Topographic Moisture Potential for the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative

Dates

Publication Date: 2008-11

Summary

The Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC, https://www.fws.gov/science/catalog) is a partnership that provides applied science and decision support tools to assist natural resource managers conserve plants, fish and wildlife in the mid- and short-grass prairie of the southern Great Plains. It is part of a national network of public-private partnerships — known as Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs, http://www.fws.gov/science/shc/lcc.html) — that work collaboratively across jurisdictions and political boundaries to leverage resources and share science capacity. The Great Plains LCC identifies science priorities for the region and helps foster science that addresses these priorities to support wildlife conservation [...]

Summary

The Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC, https://www.fws.gov/science/catalog) is a partnership that provides applied science and decision support tools to assist natural resource managers conserve plants, fish and wildlife in the mid- and short-grass prairie of the southern Great Plains. It is part of a national network of public-private partnerships — known as Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs, http://www.fws.gov/science/shc/lcc.html) — that work collaboratively across jurisdictions and political boundaries to leverage resources and share science capacity. The Great Plains LCC identifies science priorities for the region and helps foster science that addresses these priorities to support wildlife conservation throughout the Great Plains region. It also assists partners in building their own capacity to address scientific challenges associated with our rapidly changing environment. These data were compiled because the information did not previously exist as a single resource for the GPLCC area. They are intended to inform local and regional conservation and management strategies with a complete regional perspective. Abstract provided by original data sources: "The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has generated topographic moisture potential classes for the contiguous United States. These topographic moisture potential classes were created as part of an effort to map standardized, terrestrial ecosystems for the nation using a classification developed by NatureServe (Comer and others, 2003). Ecosystem distributions were modeled using a biophysical stratification approach developed for South America (Sayre and others, 2008) and now being implemented globally (Sayre and others, 2007). Substrate moisture regimes strongly influence the differentiation and distribution of terrestrial ecosystems, and are one of the key input layers in the ecosystem delineation process. The method used to produce these classes is based on the derivation of ground moisture potential using a combination of computed topographic characteristics and mapped wetlands boundaries. This method does not use climate or soil attributes to calculate relative topographic moisture potential since these characteristics are incorporated into the ecosystems though other input layers. The source data for this assessment is a national Compound Topographic Index (CTI) dataset (USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science Center, 2003), which was derived from the USGS 30-meter National Elevation Dataset (NED). The CTI index is a topographically derived measure of slope for a raster cell and the contributing area from "upstream" raster cells, and thus expresses potential for water flow to a point. This potential accumulation at a point was compared to independent estimates of water accumulation by obtaining geospatial data from a number of sample locations representing wetland/upland boundaries from the National Wetland Inventory (NWI) dataset. Where these "shorelines" (the interface between wetlands and adjacent land) occurred, the CTI values were extracted and a histogram of their statistical distributions was calculated. Based on an evaluation of these histograms, CTI thresholds were developed to separate wetlands from uplands. A similar process was used to assess the distributions of CTI values for known locations of mesic and dry uplands. After the range of CTI values for these three different substrate moisture regimes (wetlands, mesic uplands, and dry uplands) was determined, the CTI values were recalculated to topographic moisture potential. The final step in the generation of the national topographic moisture potential data layer was to partition the dry uplands class into two classes, a dry uplands class, and a very dry uplands class. Very dry uplands were defined as dry uplands with relatively steep, south-facing slopes, and identification of this class was based on the slope and aspect datasets derived from the USGS NED. The resulting Topographic Moisture Potential dataset for the contiguous United States contains four classes: wetlands, mesic uplands, dry uplands, and very dry uplands." Data were the best available at the time of compilation (2011) with current information represented by a combination of national-scale datasets and state or other regional data (e.g. soils) that could be reasonably aggregated.

Contacts

Contact :: David B Hamilton
Co-Investigator :: Daniel Manier
Distributor :: U.S. Geological Survey

Attached Files

sorting

Metadata First

Recent First

Alphabetical

Click on title to download individual files attached to this item.

Extension: Compound_Topographic_Index_binned.zip
Compound_Topographic_Index_binned.tif		144.05 MB
Compound_Topographic_Index_binned.tif.aux.xml		2.14 KB
Compound_Topographic_Index_binned.tif.ovr		57.08 MB
Compound_Topographic_Index_binned.tif.vat.dbf		243 Bytes
Compound_Topographic_Index_binned.tif.xml Potential Metadata Source	View	17.15 KB
Compound_Topographic_Index_binned.tfw		83 Bytes

Purpose

This environmental dataset was one of several abiotic layers to provide best available conditions representing the landscape. The data collected and compiled for the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC) will inform regional-scale landscape assessments with spatially explicit representation of natural resource, habitat, conservation, management and other social and environmental values. Preliminary analyses will summarize spatial statistics, and data are ultimately expected to directly inform species and habitat distribution models and vulnerability assessments. Future research efforts applying these data may include regional hydrologic modeling, wetland habitat vulnerability and connectivity assessments, species distribution modeling, and investigation of interactions among land use, land cover and prairie habitat distributions. A simple summary of the data and discussion of potential applications and implications for future work (e.g., species distribution modeling and vulnerability assessments) will accompany the distribution of these data via the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC). Purpose provided by original data sources: "This dataset was used to map ecological system footprints for the contiguous United States."

Topographic Moisture Potential for the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative

Dates

Summary

Summary

Contacts

Attached Files

sorting

Metadata First

Recent First

Alphabetical

Purpose

Map

Spatial Services

Communities

Tags

Provenance

Additional Information

Raster Extension

Item Actions

Use Item

View Item as ...

Save Item as ...

View Item...

Dates

Summary

Summary

Contacts

Attached Files sorting Metadata First Recent First Alphabetical

Purpose

Map

Spatial Services

Communities

Tags

Provenance

Additional Information

Raster Extension

Item Actions

Use Item

View Item as ...

Save Item as ...

View Item...

Attached Files

sorting

Metadata First

Recent First

Alphabetical