Vegetation Characterization Products Now Available for Fort Donelson National Battlefield and Stones River National Battlefield

USGS-National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Characterization Program (VCP) documentation for Fort Donelson National Battlefield and Stones River National Battlefield has been completed and is available on the VCP Web site. Products include aerial photography - graphic of orthophoto mosaic, and flight line index; project report - vegetation description and key, Cumberland-Piedmont network report - photointerpretation, GIS operations; accuracy assessment report - accuracy assessment methods and results; field data - graphic of field plots, field plots database, physical descriptive for plots, and species list for plots; geospatial vegetation information - graphics of vegetation communities, geodatabase, and plot and AA photos; accuracy assessment information - graphic of accuracy assessment points, and contingency matrix; metadata, and a link to NPS information about Fort Donelson National Battlefield and Stones River National Battlefield. 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 two 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.

(Photo: Fort Donelson National Battlefield, courtesy of the USGS Vegetation Characterization Program website.)