Table 2. Basic components and categories of the National Site (Land) 

 Classification System for Renewable Resources. ° 



Vegetation Soil Landform Aquatic (water) 

 Components" Components'^ Components" Components" 



Formation Class Order 



Fornnation Subclass Suborder 



Formation Group Great Group 



Formation Subgroup 



Subformation Family 



Series Series 

 Association 



Others as needed Others as needed 



"It must not be construed that equivalency exists between apparent similar 

 levels of the component systems. For example, a Vegetation Formation — 

 Soil Subgroup — should not be equated on a 1:1 basis. Integrated (elemental) 

 landscape units are formed by combining component classes of the hierar- 

 chies to define ecological units which should be expected to respond sim- 

 ilarly to management treatments and practices at different levels of 

 generalization. 



"Adapted from UNESCO. ^^ The Series and Association classes are extensions 

 of the UNESCO System and are subsequently defined in Merkel et al.^* 



"^The Soil Taxonomy^® used by the U.S. National Cooperative Soil Survey. 



■^Under development; the landform component considering both genetic and 

 morphometric approaches. The water (aquatic) component considering 

 water as a medium to support life on and in the water. 



Although each of these federal agencies has special information needs and separate 

 classification systems to meet those needs, all are currently working together to 

 attempt to develop common or compatible systems. This interagency cooperation is 

 designed to produce a truly multipurpose classification system for multiagency use in 

 inventory programs. 



For comprehensive discussion of current problems associated with development of 

 classification systems, see the special issue on classification in the Journal of Forestry 

 (October 1978), and the Proceedings, National Symposium on Classification, 

 Inventory, and Analysis of Fish and Wildlife Habit at. ^^ 



FUTURE NEEDS 



The development of an ecological land classification system is not yet complete. 

 The following three major tasks remain: 



22 



