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Publication Details

Title:
Potential grassland locations of the eastern United States Data publication contains GIS data
Author(s):
Hanberry, Brice B.
Publication Year:
2021
How to Cite:
These data were collected using funding from the U.S. Government and can be used without additional permissions or fees. If you use these data in a publication, presentation, or other research product please use the following citation:
Hanberry, Brice B. 2021. Potential grassland locations of the eastern United States. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2021-0088
Abstract:
This data publication contains a raster digital file of modeled potential grassland locations of the eastern United States, with the 2016 land cover for these locations. Historically, grasslands with limited tree presence were embedded in a matrix of open oak and pine forests in the eastern United States. These ecosystems mostly have been lost to other land uses and closed forests under fire exclusion. The location of the potential extent of eastern grasslands was obtained by applying the random forests and C5.0 classifiers to determine the relationship between topography and wind speed, which are proxies for surface fire frequency, and mapped areas likely to have been grasslands historically. A generalized ruleset was that grasslands occurred at topographic roughness values less than 95 and wind speeds ≥ 3.4 meters per second, which created large fire compartments.

Keywords:
grassland; savanna; environment; imageryBaseMapsEarthCover; Ecology, Ecosystems, & Environment; Natural Resource Management & Use; Landscape management; eastern United States
Related publications:
  • Hanberry, Brice B.; Noss, Reed F. 2022. Locating potential historical fire-maintained grasslands of the eastern United States based on topography and wind speed. Ecosphere. 13(6): e4098. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4098
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