U.S. forest types and predicted percent forest cover from AVHRR data

Abstract

Two forest-cover maps of national scale have been produced under the 1993 Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessment Update program. Both maps are based on 1-kilometre resolution Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data, and use of multitemporal and multisource remote sensing data analyses. The forest-type groups map depicts the distribution patterns of 25 forest-cover types over the United States. Complementary to the forest-type groups map is the predicted percent forest-cover map of the conterminous United States which portrays the relative amount of forest cover per square kilometre. The two maps, in both digital and paper forms, provide current forest information for the U.S. Techniques and results of the 1993 RPA forest mapping project are presented, and apparent changes in forest cover since 1967 are also described. 24 refs.