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Home > Outreach & Education > Introduction to Vegetation Mapping

Introduction to Vegetation Mapping

Outreach & Education
Vegetation maps allow land managers to inventory vegetation and monitor wildlife habitat while also providing a visual aid for management decisions. This course will lead the students through the entire process of creating a vegetation map from acquiring data, following classification guidelines, to accuracy assessments and metadata.

Objectives

  • Project Design
  • Introduction to Vegetation classification System
  • Vegetation Interpretation and Delineation
  • Creating a Vegetation Classification
  • Field Sampling Techniques
  • Accuracy Assessments
  • Application of Vegetation Maps
Overview
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Contact
Who Should Attend
  

Employees of federal, state, local, and foreign natural resource agencies, NGOs, universities, private businesses and large land owners . Knowledge of GIS and remote sensing principles is helpful but not necessary. The class includes both instructor-led sessions and hands-on exercises. Handouts and other materials are provided to participants.

 
Syllabus
  

Day 1

  • Project Design, Scoping and Planning (Discussion)
  • Introduction to vegetation classification systems (Discussion)
  • Preliminary Data (Discussion, Lab)
    i. Availability
    ii. Costs
    iii. Accessibility
  • Vegetation Interpretation and Delineation Techniques (Discussion, Lab)
  • Review and Design of Example Project - Vegetation Mapping on NCTC (Discussion, Lab)

Day 2

  • Creating a vegetation classification (Discussion, Lab)
    i. Vegetation Classification Theory
    ii. A Priori Vegetation Classification
    iii. Site Specific Vegetation Classification
  • Field sampling techniques (Discussion, Lab)
    i. Plot Allocation
    ii. Use of Vegetation Community Keys
    iii. Example of a Detailed Vegetation Sampling Method
  • Vegetation Interpretation for Example Project (Discussion, Lab)
    i. Summarization and analysis of Field data
    ii. Creation of Site Specific Classification System.

Day 3

  • Completion of lab exercise (Lab)
  • Accuracy assessments (Discussion, Lab)
  • Applications of vegetation maps
 
Contact  
Andrew Rosenberger
1900 Kraft Drive Suite 250
Moss Building, Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24060
Phone:(540) 231-7348
E-mail: anrosenb@vt.edu