The vegetation mapping program is an important part of the NPS Inventory and Monitoring Program, a long-term effort to develop baseline data for all national park units that have a natural resource component. It is jointly managed by the USGS Center for Biological Informatics and the National Park Service’s Inventory and Monitoring Program.

Program activities are based on peer-reviewed, objective science. Comprehensive vegetation information is provided at national and regional levels, while also serving local management needs of individual parks. Stringent quality control procedures ensure that products are accurate and consistent for initial inventory purposes and replicable for monitoring purposes. The spatially enabled digital products produced by the program are available on the World Wide Web.

Program scientists have developed data collection procedures for classification, mapping, accuracy assessment, and use of existing data. Program products meet Federal Geographic Data Committee standards for vegetation classification and metadata, and national standards for spatial accuracy and data transfer. Standards include a minimum mapping unit of 0.5 hectares and classification accuracy of 80% for each map class. Nature Serve, an important partner in the USGS-NPS Vegetation Mapping program, is the caretaker of the National Vegetation Classification System, which is used by the program to classify vegetation communities.

A report of project methods and results is provided at completion of individual projects. Project results include a rich set of data and information for each park project, as follows: