Abstract

Developing a Vegetation Departure Calculator for the Contiguous United States
Track: Parks and Natural Reserves
Authors: Sarah Hagen, Chris Zanger

The Vegetation Departure Calculator (VDC) provides a comprehensive look at vegetation conditions across the contiguous United States. The VDC was developed using ArcGIS and exported to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for ease of sharing among partners. The VDC includes a Pivot Table that allows users to interactively summarize and compare current vegetation conditions in many different ways (geography, agency, protected status, ecoregion, portfolio status, etc.) using consistent and comprehensive data.
Vegetation departure is a measure of the difference between current vegetation conditions and pre-settlement vegetation conditions and is frequently called ecological departure.