Baca National Wildlife Refuge and Great Sand Dunes Vegetation Mapping Project

Description

This vegetation classification and mapping effort encompasses 167,148 ha(413,031 acres ) within the San Luis Valley, west of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in south central Colorado. The mapping boundary is made up of several management units from a variety of government and private agencies (and a small amount of private property). These include the National Park Service (Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve – 60,354 ha, 149,137 acres), U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (Baca National Wildlife Refuge – 37,483 ha, 92,623 acres), U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management (Blanca Wetlands), and the Nature Conservancy (Medano-Zapata Ranch – 13,243 ha, 32,725 acres). The mapped area includes portions of Saguache and Alamosa Counties. The actual mapping boundary reflects the U.S. Forest Service fire management plan area and is thus an effort by the NPS-USGS mapping program to encompass not only lands within the NPS but also those that are in proximity and that have some type of ecological or management cohesiveness. The final map product was produced in two parts. The USFWS Baca National Wildlife Refuge was produced by USFWS personnel and the remaining portion by NatureServe, Colorado Natural Heritage Program, USGS, Bureau of Reclamation, and National Park Service staff. Constant communication between these parallel efforts allowed for consistency in both accuracy and classification. Both FWS and NPS information is presented in this ServCat Record.

Resources

Name Format Description Link
57 Summary files provided by NPS related to the whole project including complete geodatabase, various pdf maps and legends, and overall project final report. https://iris.fws.gov/APPS/ServCat/DownloadFile/199999?Reference=132476
57 Geodatabase containing final Baca vegetation files as well as invasives plants mapped at the time. https://iris.fws.gov/APPS/ServCat/DownloadFile/199996?Reference=132476
10 Summary report of Baca NWR Vegetation Mapping Project. https://iris.fws.gov/APPS/ServCat/DownloadFile/199997?Reference=132476
10 Vegetation Class Summary Descriptions. https://iris.fws.gov/APPS/ServCat/DownloadFile/199998?Reference=132476

Tags

  • great-sand-dunes-national-park
  • national-vegetation-classification-system
  • general-biology-species-plants
  • general-biology-communities-and-ecosystems-shrubland
  • vegetation
  • general-biology-communities-and-ecosystems-wetland

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