2009 Science Delivery Highlights
Landscape pattern maps now available in Google Earth
A wide range of users can now view landscape patterns in Google Earth. A scientist with the Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center recently posted several Google Earth applications to enable visualization of three landscape and forest spatial metrics at local to national scale. A Google Earth user simply downloads a small application file which sets up dynamic access to a massive geographic database that is housed on computer systems maintained by partners at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. The user is then free to pan and zoom over the continental United States, to see both low- and high-resolution maps of the three types of landscape patterns. An important feature of the application is the ability to make the pattern maps semi-transparent, which allows the user to see landscape pattern metrics in relation to the actual ground conditions as shown on aerial photos provided by the Google Earth databases.
This work was completed in response to the need for improved visualization tools as called for by readers of official forest assessment reports. While the analyses of landscape patterns have been reported for several years in those reports, until now it has not been possible to simply show the maps of the entire database to a reader interested in landscape patterns in particular places. Examples of the visualizations, links to the Google Earth applications, and instructions may be found at http://www.forestthreats.org/tools/landcover-maps.
Contact: Kurt Riitters, acting Forest Health Monitoring team leader, (919) 549-4015, kurt.h.riitters@usda.gov
Partners: European Commission, Joint Research Center, Institute for Environment and Sustainability; University of North Carolina Asheville's National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center; USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station
