Mapping vegetation communities in Ozark National Scenic Riverways: final technical report to the National Park Service

Vegetation communities were mapped at two levels in Ozark National Scenic Riverways (ONSR) usign a hybrid combination of statistical methods and photointerpretation. The primary map includes 49 cover classes, including 24 cleasses that relate to vegetation associations currenly described by the United States National Vegetation Classification Standard (USNVC: The Nature Conservancy, 1994a). The remaining types include cultural features, ruderal communities on abandoned agricultural lands, and non-vegetated classes. Overall map classification accuarcy is 63 percent. The secondary mapping level aggregates communities with similar appearance and ecologically related associations into Community Types. The resultant 33-class Community Type map has an overall classification accuracy of 77 percent and identified groups of communities based on resource management goals within the park. Important additional products include 1) a general probability map for all vegetation associations, which can be used to assess final classification certainty, and 2) individual probability maps for each association, which can be used to identify areas that have a high likelihood of supporting a given type, beyond where that type was identified in the final map products. Other secondary map products include data layers derived from primary color-infrared imagery, secondary imagery data and digital elevation models. A field key and photo guide to associations and complete community descriptions were produced, along with a photo guide of fuel conditions. Wildland fuels data were used to generate a fuels map based upon Anderson's fuels models (1982).