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General
LANDFIRE
- The LANDFIRE Project: Supporting Fire and Land Management Across the Nation
A report describing the unique collaboration between the USDA Forest Service,
the Department of the Interior and The Nature Conservancy has been published and is now available online and in hard copy.
A 16-page, full color summary report that provides an overview of the LANDFIRE project, selected “Stories from the Field” that illustrate the value of the data and products that LANDFIRE offers and the outline of a plan to refresh and update data in years to come is now available. Individuals and entities involved in fire management, vegetation management, and conservation planning, and others who need models and maps that consistently span the conterminous United States may find this report useful.
Designed from the ground up, LANDFIRE produced consistent data products to meet Government Accountability Office requirements, especially with regard to national applications. Further, because fire management practitioners often drill down to local levels as fire policy has become more flexible regarding suppression and prescribed fire activities, LANDFIRE provides a spatially comprehensive data set that can be adapted to support local management applications in the absence of other data sets. The consistent and comprehensive nature of LANDFIRE spatial products is a key characteristic that makes them unique and important for fire management and other applications.
Among the applications of LANDFIRE products that are described in this report are:
- prioritizing restoration efforts and evaluating ecological sustainability,
- supporting partnerships,
- federal fire planning, and
- landscape-level planning processes.
Although LANDFIRE has principally been used in wildland fire applications, the depth of the data products is important for vegetation, wildlife habitat, carbon/climate assessments and management across administrative boundaries and across the country.
For further information contact Jim Smith, TNC-LANDFIRE Project Manager at jim_smith@tnc.org. Direct rRequests for hard copies of the report to Jeannie Patton, Program Coordinator, at jpatton@tnc.org. (posted 1 March 2010)
- Brochure & Map Available: Ecosystem Conditions Across the Lower 48 States
The TNC-LANDFIRE team summarized information gleaned from five years of study and analysis regarding vegetation departure across the conterminous United States by the LANDFIRE Project. “Vegetation departure” (called Fire Regime Condition Class in LANDFIRE) describes the difference between current vegetation structure and composition (as mapped from satellite imagery and plot data) and pre-European settlement reference conditions (described and modeled using literature, local data and expert input). Vegetation departure may be caused by various factors, including altered fire regimes, invasive species and/or land use practices that alter ecological communities, such as grazing and incompatible forestry practices.
The results of the team’s analysis are distilled into a tri-fold brochure and map, available in both electronic and hard copy, that is available for reference and distribution.
As shown on a national map, 80% of the naturally vegetated area in the conterminous US is moderately to highly departed from its reference condition. And, while popular expectation might be that western lands are the most imperiled, analysis shows that the eastern US demonstrates the highest degree of vegetation departure. The brochure clearly illustrates analysis results using pie charts and color bars, and can be used beyond the TNC science community to inform colleagues and constituents about current ecosystem conditions. (posted 1 March 2010)
- Modeling Manual, Adapting LANDFIRE Vegetation Dynamics Models, now available
The TNC-LANDFIRE team announces the availability of Version 1.0 of a manual, Adapting LANDFIRE Vegetation Dynamics Models, that can help ecologists and land managers evaluate and compare the costs and benefits of available management options and restoration strategies. The manual is intended to help users adapt LANDFIRE Vegetation Dynamics Models developed for Pre-European settlement conditions for use in modeling and exploring current and future landscapes. See the Technology Transfer page to download the Manual. All of the models for the U.S. (excluding Alaska and Hawaii, now in process) will be posted on landfire.gov. Both the manual and models are available on CD. To receive the CD, please contact Jeannie Patton. (posted 3 September 2009)
- TNC-LANDFIRE on WiserEarth.org
WiserEarth is an online community space connecting the people, nonprofits and businesses working toward a just and sustainable world.
This site provides documents and directions on ways to use LANDFIRE data and models to help The Nature Conservancy, the United States Fire Learning Network, federal agencies and other partners with issues surrounding biodiversity integrity, threats assessments and strategic planning at regional and national levels. The TNC-LANDFIRE site offers access to resources, samples of data use in the field, background documents, maps and presentations and answers to Frequently Asked Questions. (updated 28 August 2009)
- Updated Information Available for the West; LANDFIRE Updating Strategy
It is intended that LANDFIRE products be maintained, updated and improved over time. The first two steps in this process are funded and underway, Rapid Refresh and Refresh. In the Rapid Refresh, the existing vegetation and fuels layers (eight total) for the western states were updated to reflect known fires since 2001. This data is complete and available at www.landfire.gov. The Refresh process has just begun; vegetation and fuels layers will be updated to ca 2008 both for major disturbances such as fire, harvesting, hurricanes, etc., and known mapping errors that could be resolved. The Refresh process will take place over the next 18 months for the entire U.S. Rapid Refresh and Refresh will be stored as separate databases and will not be integrated into the original LANDFIRE National data.
A plan for long term updating and maintenance of the LANDFIRE product suite has been developed and presented to the Executive Oversight Committee (EOC). The plan includes two phases: Biennial Update and Decadal Remap. If funded, the Biennial Update process will use remote sensing technologies to update vegetation and fuels layers every two years starting in 2010. The plan includes a 100% remap of the LANDFIRE fuels and vegetation layers to be completed in 2020. This plan has neither been approved nor funded yet, although it was accepted by the EOC. All updated products will be maintained as separate data bases to facilitate temporal comparisons. (updated 28 August 2009)
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