BUILDING THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL VEGETATION CLASSIFICATION

Authors

  • S. B. Franklin School of Biological Sciences, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO 80639; Ph 001-970-351-2650, USA
  • D. Faber-Langendoen NatureServe, 3467 Amber Road, Syracuse, NY 13215, USA
  • M. Jennings Department of Geography, Moscow, ID 83843, USA
  • T. Keeler-Wolf California Department of Fish and Game, 1807 13th St., Sacramento, CA 95811, USA
  • O. Loucks Department of Zoology, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA
  • R. Peet Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3280, USA
  • D. Roberts Department of Ecology, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717-3460, USA
  • A. McKerrow USGS Core Science Analytics and Synthesis, Raleigh, NC 27695-7617, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4462/annbotrm-9261

Keywords:

classification, United States, hierarchical, national, NCV, standard

Abstract

The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Vegetation Subcommittee, the Ecological Society of America Panel on Vegetation Classification, and NatureServe have worked together to develop the United States National Vegetation Classification (USNVC). The current  standard was accepted in 2008 and fosters consistency across Federal agencies and non-federal partners for the description of each vegetation concept and its hierarchical classification. The USNVC is structured as a dynamic standard, where changes to types at any level may be proposed at any time with new information. But, because much information already exists from previous work, the NVC partners first established methods for screening existing types to determine their acceptability with respect to the 2008 standard. Current efforts include a screening process to assign confidence to Association and Group level descriptions, and a review of the upper three levels of the classification. For the upper levels especially, the expectation is that the review process includes international scientists. Immediate future efforts include the review of remaining levels and the development of a proposal review process.

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Published

2012-04-26

How to Cite

Franklin, S. B., Faber-Langendoen, D., Jennings, M., Keeler-Wolf, T., Loucks, O., Peet, R., Roberts, D., & McKerrow, A. (2012). BUILDING THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL VEGETATION CLASSIFICATION. Annali Di Botanica, 2, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.4462/annbotrm-9261

Issue

Section

Research Articles