Vegetation - Owens Valley and Jawbone [ds2874]

Under contract to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Aerial Information Systems (AIS) created a fine-scale vegetation map of portions of the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts in California. AIS subcontracted the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) to conduct classification development work needed for this project, as well as accuracy assessment (AA) field data collection. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife's (CDFW) Vegetation Classification and Mapping Program (VegCAMP) provided in-kind service to allocate and score the AA.

The primary purpose was to develop an accurate vegetation map for portions of the California desert as it pertains to renewable energy sources and conservation opportunities, helping planners identify high quality habitat and rare communities.

This map consists of 27,100 polygons representing 749,025 acres of mapped vegetation in Owens Valley, the Scodie Mountains, and the Piute Mountains at the southern end of the Sierra Nevadas. Vegetation types were crosswalked from the AIS classification to NVCS/MCV, CalVeg, and CWHR.