Raster maps of vegetation height, land cover, and probability of willow in Alaska

• Main Authors: Coan, Michael J., Vargas-Kretsinger, Delia, Wylie, Bruce K., Guldager, Nikki, Rockhill, Aimee
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: U.S. Geological Survey 2017
• Subjects: USGS Data Release; Eros; Yukon; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5066/f7sj1htm; https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/58dd857de4b02ff32c685a02

Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge (YKF NWR) and Koyukuk NWR (KUK NWR), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), initiated a project with the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center to acquire map products needed for moose habitat assessment. The objective of this work was to create a suite of products which included: Estimated Vegetation Heights, percent of Willow-Not Willow Estimates, and Vegetation Type Maps. These products are based on spectral characteristics found in bands 2 through 7 of Landsat 8 OLI scenes processed to surface reflectances, acquired in summer of 2013, and late winter of 2014. Training data was collected by fixed wing aircraft and helicopter by USFWS refuge staff, and extrapolated by the methods described. This project, Yukon Flats NWR willow mapping (PI: Delia Vargas Kretsinger) was funded through the USFWS Inventory and Monitoring program via an Interagency Agreement between the USGS EROS and the USFWS Alaska Regional Office. The data products are provisional in nature and are intended to support USFWS land management decisions. These data have not been validated with independent test data but received favorable qualitative assessment by local field experts. These map products were needed to compare moose winter habitat composition and distribution among low and high density moose population areas of YKF and KUK, respectively. Map products will provide the basis for further assessment of browse species composition, structure, annual production and availability to moose among the different density areas. Lastly, these data sets are intended to be used in spatially explicit moose population models.