Vegetation Inventory and Map for Boston Harbor Island National Recreation Area

Seals nears Graves light
Seals near Graves light

NPS Photo

Overview

The Boston Harbor Islands became a unit of the National Park System in 1996, managed by a unique Partnership. The National Park Service is taking the lead for the Partnership to collect and manage data about the park's natural resources. The park includes 34 islands that lie within the large "C" shape of Boston Harbor. The land mass of the park totals approximately 1,600 acres. The islands offer an exceptional perspective on change in the region's ecosystem. Magnificent open spaces surrounded by expanses of open water, the islands vividly illustrate the region's complex geological past and the continual effect of natural processes on their habitats, their uses, even their shapes.

The Boston Harbor Islands National Receration Area vegetation mapping project delivers many geospatial and vegetation data products, including an in-depth project report discussing methods and results, which include descriptions to vegetation associations, field keys to vegetation associations, map classification, and map-class descriptions. The suite of products also includes a database of vegetation plots, verification sites, validation sites, and accuracy assessment (AA) sites; digital images of field sites; field data sheets; digital aerial imagery; hardcopy and digital maps; a contingency table listing AA results; and a geodatabase of vegetation and land cover (map layer), field sites (vegetation plots, verification sites, validation sites, and AA sites), aerial imagery index, project boundary, and metadata.

Products

The products of vegetation mapping projects are stored and managed in the National Park Service's Data Store, a repository for documents and publications relating to park resources. From the highlighted items below, click on the type of information you are looking for.

Last updated: October 16, 2018