Resources
This section provides summaries of datasets displayed on the Southern Forests for the Future map viewer and links to further information and instructions on how to obtain this data.
Summaries:
Forest Cover Gain/Loss
Composition
Ownership
Protection
Fragmentation
Suburbanization
Fire
Pests & Diseases
Climate
Forestry
Forest Cover Gain/Loss
The Forest Cover Gain/Loss theme displays information on change in forests for two time intervals: 1992-2001 and 2001-2006. The datasets show areas where forest cover was gained or lost during those time periods and determine the type of change that was observed. The 1992-2001 layer was developed from the NLCD 1992/2001 Retrofit Land Cover Change Product and the 2001-2006 layer was developed from the NLCD 2006 Land Cover Change Product. Both datasets were produced by the by Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium (MRLC) (http://www.mrlc.gov), led by the US Geological Survey. These datasets provide land cover change information based on analyses of land cover in 1992, 2001, and 2006 utilizing Landsat satellite imagery.
The datasets were prepared for use in the map viewer by selecting the land cover change information related to change in forest cover and clipping the national datasets to the southern U.S.
For more information on and to download MRLC’s Land Cover Change Products, please see http://www.mrlc.gov/finddata.php.
Dataset credit: USGS National Land Cover Database, 1992-2001 Change (2003); USGS National Land Cover Database, 2001-2006 Change (2011)
Publication citations:
Fry, J.A., Coan, M.J., Homer, C.G., Meyer, D.K., and Wickham, J.D., 2009, Completion of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 1992–2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit product: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2008–1379, 18 p.
Fry, J., Xian, G., Jin, S., Dewitz, J., Homer, C., Yang, L., Barnes, C., Herold, N., and Wickham, J., 2011. Completion of the 2006 National Land Cover Database for the Conterminous United States, PE&RS, Vol. 77 (9):858-864.
Composition
The Composition map shows major forest types of the southern United States, as delineated in the National Forest Types Dataset. This dataset, produced by the USDA Forest Service, portrays 28 forest type groups across the contiguous United States. These data were derived from MODIS composite images from the 2002 and 2003 growing seasons in combination with nearly 100 other geospatial data layers, including elevation, slope, aspect, ecoregions, and PRISM climate data. The dataset was developed as a collaborative effort between the USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis and Forest Health Monitoring programs and the USFS Remote Sensing Applications Center.
Dataset credit: USDA Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (2008)
Publication citation:
Ruefenacht, B.; Finco, M.V.; Nelson, M.D.; Czaplewski, R.; Helmer, E.H.; Blackard, J. A.; Holden, G.R.; Lister, A.J.; Salajanu, D.; Weyermann, D.; Winterberger, K. 2008. Conterminous U.S. and Alaska Forest Type Mapping Using Forest Inventory and Analysis Data. Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing Vol. 74, No. 11, November 2008, pp. 1379-1388.
To download the National Forest Types Dataset, and view the full metadata, see:
http://svinetfc4.fs.fed.us/rastergateway/forest_type/
Ownership
The Ownership map shows the pattern of public and private forest ownership in the southern United States, as delineated in a USDA Forest Service dataset, Forest Ownership of the Conterminous United States. This dataset maps forest ownership in the conterminous United States (CONUS) and differentiates forest from nonforest land and water, public forest land from that under private ownership, and quantifies the percent of private forest land in corporate ownership (10-percent classes). This dataset was compiled by the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, Northern Research Station, Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) (http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/fia/).
Dataset credit: Forest Ownership of the Conterminous United States (in preparation), 2010, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, Northern Research Station, Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Publication citation:
Nelson, Mark D.; Liknes, Greg C.; Butler, Brett J. 2010. Forest ownership in the conterminous United States: ForestOwn250 geospatial dataset. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. RDS-2010-0001.
For more information on the Forest Ownership of the Conterminous United States dataset, contact the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/fia/
Protection
The Protection map shows protected areas in the southern United States, their degree of protection, and their ownership as mapped in the Protected Area Database of the United States (PAD-US v1), produced by the US Geological Survey National Gap Analysis Program, and supported by a partnership including the US Geological Survery, Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, the Conservation Biology Institute, The Nature Conservancy, and the Land Trust Alliance, with coordination provided by GreenInfo Network.
The Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) maps protected area boundaries and combines attributes of ownership, management, and a measure of intent to manage for biodiversity. The map includes:
Geographic boundaries of public land ownership and voluntarily provided private conservation lands (e.g., Nature Conservancy Preserves);
Combination of land owner/ manager, management designation descriptor, parcel name, and source of geographic information of each mapped land unit;
USGS National Gap Analysis Program (GAP) protection level category status codes which are intended to provide a measurement of management commitment for long-term biodiversity conservation;
IUCN category for a protected area’s inclusion into UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre’s World Database for Protected Areas. Dataset credit: Protected Areas Database of the United States, US Geological Survey National Gap Analysis Program (2009)
To download the Protected Area Database of the United States (PAD-US v1), and view the full metadata, see http://gapanalysis.nbii.gov/PADUS/
Fragmentation
The Fragmentation map shows the relative “wildness” of ecosystems in the southern United States, as well as remaining intact forest landscapes. The Wilderness Society created Relative Wildness in the United States to capture not only important elements of ecological integrity, but aspects of the land relating to the human experience of a place, like its remoteness and its provision of solitude. This map depicts an index of wildness created by combining information representing this naturalness and freedom—population density, distance from roads, pollution, and ecosystem composition, structure, and function.
The World Resources Institute and Greenpeace created the Intact Forest Landscapes (IFL) dataset as the first global assessment of large undeveloped forest areas based on high spatial resolution satellite imagery. An IFL is an unbroken expanse of natural ecosystems within the zone of current forest extent, showing no signs of significant human activity, and large enough that all native biodiversity, including viable populations of wide-ranging species, could be maintained.
Dataset credits:
Relative Wildness in the United States, 2008, Center for Landscape Analysis, The Wilderness Society
World Intact Forest Landscapes, 2006, the World Resources Institute and Greenpeace.
Publication citations:
Aplet, Gregory; Thomson, Janice; Wilbert, Mark. Indicators of Wildness: Using attributes of the Land to Assess the Context of Wilderness in McCool, Stephen F.; Cole, David N.; Borrie, William T.; O’Loughlin, Jennifer, comps. 2000. Wilderness science in a time of change conference—Volume 2; Wilderness in the context of larger ecosystems; 1999 May 23-27; Missoula MT, Proceeding RMRS-P-15-VOL-2. Ogden, UT; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station.
Potapov P., Yaroshenko A., Turubanova S., Dubinin M., Laestadius L., Thies C., Aksenov D., Egorov A., Yesipova Y., Glushkov I., Karpachevskiy M., Kostikova A., Manisha A., Tsybikova E., Zhuravleva I. 2008. Mapping the World’s Intact Forest Landscapes by Remote Sensing. Ecology and Society, 13 (2).
To download the Relative Wildness in the United States dataset and view full metadata, see:
http://www.arcgisonline.com/home/item.html?id=33fbfd2697134c00bc66b4a7b4…
To download the World Intact Forest Landscapes and read more about this dataset, see http://www.intactforests.org
Suburbanization
The Suburbanization map shows the growth of urban and suburban areas from 1940 to 2000 and projects this growth to 2030. Housing Density in the United States from 1940 to 2030 is a nationwide, fine-grained database of historical, current, and forecasted housing density, which enables these changes to be quantified as a foundation for inference of possible ecological effects. Forecasted patterns were generated by the Spatially Explicit Regional Growth Model, which relates historical growth patterns with accessibility to urban and protected lands. This dataset describes the status and trend of exurban land-use changes across the U.S., and to introduces a landscape sprawl metric that captures patterns of land-use change.
Dataset credit: Dr. David M. Theobald, Human Dimensions of Natural Resources and Natural Resource Ecology Lab, Colorado State University, 15 June 2009 (update from original of 10 March 2008).
Publication citation:
Theobald, D. 2005. Landscape patterns of exurban growth in the USA from 1980 to 2020. Ecology and Society 10(1): 32. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol10/iss1/art32/ To obtain this dataset, contact Dr. David M. Theobald, Colorado State University, www.nrel.colostate.edu/~davet.
Fire
The Fire map shows current drought conditions and fire activity over the past 48 hours in the southern United States.
The Active Fire Hotspots (last 48 hours) dataset is produced by the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), a program of the University of Maryland. UMD FIRMS delivers global near real-time fire information to users to support fire managers around the World. The active fire locations are processed by the MODIS Rapid Response System using the standard MODIS MOD14/MYD14 Fire and Thermal Anomalies Product. Each active fire location represents the center of a 1 km pixel that is flagged by the algorithm as containing a fire within the pixel. In the near future, FIRMS will also provide burned area data.
Weekly drought maps are produced by the US Drought Monitor, a project of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. The Drought Monitor provides a weekly overview of where in the United States drought is emerging, lingering, subsiding or forecast. The Monitor is produced jointly by the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Dataset credits:
Active Fire Hotspots (last 48 hours), 2010, University of Maryland, Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS);
U.S. Drought Monitor, 2010, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, National Drought Mitigation Center
Publication citation:
Davies, D.K., Ilavajhala, S., Wong, M.M., and Justice, C.O. 2009. Fire Information for Resource Management System: Archiving and Distributing MODIS Active Fire Data. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 47 (1): 72-79.
To access the UMD FIRMS Active Fire Data and other data resources, see http://maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/firedata.htm
To access the US Drought Monitor data, see http://drought.unl.edu/dm/index.html
Pests & Diseases
The Pest & Diseases map shows where southern U.S. forests are most vulnerable to insects and disease. This map features the National Insect and Disease Risk Map, 2006. The primary goal of the 2006 risk assessment is to provide a strategic assessment for risk of tree mortality due to major insects and diseases. For this report, the threshold for mapping risk is: the expectation that, without remediation, 25 percent or more of the standing live basal area1 (BA) on trees greater than 1 inch in diameter will die over the next 15 years due to insects and diseases.
Dataset credit:
National Insect and Disease Risk Map, 2006, USDA Forest Service, Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team (FHTET)
Publication citation:
USDA Forest Service, Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team (FHTET). 2006. Mapping Risk from Forest Insects and Diseases. FHTET 2007-06. Available online: http://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/technology/pdfs/FHTET2007-06_RiskMap.pdf
To access the National Insect and Disease Risk Map and view full metadata see http://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/technology/nidrm.shtml
Climate
The Climate map shows climate change’s potential impacts on coastal southern U.S. forests, particularly forests that could be inundated by rising sea levels or affected by storm surges. The Sea Level Rise dataset was created by the Center for the Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) at the University of Kansas to simulate a theoretical global sea level rise of one to six meters with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and to develop multiple products for visualizing the inundation and its effects, including static maps, map animations, and layers viewable in Google Earth.
Sea level rise or inundation zones were calculated from the Global Land One-km Base Elevation (GLOBE) digital elevation model (DEM) (Hastings and Dunbar 1998), a raster elevation dataset covering the entire world. Potentially inundated areas were computed based on elevation and proximity to the current ocean shoreline.
For use in the Southern Forests website, potential impacts were categorized as sea level rise for increases up to 2m, and as areas potentially affected by storm surges over 2m and up to 6m.
Dataset credit: Sea Level Rise Maps and GIS Data, 2009, Center for the Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS), University of Kansas To learn more about the Sea Level Rise Mapsand download the GIS data, see https://www.cresis.ku.edu/research/data/sea_level_rise/index.html
Forestry
The Forestry map shows changes in southern forests between 1992 and 2001 that are associated with forestry activities, such as timber harvesting and regrowth.
This theme was developed from the Retrofit Land Cover Change Dataset, produced by the by Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium (MRLCC) (http://www.mrlc.gov), led by the US Geological Survey. This dataset provides land cover change information based on analyses of land cover in 1992 and 2001, utilizing Landsat satellite imagery.
The Land Cover Change Dataset was prepared for use in the map viewer by selecting the land cover change information related to forestry activities and clipping the national dataset to the southern U.S. The dataset classes corresponding to forestry activities included changes to and from forest to barren land, to grassland/shrub, and in some cases to agriculture. Due to the time period of the analysis and the 9-year gap between the two time steps, this analysis likely only captures a portion of forestry-related changes.
Dataset credit: USGS National Landcover Database, 1992-2001 Change (2003)
Publication citation: Fry, J.A., Coan, M.J., Homer, C.G., Meyer, D.K., and Wickham, J.D., 2009, Completion of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 1992–2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit product: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2008–1379, 18 p.
For more information on the Retrofit Land Cover Change Dataset, please see http://www.mrlc.gov/changeproduct.php.
To download the Retrofit Land Cover Change Dataset see http://www.mrlc.gov/multizone.php.