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 is to
scan and geo-reference the plot maps, and to digitize all plot data.
Ken'ichi Ueda has been leading this portion of the project. The UCB
library has scanned and cataloged the landscape photographs, and
UCD has a grant to digitize and geo-reference the
vegetation maps.
Once completed this will be a tremendous resource to ecologists interested
in change to California’s precious wildlands.
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.
Links:
Wieslander
Vegetation Type Mapping Project
My picasa site of VTM photos around the SF Bay: Start your photo-reshoot engines!
VTM
Project Information (large .pdf file)
