LANDFIRE Late Succession Assessment Demo
The goal of this project was to explore the use of LANDFIRE data to assess late-successional habitat in coastal Oregon. I mapped the historical ecosystems, estimated amounts of pre-settlement late-succession habitat, and compared the historical to current amounts. The project culminated in a presentation at the Society for Conservation GIS conference, a website, and integration of the methods into an Environmental Impact Statement for the US Forest Service.
Generally, I had success in working with the Biophysical Settings (historical) and Succession Classes (current) data. The main challenges came with working through the methodology, since this type of work had never been done before. Randy and his TNC colleagues, as well as various GIS/R help forums, were incredibly helpful in getting over the bumps. Because of this project, I gained skills in R, GIS, and website development, and became more interested in terrestrial ecosystems.
This project was pivotal to my growth in technical areas such as coding, spatial analysis, and presenting research. Since completing the project, I’ve tried to center forests in my independent class projects and portfolio development while in grad school.
