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LANDFIRE Reference Database

Click here for the LANDFIRE Reference Database
LANDFIRE National mapping was supported by a vast database of field-referenced data. The LANDFIRE Reference Database (LFRDB) used for LANDFIRE National product development included vegetation and fuel data from approximately 800,000 geo-referenced sampling units located throughout the United States. These data were amassed from numerous sources and in large part from existing information resources of outside entities, such as the USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program, the USGS National Gap Analysis Program, and state natural heritage programs. Vegetation data drawn from these sources and used by LANDFIRE included natural community occurrence records, estimates of canopy cover and height per plant taxon, and measurements (such as diameter, height, crown ratio, crown class, and density) of individual trees. Fuel data used included biomass estimates of downed woody material, percentage cover and height of shrub and herb layers, and canopy base height estimates. Digital photos of the sampled units were also archived, when available. Toney and others (2007) explain in detail how these types of field data, specifically those collected by FIA, have been acquired, incorporated into the LFRDB, and used in LANDFIRE.

To meet needs of LANDFIRE, several key attributes were systematically derived from the acquired data and included in the LFRDB. These attributes include existing and potential vegetation type in the form of NatureServe's Ecological Systems (Comer and others 2003; Toney and others 2007), uncompacted crown ratios (Toney and Reeves 2009), and several canopy fuel metrics (such as bulk density) derived from the FuelCalc program (Reinhardt and others 2006). At various stages in data compilation, including after the attribution of Ecological Systems, records were carefully screened for information or spatial errors. Questionable data were either identified accordingly or removed from the LFRDB, depending on confidence in the assessment. Accepted data points were processed for associations with a number of ancillary datasets via a series of spatial overlays. These datasets included a Landsat image suite, the National Land Cover Database (Homer and others 2004), the digital elevation model and derivatives (USGS 2005), soil depth and texture layers (for example, USDA NRCS 2005), and a set of 42 simulated biophysical gradient layers (such as evapotranspiration, soil temperature, and degree days). These biophysical gradient layers were generated using WX-BGC, an ecosystem simulator derived from BIOME-BGC (Running and Hunt 1993) and GMRS-BGC (Keane and others 2002). The extracted values from each of these overlays were archived in the LFRDB as predictor variables for the mapping process.

Public Access

A subset of the full suite of field-sampled data used in the production of LANDFIRE National deliverables has been made available for public access, as stipulated in the LANDFIRE Executive Charter. In accordance with agreements between LANDFIRE and its data contributors, certain proprietary or otherwise sensitive data have been removed to create this publically available version of the LFRDB. The public version of the LANDFIRE Reference Database can be downloaded by geographic area by clicking here. Please consult the table lutVisitsSourceID in the database for more information about the datasets included in, and excluded from, this release.

Homer, C.; Huang, C.; Yang, L.; [and others]. 2004. Development of a 2001 national land-cover database for the United States. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing. 70: 829-840.

Keane, R. E., M. G. Rollins, C. H. McNicoll, and R. A. Parsons. 2002. Predictive landscape modeling using gradient-based sampling, remote sensing, and ecosystem simulation. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-92. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Reinhardt, E., D. Lutes, and J. Scott. 2006. FuelCalc: A Method for Estimating Fuel Characteristics. Pp. 273-282 in Andrews, P. L., and B. W. Butler, comps. Fuels Management-How to Measure Success: Conference Proceedings. 28-30 March 2006; Portland, OR. Proceedings RMRS-P-41. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Running, S. W. and E. R. Hunt. 1993. Generalization of a forest ecosystem process model for other biomes, BIOME-BGC, and an application for global scale models. Pp. 141-157 in Scaling physiological processes: leaf to globe. Burlington, MA: Academic Press.

Toney, C., M. Rollins, K. Short, T. Frescino, R. Tymcio, and B. Peterson. 2007. Use of FIA plot data in the LANDFIRE Project. Pp. 309-319 in McRoberts, R. E., G. A. Reams, P. C. Van Deusen, and W. H. McWilliams, eds. Proceedings of the seventh annual forest inventory and analysis symposium; October 3-6, 2005; Portland, ME. Gen. Tech. Rep. WO-77. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service.

Toney, C., and M. C. Reeves. 2009. Equations to convert compacted crown ratio to uncompacted crown ratio for trees in the Interior West. Western Journal of Applied Forestry 24: 76-82.

USDA NRCS. 2005. State Soil Geographic (STATSGO) database. http://www.ncgc.nrcs.usda.gov/products/datasets/statsgo/index.html. (1 October 2005).

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). 2005a. Elevation derivatives for national applications. http://edna.usgs.gov/. (1 October 2005).