Get reliable rangeland science

LANDFIRE has been producing and updating land cover data products across all 50 United States for a decade. Although many have thought of it as only a wildland fire data set, the rich array of data layers and databases (vegetation type, cover, and height; successional state and transition models and database; to national plot and polygon databases) have fundamentally improved information integration and decision support for managers and leadership across rangeland, fire, habitat, and natural resources. This presentation will explore the background and depth of the LANDFIRE program in advancing data integration and program partnerships in leveraging authoritative data sources through Earth observation computing, image and data processing to expand the utility and frequency of geographic land cover data. We will also look at the future of the LANDFIRE program to improve the suite of data products. LANDFIRE is expanding to cover larger geographic areas (insular areas), improving mapping change, and increasing data extents and processes to quantify both the state and condition of the landscapes with consistent wall to wall data. Integrating Bureau of Land Management's AIM (Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring) strategy data in LANDFIRE will provide managers with a consistent and efficient data framework that can be used at the field office, regional and national levels. The BLM AIM approach of collected quantitative data on the status, condition, trend, amount, location and spatial pattern of data supports LANDFIRE's national approach to mapping the diversity of all lands regardless of ownership for sustainable resources management. One example of BLM/LANDFIRE partnership and data integration efforts is the development of automated mapping keys that will enable species composition data collected by the BLM to be used directly in remapping efforts that will lead to improvements the characterization of grassland and shrublands systems in the West.