Prudhoe Bay Geobotanical Atlas and Cumulative Impact Maps

ORNL_CLOUD provides a collection of geoecological maps for the Beechey Point quadrangle near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. It includes a geobotanical atlas, a land cover map, and cumulative impact maps for ten analysis years from 1968 to 2010. These data document environmental changes in an Arctic region affected by climate change and industrial development.

Use Cases

• Analyzing changes in dominant, secondary, and tertiary vegetation cover over a 42-year period.
• Mapping the historical footprint of oilfield infrastructure and its interaction with landform and soil types.
• Assessing the percentage of open water and surface form changes as indicators of permafrost thaw or hydrological shifts.
• Using the geobotanical atlas, derived from aerial photography covering 145 sq km, for detailed ecological classification.

Strengths

• Provides temporal depth with ten distinct snapshots of change between 1968 and 2010.
• Includes nine specific geoecological attributes, such as vegetation hierarchy, soil, landform, and surface form.
• Combines data from multiple sources including Landsat, aerial photography, and field cartographic methods.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals recognized importance and curation.

Limitations

• Key technical details like row count, file size, and specific column structure are unavailable from all sources.
• There is a conflict in the reported last updated date: one source states 2026-03-13, while another states 2010-07 31.
• The license is ambiguously noted as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms provided.

Provenance

Source

ORNL_CLOUD

Collection Method

Derived from Landsat multispectral scanner, aerial photography, and field and cartographic methods.

Time Range

1968 to 2010

Freshness

2026-03 13 (conflict with 2010-07-31 noted in limitations)

Geography

Beechey Point quadrangle, Prudhoe Bay Oilfield, North Slope of Alaska