Terrestrial Condition Assessment (TCA) Recent Drought Impacts (Image Service)

Direct Download (Raster Data Gateway)

Objective: Characterize current moisture deficit and surplus relative to the long-term average.

Data: The indicator represents areas of moisture deficit as a z-score. A z-score is a statistical method for assessing how different a value (i.e., most recent 3 years) is from the mean (historical average). The source climate data is from PRISM. Mean moisture values were derived from historical data on precipitation and Thornthwaite potential evapotranspiration, from 1900 to t-minus 4 (t = current TCA Assessment year). The greater the negative z-value, the larger the departure from average conditions, indicating larger moisture deficits.

These data highlight regions of moisture deficit as a z-score calculated from the reference time period and current conditions. There is a lag between the assessment year and the most recent drought data, for example, the 2024 TCA Assessment used 2021-2023 to represent current conditions and 1900-2020 for the reference time period. Data were summarized at the Subsection scale of the USFS National Hierarchy of Ecological Units and applied to the corresponding landscape (LTA).

Data Format: Raster data are continuous

Units: Mean difference in z-score

Spatial Resolution: 4000m (4km)

Source data: PRISM; z-score calculations provided by the USFS Office of Sustainability and Climate based on the methods found here: https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/43361

Additional Resources:

Details on Method Changes and Source Data Versions

Overview of the Terrestrial Condition Assessment: TCA Hubsite or Landfire Office Hour Presentation

Explore the results of the most recent assessment: TCA Interactive Data Viewer

Learn more about the TCA KPI: TCA Dashboard

*if you have trouble viewing the Dashboard, please submit a Tableau Viewer Access Request