Terrestrial Condition Assessment (TCA) Vegetation Departure

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Objective: Identify locations where vegetation composition and successional stage are departed from the natural range of variation.
Data: Vegetation departure within a TCA landscape ecosystem describes the degree to which the observed proportion (percent, 0-100%) of successional classes (i.e., A through E) derived from Landfire Succession Classes (SClass) dataset, is departed from the proportions one would expect based on the reference condition contained in the Landfire Biophysical Settings (BpS) dataset at each cell location. Departure is calculated as:
Departure = 100 – Similarity
where Similarity = ∑ (min(Ai,Bi)) over all classes i,…n
Departure is determined for each BPS within an LTA, and then weighted average for departure is calculated for the LTA based on the areal extent of the BPS. After being added to the assessment in 2022, the update timeline of the input source data from LANDFIRE did not align with the timing of TCA assessment in 2023, so data from 2022 was reused. The 2024 TCA Assessment used updated source data to create new vegetation departure indicator data.
Units: Percent
Format: Raster data are continuous
Resolution: 30m
Source: Landfire Succession Class and Biophysical Setting, methods from Swaty et al. 2022
Additional Resources:
Details on Method Changes and Source Data Versions
Overview of the Terrestrial Condition Assessment: TCA Hubsite or Landfire Office Hour Presentation
Explore the results of the most recent assessment: TCA Interactive Data Viewer
Learn more about the TCA KPI: TCA Dashboard
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This record was taken from the USDA Enterprise Data Inventory that feeds into the https://data.gov catalog. Data for this record includes the following resources: ISO-19139 metadata ArcGIS Hub Dataset ArcGIS GeoService For complete information, please visit https://data.gov.