Topographically-based Landscape-scale Ecological Mapping in Pennsylvania

With emphasis on sustainable ecosystem management, ecological mapping at landscape scale provides basic information about the nature and distribution of ecosystems for natural resources management, planning, monitoring and assessment. Landtype association (LTA) and ecological landtype (ELT) are two landscape scales of ecological units in a hierarchical ecological classification system developed by the USDA-Forest Service for use in ecosystem management. LTA is a complex of complementary landscape components (ecological landtypes) that combine through spatial adjacency to create ecological contrasts across regions. ELT is a subdivision of LTA unit based on similarities in landform, soils, geomorphic processes, and plant associations. Data included: Counties, lta, LTAnamed, SavonLandforms