These banner images are from the Wieslander Vegetation Type Mapping Collection, courtesy of the Marian Koshland Bioscience and Natural Resources Library, University of California, Berkeley.
California Vegetation Type Mapping
The California Vegetation Type Map (VTM) collection was created in the 1920s – 1930s (spearheaded by Dr. Wieslander). The data, consisting of hundreds of landscape photographs, plot information from thousands of plots detailing forest type, species present, etc., plot locator maps, and hand-drawn vegetation maps are a valuable historical resource for understanding changes over a decadal scale to California’s wildlands. Dr. Barbara Allen-Diaz has been curating the map and plot data portions of the collection. Several graduate students from UCB and other universities have published papers resulting from the dataset.
We are part of a larger project to digitize this dataset, and make it web available for researchers. Our portion of the project was to scan and geo-reference the plot maps, and to digitize all plot data. Ken-ichi Ueda lead leading this portion of the project. The UCB library has scanned and cataloged the landscape photographs, and UCD has been digitizing and geo-referencing the vegetation maps.
Collaborators: Barbara Allen Diaz, Ken-ichi Ueda, Ann Huber, Tim Doherty UCB-ESPM-ES; Brian Thomas and Brent Pedersen UCB CNR; Jim Thorne, Jeff Kennedy UCD; Beth Weil, Norma Kobzina, UCBLibrary; Jeremy Fried, USDA-FS PNW; Carol DuMuth, USDA-FS PSW; and several others.
Related Publications:
2005 article in Madrono by Kelly, Allen-Diaz and Kobzina describing the collection.
2007 article in Plant Ecology by Kelly, Ueda and Allen-Diaz describing the spatial accuracy of plot database.
More Information:
Koshland Library Collection of VTM photographs
My picasa site of VTM photos around the SF Bay: Start your photo-reshoot engines!
VTM Project Information (large .pdf file)