory, monitoring, and analysis framework.Application:Existing vegetation mapping is often used in combination with ecosystem type mapping such asEcological Response Units (Wahlberg et al. 2020) for purposes of landscape assessment and habitat modeling. Existing vegetation mapping can also be combined with ecological mapping such as TEUI (Winthers et al. 2006) for assessment involving Ecological Site Descriptions (Creque et al. 1999, SRM 1995). The INREV dataset is best applied and most appropriately summarized at the HUC12 subwatershed level (10,000 – 40,000 acres) or larger areal extents.
Copyright Text: Creque, J.A., S.D. Bassett, and N.E. West. 1999. Viewpoint: Delineating ecological sites. Journal of Range
Management 52: 546-549.
Mellin, T. C., F. J. Triepke, W. A. Robbie, and P. E. Joria. 2008. Mapping existing vegetation at the mid-scale level in
the Forest Service Southwestern Region. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth Biennial USDA Forest Service Remote
Sensing Applications Conference (RS-2008). Remote Sensing Applications Center, Washington Office, Washington
DC.
Nelson, M.L., Brewer, C.K., Solem, S.J., Spencer, L.A., Manning, M.E., Coles-Richie, M., Tart, D., DeMeo, T., Goetz,
W., Lister, A.J. and Megown, K., 2015. Existing vegetation classification, mapping, and inventory technical guide.
Version 2.0. Gen. Tech. Rep. WO-90. USDA Forest Service, Washington DC, USA.
SRM (Society for Rangeland Management). 1995. New concepts for assessment of rangeland condition. Journal of
Range Management 48: 271-282.
Winthers, E., D. Fallon, J. Haglund, T. DeMeo, G. Nowacki, D. Tart, M. Ferwerda, G. Robertson, A. Gallegos, A.
Rorick, D. T. Cleland, and W. Robbie. 2005. Terrestrial Ecological Unit Inventory technical guide. USDA Forest
Service Gen. Tech. Rep. WO-68. Washington Office, Washington. DC.