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Publication Details

Title:
FuelMap 2014: Imputed map of carbon stored in litter, duff, fine woody debris, and coarse woody debris for CONUS forests circa 2014 Data publication contains GIS data
Author(s):
Riley, Karin L.; Grenfell, Isaac C.; Shaw, John D.
Publication Year:
2023
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:
Riley, Karin L.; Grenfell, Isaac C.; Shaw, John D. 2023. FuelMap 2014: Imputed map of carbon stored in litter, duff, fine woody debris, and coarse woody debris for CONUS forests circa 2014. Updated 30 August 2024. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2023-0042
Abstract:
FuelMap 2014 is an imputed map of litter, duff, fine woody debris, and coarse woody debris loadings for the forests of the conterminous United States (CONUS) circa 2014. In fire science, these strata are often referred to as “fuel” for a wildland fire. FuelMap 2014 is largely derived from the TreeMap 2014, which provides a tree-level model of CONUS forests. To create TreeMap, we assigned forest plot data measured by Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) to a 30x30 meter (m) grid. Specifically, we used a random forests machine-learning algorithm to impute the forest plot data to a set of target rasters provided by Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools (LANDFIRE: https://landfire.gov). Predictor variables for both the forest plots (reference data) and LANDFIRE rasters (target data) consisted of percent forest cover, forest height, and vegetation type, as well as topography (slope, elevation, and aspect), location (latitude and longitude), biophysical variables (photosynthetically active radiation, precipitation, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, relative humidity, and vapor pressure deficit), and disturbance history (time since disturbance and disturbance type) for the landscape circa 2014. FIA records down woody material (DWM) at some but not all of their forest plots. Thus, many of the FIA plots imputed (assigned) in the TreeMap carried DWM information with them. For pixels in TreeMap 2014 where the assigned FIA plot recorded DWM, we used the FIA plot assigned in TreeMap 2014 in the FuelMap 2014. For pixels where FIA plots were assigned that did not have DWM measured, we identified the most similar plot that had DWM measured from the list of FIA plots available for imputation in TreeMap 2014, and then we assigned that plot in the FuelMap 2014.

The main outputs of this project are rasters at 30x30 m spatial resolution for the imputed FIA plot identifier. The plot identifier corresponds to a unique visit to a plot by FIA’s field crew, and is also referred to as the plot control number [CN]. Using the CN, we looked up the loading in each of the carbon pools (in pounds per acre) and include a raster for each: 1) litter, 2) duff, 3) fine woody debris in the 1-hour (hr) size class, 4) fine woody debris in the 10-hr size class, 5) fine woody debris in the 100-hr size class, 6) coarse woody debris in the 1000-hr size class, and 7) “total carbon” in the DWM strata produced by adding these six strata together. We present these data in geodatabase and GeoTIFF formats. The spatial extent is CONUS for landscape conditions circa 2014. The carbon loadings for DWM are drawn from the FIA COND_DWM_CALC tables for the assigned plot CN for litter, duff, fine woody debris and coarse woody debris.

Keywords:
biota; environment; Climate change; Carbon; Ecology, Ecosystems, & Environment; Inventory, Monitoring, & Analysis; Natural Resource Management & Use; Conservation; Ecosystem services; Forest management; Wilderness; Forest Inventory and Analysis; imputation; LANDFIRE; random forests; fuel data; conterminous United States; CONUS
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Visit count : 788
Access count: 2
Download count: 69
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