Document Type
Report
Date of Original Version
1-2012
Abstract
The Forest Habitat Map (FHM) for Rhode Island was created to provide private land owners with a simple tool to analyze and map forest habitats at the scales of 1:5000 or more using licensed or free mapping GIS software. Seven existing land use and land cover data sets provide recent spatial data on forest habitats in Rhode Island (Table 1), but none provides complete coverage of the most important forest habitat types. As a result, it is necessary to combine data from several datasets to prepare a forest habitat map. This requires access to licensed GIS software and an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the available data sets. Furthermore, shrubland forest habitat is not adequately covered by any of the existing datasets. The FHM simplifies the process of mapping forest habitats by including eight major forest types in one dataset. The FHM was prepared by combining data from several existing datasets with a recently prepared shrubland dataset and a manual update of several forest categories.
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Buffum, Bill. "A New Tool for Mapping Forest Habitats in Rhode Island." (2012). https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/nrs_facpubs/922