Land Cover and Type Thematic Data

In Collins and others (2005), the creation of thematic data for use by MIFI in a statewide forest inventory, per the inventory's procedural pilot study (Parker and others 2005), was outlined and resulted in forest age and type thematic layers. The forest-age layer used an approximate 5-year temporal resolution back to the genesis of the Landsat program in the early 1970s and covered the entire State. In other words, this dataset attempted to identify the year of regeneration for areas harvested between 1972 and 2003 in 5-year increments. The data were created using Landsat Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS) and TM data with the finished products’ resolution taking on the finer TM resolution (29 m). The forest-type layer mapped the entire State into water, other nonforest, regenerating forest, softwood, mixed softwood-hardwood, and hardwood classes using 2002-03 TM imagery. Data were georegistered to USGS Digital Ortho Quarter Quadrangles (DOQQs) county-level mosaics, making this the base resolution and orientation for all subsequent analyses involved in this study.