Arctic Tundra Vegetation Maps from Lidar and Aerial Imagery

800 field plots inform vegetation community maps at 20 cm resolution for three landscapes near Toolik Lake, Alaska. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration created these maps using a Random Forest model with 2013 airborne lidar and imagery, validated by 2014-2015 field data. This dataset provides a detailed snapshot of northern foothills vegetation in the Brooks Range.

Use Cases

• Classifying tundra vegetation communities (e.g., shrub, sedge, moss) using high-resolution spectral and structural predictors.
• Validating or downscaling coarser regional land cover maps with 20 cm resolution data.
• Modeling habitat suitability for Arctic fauna based on fine-scale vegetation structure.
• Analyzing relationships between topographic variables from lidar and vegetation community distribution.

Strengths

• High spatial resolution of 20 cm derived from 2013 airborne lidar and imagery.
• Model training and validation based on 800 reference field plots collected over two years.
• Use of a Random Forest modeling approach, a established method for land cover classification.

Limitations

• Specific column names and dataset row/size metrics are not provided on any platform.
• Conflicting last updated dates: datagov lists 2026-03-13, while nasa_earthdata lists 2015-08-31.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Random Forest modeling using predictor layers from airborne lidar and imagery, trained on vegetation data from field plots.

Time Range

2013-2015

Freshness

2026-03-13 01:29:17.530473

Geography

Three landscapes near the Toolik Lake research area in the northern foothills of the Brooks Range, Alaska, USA.