LANDFIRE 2023 Existing Vegetation Height (EVH) HI

LANDFIRE's (LF) 2023 update (LF 2023) Existing Vegetation Height (EVH) represents the average height of the dominant vegetation for a 30-m cell. EVH is produced separately for tree, shrub, and herbaceous lifeforms using training data depicting the weighted average height by species cover and Existing Vegetation Type (EVT) lifeform. Decision tree models using field reference data, lidar, and Landsat are developed separately for each lifeform, then lifeform specific height class layers are merged along with land cover into a single EVH product based on the dominant lifeform of each pixel. EVH ranges are continuous for the herbaceous lifeform category ranging from 0.1 to 1 meter with decimeter increments, 0.1 to 3 meters for shrub lifeform, and 1 to 99 meters for tree lifeform. If the height values of each lifeform exceed the continuous value range, they are binned into the appropriate maximum height class. EVH is then reconciled through QA/QC measures to ensure lifeform is synchronized with Existing Vegetation Cover (EVC).
In LF 2023 Conterminous United States (CONUS) extent, LF will map the lifeform, cover, and height of existing vegetation in areas that were mapped as disturbed over the last twenty years (see LF Annual Disturbance products) using machine learning methods. These disturbed areas were the focus because they are the areas that have changed the most since LF 2016 Remap. To learn more about this new methodology for LF EVC, EVH, and Existing Vegetation Type (EVT) go to https://landfire.gov/data/lf2023.