LANDFIRE Remap Forest Canopy Cover (CC) Guam Northern Mariana Islands

LANDFIRE's (LF) 2016 Remap (Remap) Forest Canopy Cover (CC) describes the percent cover of the tree canopy in a stand, CC is a vertical projection of the tree canopy cover onto an imaginary horizontal plane. In disturbed locations CC is calculated from linear regression equations derived from Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) plot data output, but at non-disturbed locations it is assigned the midpoint of Fuel Vegetation Cover (FVC) forested classes. In some instances, LF Remap assumes the potential burnable biomass in the tree canopy has been accounted for in the surface fuel model. For example, young or short conifer stands where the trees are represented by a shrub type fuel model will not have canopy characteristics.
LF Remap Annual Disturbance products are incorporated into CC to provide informed changes by disturbance type, severity, and time since disturbance (TSD). Annual Disturbance products provide a pre-disturbance scenario represented by LF Remap existing vegetation products. Reporting of the pre-disturbance scenario helps to calculate CC, by providing information about vegetation impacted by a disturbance. Then, vegetation adjustments are modeled in disturbance areas based on disturbance type and severity. CC is then used in the calculation of Canopy Bulk Density (CBD) and Canopy Base Height (CBH). CC supplies information to fire behavior models in order to; determine the probability of crown fire initiation, provide input in the spotting model, calculate wind reductions, and to calculate fuel moisture conditioning.
CC also has capable fuels functionality. Capable fuels calculate TSD assignments for disturbed areas using an "effective year." For example, year 2020 fuels may be calculated for the year 2020. the new process considers all the existing disturbances included in LF Remap and adjusts the TSD for these to the effective year (2020 in the example), making the products "2020 capable fuels." More information about capable fuels can be found at https://www.landfire.gov/lf_remap.php.