The vegetation of the Kuparuk River watershed was mapped for several US National Science Foundation projects, including the Arctic System Science Flux Study and the Long-Term Ecological Research program (Muller et al. 1998).
The Kuparuk Basin map is a raster (tif) map, with 50-m pixels, and 8 land cover categories. The boundaries of the map form a rectangle that encompasses the entire Kuparuk River watershed, from the headwaters on the north side of the Brooks Range to the Beaufort Sea coast.
The map is based on a modified unsupervised classification of a portion of a Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) composite created by the National Mapping Division, U.S. Geological Survey EROS data center, Anchorage, Alaska. Geobotanical maps and earlier Landsat-derived maps of the region were used for supplementary information to interpret the spectral classes.
Go to Website Link :: Toolik Arctic Geobotanical Atlas below for details on legend units, photos of map units and plant species, glossary, bibliography and links to ground data.
Map Themes:
Elevation, Hydrology, Landscape, Landsat MSS False-Color InfraRed, Vegetation
References
Auerbach, N. A., and D. A. Walker. 1995. Preliminary Vegetation Map, Kuparuk River Basin, Alaska: A Landsat-Derived Classification, Joint Facility for Regional Ecosystem Analysis, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. University of Colorado, Boulder.
Muller, S. V., Walker, D. A., Nelson, F. E., Auerback, N. A., Bockheim, J. G., Guyer, S., & D. Sherba. 1998. Accuracy assessment of a land-cover map of the Kuparuk river basin, Alaska: considerations for remote regions. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 64(6): 619-628.
