Vegetation - Colorado Desert [ds3198]

This project produced a fine-scale vegetation map of a study area within the Colorado Desert ecoregion in California. The map was developed following the Survey of California Vegetation (SCV) standards established by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Vegetation Classification and Mapping Program (VegCAMP). The final product is a digital geodatabase containing vegetation polygons with standardized attributes intended to support conservation planning, habitat assessment, ecological analysis, and land management activities.

Vegetation was mapped using an existing floristic classification consistent with the National Vegetation Classification System (NVCS), primarily at the alliance level incorporating field-based accuracy assessment sampling to evaluate and improve map accuracy, with a target of at least 80% overall accuracy across vegetation types.

The project area covers approximately 5125.41 square kilometers within the Colorado Desert ecoregion, including the Banning Pass, the Coachella Valley, the Salton Sea, and the Imperial Valley to the U.S.-Mexico Border near Calexico, CA. Mapping, field verification, and accuracy assessment were conducted between 2023 and 2025.