Lichen Forage Cover Maps for Fortymile Caribou Herds

Alaska and Yukon's 583,200 km² Fortymile region is covered by modeled lichen ground cover estimates at 30 m resolution for 2000 and 2015, derived using a random forest model with inputs from in-situ plots, aerial surveys, and UAS imagery. The dataset also includes high-resolution (<1 m to 2 m) site-level presence-absence and cover maps from 22 forested and alpine sites surveyed in summer 2017. These maps, produced by ORNL_CLOUD, support analysis of winter forage for nine resident caribou herds.

Use Cases

• Analyzing trends in lichen abundance and distribution over a 15-year period (2000-2015) using the 30m resolution cover estimates.
• Modeling caribou winter habitat suitability by correlating lichen cover and volume estimates with herd range data.
• Validating coarse-scale satellite-derived vegetation products with high-resolution site-level maps (<1 m to 2 m) from 22 field sites.
• Assessing the impact of environmental change on forage resources using the time-series data from two nominal years.

Strengths

• Model integrates multiple data sources: historical in-situ vegetation plots, visual aerial surveys, and recent UAS imagery.
• Provides cross-scale data, from landscape-level 30m resolution maps to site-level maps at sub-meter (<1 m) and 2m resolutions.
• Covers a large study area of 583,200 km² across Alaska and Yukon, relevant for regional herd management.

Limitations

• Primary model outputs are for two nominal years (2000, 2015), limiting continuous temporal analysis.
• Conflicting last updated dates exist across platforms (2017-08-01 vs 2026-03-13), creating uncertainty about metadata freshness.
• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are not provided by any source.

Provenance

Source

ORNL_CLOUD

Collection Method

Random forest modeling applied to Landsat imagery, with training data aggregated from in-situ plots, aerial surveys, and UAS-collected RGB imagery.

Time Range

2000-2017

Freshness

2026-03-13 17:36:10.029682

Geography

Fortymile study area in interior eastern Alaska, U.S., and Yukon Territory, Canada.