Fractional Estimates of Multiple Exotic Annual Grass (EAG) Species and Sandberg bluegrass in the Sagebrush Biome, USA, 2016 - 2020

These datasets provide historical (2016 – 2020) estimates of fractional cover for exotic annual grass (EAG) species and a native perennial bunch grass. The study area covers arid and semi-arid rangelands of the western U.S. Four fractional cover maps per year comprise this release, along with the corresponding confidence maps, for: 1) a group of 17 species of EAGs; 2) cheatgrass (Bromus tectrorum); 3) medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae); and 4) Sandberg bluegrass (poa secunda). These datasets were generated leveraging field observations from Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) plots; remotely sensed data from the Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) product, i.e., Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI); other relevant environmental, vegetation, remotely sensed, and geophysical drivers; and artificial intelligence/machine learning techniques. Data from 17,536 AIM plots from years 2016 – 2019 were used to train an ensemble of regression-tree models to develop the maps.