Friday, April 22, 2011

USGS Celebrates Earth Day 2011



Earth Day was conceived more than 40 years ago in the wake of the horrific Santa Barbara oil spill. On the one year anniversary of yet another major marine oil-spill disaster, it is important for us to remember why paying attention to our planet is so important.  See what USGS Director Marcia McNutt has to say about how the USGS celebrates Earth Day every day: Studying What Matters: Director Marcia McNutt’s 2011 Earth Day Message

Friday, April 15, 2011

Vegetation Characterization Products Now Available for Bryce Canyon National Park

USGS-National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Characterization Program (VCP) documentation for Bryce Canyon National Park has been completed and is available on the VCP Web site. Bryce Canyon National Park products include aerial photography - graphic of orthophoto mosaic, spatial orthophoto data, and flightline index; project report - photointerpretation key, vegetation descriptions, vegetation key, photos of map class, and accuracy assessment; field data - graphic of field plots, field database, physical descriptive for plots, species list for plots, and plot and AA photos; geospatial vegetation information - graphic of vegetation communities and geodatabase; accuracy assessment information - graphic of accuracy assessment points, and contingency matrix;  metadata, and a link to NPS information about Bryce Canyon National Park. The goal of the VCP is to classify and map the vegetation communities of National Parks that have a natural resource component. Complete documentation is currently available for one hundred nine park units and two U.S. Fish and Wildlife refuge units. The VCP is managed by the USGS Center for Biological Informatics in cooperation with the NPS Inventory and Monitoring Program. The USGS Vegetation Characterization effort includes the management and upkeep of the VCP protocols, Web-based access to the standards, and the Web-based access to NPS Vegetation Characterization program finished products.