Geospatial data for the Vegetation Mapping Inventory Project of El Malpais National Monument

The files linked to this reference are the geospatial data created as part of the completion of the baseline vegetation inventory project for the NPS park unit. Current format is ArcGIS file geodatabase but older formats may exist as shapefiles.

the draft final map was subjected to a heads-up screen digitizing edit using the most recent aerial photography. Accordingly, we accessed recent imagery through 2012 Microsoft Corporation Bing Imagery, available via ESRI ArcGis 10.0. As with all Bing imagery, the exact image date is not provided, but a search of the Digital Globe library indicates three possible dates: 2009-01-13, 2011-11-18, 2012-01-09, or a combination thereof. We think that it is not likely that the 2012 imagery had been posted to Bing, and that the 2011 imagery is the most likely candidate. We were also able to bring directly in additional 2009 New Mexico county imagery, and 2005 NAIP color-infrared and natural-color imagery at 1 m resolution. During the final edit, the thematic composition and number of Level 1 and 2 map units were finalized and the final map product produced using NPS cartographic standards. While the minimum mapping requirements were at 1:24,000 scale with map unit delineations or polygons at 0.5 ha or larger, most of the final line work was completed at an operational scale between 1:12,000 and 1:3,000. Hence, polygons down to 0.25 ha were often maintained. For final map production, adjacent polygons of the same class were merged. Final map products included the geodatabase and a 1:44,000 poster map at Level 1 and 2.