Vegetation Classification and Mapping Project Appendices - USGS

USGS-NPS Vegetation Mapping Program
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park
within the types. The photo interpreters will give the selected, delineated polygons labeled with U.S.
National Vegetation Classification types to the Field Coordinator, who will be keeping a running tally of
the number of plots that still need to be established and sampled for each type.
The Field Coordinator will give you and your field partner your assignments based on the tally. You, your
partner, and the Field Coordinator will be evaluating the data you collect in the field, assigning a second
(still preliminary) vegetation type, and updating the tally of vegetation types x number of plots still
needed. This tally will be updated approximately every two weeks during the field season. The goal of
this constant feedback and revision is to use your time as efficiently as possible: we are trying our best to
avoid oversampling of some types and undersampling of others. Deciding where to sample to capture the
full range of diversity over the Park is going to be very much an iterative process as the field season goes
along!
Getting There
Once you’ve been given an ‘assignment’ by your Field Coordinator, what you’ll actually have in-hand is
a photo print with a transparency of delineated vegetation types. (The polygons will, of course, be various
sizes, dependent on how extensive the vegetation type is.) You will also have a Digital Ortho Quarter
Quad (DOQQ) with the BPU's you are to sample indicated with red lines, and a yellow dot within each
selected BPU unit indicating the representative. You and your partner will navigate towards each selected
BPU using your road and trail maps, the DOQQ and photo, and/or GPS, along with guidance from your
Field Coordinator. The DOQQ's will have roads and trails highlighted on them to help you as well.
(You’ll be concentrating on ‘zones’ of the Park in sequence, so you won’t have to traipse all over the Park
to do your field work.)
Before you leave... check that you have all the materials needed to complete your field work (Please see
the checklist and “considerations for mission planning” at the end of this document to help you).
Every single morning... check your GPS receiver to make sure it is set to NAD 83.
and
Along the way... look around. Digital data layers are great, but they do not replace human perception. If,
on the way to one vegetation type, you see an assemblage of plants that seems unique and that you think
is not included on the list of vegetation types to be sampled, use your radio to contact the Field
Coordinator. If there are multiple teams working and you may potentially overlap with vegetation types
they are sampling on a given day, be sure to contact them using your radios and discuss what you have
found, so that efforts are not duplicated or opportunities missed. You and the field coordinator or other
team may decide to change your plans and sample the vegetation pattern you discovered. This will be
more likely to occur as the season progresses and you become more familiar with the vegetation types and
how they can look on the ground.
Establishing a Plot
Once There
1) Figure out where to place your plot. This is a subjective process. You’ll want to place your plots in
areas that seem to be both relatively homogenous and representative of the vegetation of the polygon as
a whole. In other words, avoid areas where the vegetation appears to be transitioning from one type to
another, and areas with anomalous or heterogeneous structure or species composition. Take some time to
do this carefully, because the plots you set up will be permanent; relocated and resampled over time in
order to determine responses to management and other useful things. Look at all the vegetation strata to
Appendix C: Plot Sampling Form and Field Manual C-6