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VEGETATION CLASSIFICATION AND MAPPING
AT
RICHMOND NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD PARK,
VIRGINIA
Technical Report NPS/NER/NRTR—2008/128
Karen D. Patterson
Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation
Division of Natural Heritage
217 Governor Street, 3rd Floor
Richmond, VA 23219
June 2008
U.S. Department of the Interior
National Park Service
Northeast Region
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
___________________________
Summary
Accurate and
up-to-date vegetation maps are recognized by the National Park Service
(NPS) Inventory and Monitoring Program as one of twelve basic data sets
for every national park with significant natural resources. The National
Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have put forth
standards and protocols for classification and mapping of vegetation
communities on NPS lands. The USGS-NPS Vegetation Mapping Program recognizes
the United States National Vegetation Classification (USNVC) as the
standard vegetation classification to be used in these mapping projects.
Vegetation data collected from seven national parks in Virginia were
combined with over 2,000 existing plot samples from throughout the Mid-Atlantic
Piedmont and Coastal Plain and used to refine the USNVC for the mid-Atlantic
region. This classification was used to map and describe the vegetation
at the seven national parks in Virginia.
This report documents the classification and mapping of vegetation at
Richmond National Battlefield Park. Twenty-one map classes representing
13 USNVC associations, five nonstandard, park-specific vegetation classes,
and three Anderson Level II land-use categories were used to map the
570 ha (1407 ac) park. Vegetation map classes were determined through
extensive field reconnaissance, data collection, and analysis. Aerial
photography from 2001 served as the base map, and field sampling was
conducted from 2002–2006. Spatial data were digitized onscreen
over digital orthophoto mosaics created from scanned color infrared,
stereo pair 1:6,000 scale aerial photography using a 0.5 hectare minimum
mapping unit.
Early successional or transitional vegetation covers 32% of the land
in the park (180 ha; 444 ac). Cultural map classes cover 25% (144 ha;
355 ac) of the park and include the Anderson land-use categories and
other man-made or maintained areas in the park. Seven map classes representing
later successional vegetation cover 43% of the land in the park (243
ha; 600 ac). The seven map classes can be broadly characterized based
on different environmental settings as upland forests (3 map classes)
and forested wetlands (4 map classes).
A vegetation map of Richmond National Battlefield Park was created following
the USGS-NPS
Vegetation Mapping Program protocols. Vegetation map classes were crosswalked
to the natural communities of Virginia and to the USNVC in order to
provide a regional and global context for the park’s vegetation.
Seventy-one randomly selected accuracy assessment sampling points were
collected throughout the park and used to assess the thematic accuracy
of the map. The Kappa Index for the final vegetation map was 84.4 ±
10.2%, with an overall accuracy of 85.9%.
A field key to the map classes, and detailed descriptions for map classes,
or associations within a map class, were developed to assist with field
recognition and classification. Additional products associated with
this project include leaf-on and leaf-off orthophoto mosaics, a database
of vegetation plot data and accuracy assessment data, digital photos
of vegetation associations, and spatial data files for the vegetation
map, plot sample points, and accuracy assessment sample points with
associated Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)-compliant metadata.
Products for Richmond National Battlefield Park and similar national
park vegetation mapping projects can be accessed at the USGS-NPS Vegetation
Mapping Program website: http://biology.usgs.gov/npsveg/.
Keywords: vegetation association, vegetation classification, vegetation
mapping, Richmond National Battlefield Park.
__________________________
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The Body of the Report
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Appendix A through Appendix I: Early Successional/Transitional Vegetation
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Appendix I: Acidic Oak Hickory Forest to end of report