468 



Hahitiil Assessments — Our Liviiit; Ri'soiirces 



Fig. 2. Land-cover reqiiiremenls 

 of the Multi-Resolution Land 

 Characteristics consortium land 



For further information: 



Denice M. Shaw 



EMAP Center/EPA 



MD75 



RTP.NC 27711 



C-CAP 



♦ 



It 



u 



u 



coastal 

 change 



TT 



Land-cover information 



global Eaith observational data, including the 

 development and opetation of advanced sys- 

 tems for receiving, processing, distributing, and 

 applying land-related earth science, mapping, 

 and other geographic data and information. 



NOAA: C-CAP 



The National Oceanographic and 

 Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) 

 Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) 

 develops a comprehensive, nationally standard- 

 ized information system to assess changes in 

 wetlands and adjacent uplands in U.S. coastal 

 regions. It uses satellite sensors to detect change 



in coastal emergent wetlands (mainly tidal 

 marshes) and adjacent uplands and uses aerial 

 photography to detect change in submerged 

 aquatic vegetation. The ultimate goal of the pro- 

 gram is to monitor coastal areas every I to 5 

 years, depending on the rate and magnitude of 

 change in each region. 



Approach 



Collaboration among these programs is the 

 most efficient approach (Fig. 2). Thus, the 

 MRLC generates these data according to com- 

 mon standards for content, format, accuracy, 

 and management; traditionally, environmental 

 data collected for fedeial ecological studies 

 have not been gathered according to standard or 

 common methods, resulting in data that are not 

 easily shared and in work that is duplicative. 

 The MRLC provides pailner programs and oth- 

 ers with a data base that is collected according 

 to consistent methods where possible. 



Monitoring 

 Changes in 

 Landscapes 

 from Satellite 

 Imagery 



by 



Thomas R. Loveland 



U.S. Geological Survey 



H.L. Hutcheson 



South Dakota State University 



It has been said that "a model without data has 

 no predictive power"" (Rasool 1992). The 

 need to model the extent, condition, and trends 

 in biological resources is a central element for 

 most environmental assessments. Whether the 

 issues involve biological diversity or the effects 

 of changing biogeochemical cycles, accurate 

 baseline data are essential to the environmental 

 monitoring and modeling of future environmen- 

 tal conditions. 



Methods and tools for monitoring natural 

 vegetation at the level of plots to small sites- 

 from a single square meter to millions of square 

 meters are well developed and widely used 

 (Kiichler and Zonneveld 1988), but at the 

 national level there is a lack of comprehensive 

 environmental data from which we can assess 

 national patterns of environmental diversity. 

 The early western e.xplorers conducted exten- 

 sive surveys of regional geological, topograph- 

 ic, and ethnographical resources but did not col- 

 lect enough detailed biological data that could 

 provide us with a starting point for understand- 

 ing the environmental transformations that have 

 taken place since the nation was founded. More 

 recently. Klopatek et al. (1979) tried to assess 

 the modification of natural vegetation in the 

 United States but concluded that the exercise 

 was difficult because recent land-use changes 

 were typically undocumented. As a result, 

 assessments of current environmental condi- 

 tions are too frequently based on decades-old 

 data. 



Current Estimates of 

 Vegetation Patterns 



Perhaps the best estimate of vegetation pat- 

 terns of the conterminous United States before 

 European settlement is from Kiichler's potential 

 natural vegetation (Kiichler 1964). His map of 

 the potential natural vegetation divides the 

 country into 1 16 potential vegetation types. He 

 defines potential natural vegetation as the vege- 

 tation that would exist today if humans were 

 removed from the scene and if the resulting 

 plant succession were telescoped into a single 

 moment. 



There are. however, limitations in using 

 potential natural vegetation as an indicator of 

 pre-European settlement vegetation patterns, 

 including problems related to the coarse scale of 

 the Kuchler map (1:3,1 68,000), the processes of 

 succession, and the determination of climax 

 vegetation types (Klopatek et al. 1979). 

 Kuchler, for example, attempted to show the 

 potential climax stage of vegetation, although 

 some ecosystems never reached climax because 

 of natural controls such as fire. Kuchler also 

 pointed out the difficulties and the assumptions 

 in using the terms "natural"" and "original"" veg- 

 etation. His map, however, probably represents 

 the best approximation available today of the 

 continent's vegetation before European settle- 

 ment. 



The most current picture of national land- 

 cover vegetation patterns is from a 1990 data set 



