Creating a New Landcover Classification for the Albany Pine Bush

Summary

The goal of this project was to develop a new land-cover map to support the conservation and management mission of the Albany Pine Bush Commission. Using three sets of high resolution satellite imagery from 2017 (January, May, September) and training points from 2014 and 2017, we created a land cover classification of the Albany Pine Bush study area for 16 cover types. This includes nine forested types and four other natural cover types (water, herbaceous/shrubby wetland, bare sand, herbaceous barrens, scrub oak). Then, focusing only on the areas accessible for current management or potential accessible in the future for land management actions, we created an ecological community map for seven ecological community types plus four more developed classes. The ecological community types included pitch pine-scrub oak barrens, pitch pine-scrub oak thicket, successional northern sandplains grassland, Appalachian oak-pine forest, pitch pine-oak forest, successional southern hardwoods, and successional northern hardwoods. The final products provided to the Albany Pine Bush Commission include the final land cover classification, the unsmoothed ecological community map, and the smoothed ecological community map.