Great Smoky Mountains National Park Vegetation Accuracy Assessment Locations

Prior to image interpretation, sufficient field reconnaissance and groundtruthing will be performed to learn, test, and verify image signatures as they relate to vegetation types in the NVCS, Version 2 and to help verify and strengthen the field vegetation key. This will occur over the field seasons of 2016-17. This process is necessary, as Hershey and Befort (1995) explain, since CIR imagery is not sufficiently consistent between image sets to allow a species or type to be described precisely. Sun angle, season, light intensity, shadow, exposure, and settings used during image processing can all affect the appearance. Therefore, even an experienced mapping team will need to engage in formal ground verification of aerial imagery. The field reconnaissance and groundtruthing process will allow the UMESC mapping team to correlate vegetative image signatures—appearances of vegetation on the aerial images—to vegetation on the ground (Figure 2). It will also allow the UMESC mapping team to become more familiar with the local ecology of vegetation types, which is critical when applying ecological concepts during image interpretation. The UMESC mapping team will perform field reconnaissance and groundtruthing. Due to the size of the park the field effort will be divided across two years. The first year will access and map the eastern half of the park (east of US 441) while the second year will access and map the western half of the park (west of US 441). Fieldwork will be facilitated by the park-built and tested cost-distance surface to maximize the data collected while minimizing the resources expended to gather that data.