Vegetation - North Carrizo Plain Mitigation Lands [ds1095]

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Vegetation Classification and Mapping Program (VegCAMP) has created a fine-scale vegetation map of the Department’s mitigation lands in the northern portion of the Carrizo Plain, San Luis Obispo County, California. The mapping follows Survey of California Vegetation, Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), and National Vegetation Classification (NVC) standards (FGDC 2008, Jennings et al. 2009). The map legend is based on the classification in Stout et al. (2013), with slight modifications as discussed in Appendix C of the project report, which is available here: https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=92969. Reconnaissance-level sampling of vegetation stands in the project area was conducted in the spring of 2013. Polygons were drawn using heads-up digitizing using the July 2011 1-foot imagery acquired for San Luis Obispo County and downloaded from US Geological Survey (USGS) EarthExplorer as the map base. Supplemental imagery included National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) true color and color infrared (CIR) 1-meter resolution data from 2010–2012, Bing imagery, and current and historical imagery from Google Earth. The minimum mapping unit (MMU) is ½ acre in order to capture small, remnant native stands of trees, shrubs, and bunch grasses. Mapping is to the NVC hierarchy Association, Alliance, or Group level based on the ability of the photointerpreters to distinguish types based on all imagery available and on the field data. Field verification data was collected in the spring of 2014 and corrections were made to the map based on that data to increase the final accuracy.