Note: This data has been updated. Please see: Ecological Landscape Update

This 2014 update corrects coding errors identified in the 2012 revision.

To aid in assessment of ecological, landscape, and climate change in northern...

Komarkova maps with 2 themes. They are currently in a paper/mylar version and need to be digitized and will be available here in the future.

WMS feed for 1949 BAR photography mosaic for the Prudhoe Bay region. Raw data is available on request, contact GINA at: support@gina.alaska.edu, with data request.

Floristic sectors characterize the considerable east-west floristic variation within the subzones. The more northern Arctic bioclimate subzones have a relatively consistent core of Arctic plant species that occur around the circumpolar region. Further south, local east-west variation is related t...

Differences in substrate chemistry have important effects on dominant plant communities. Some of the most important effects are related to soil pH, which governs the availability of essential plant nutrients. Soils in the circumneutral range (pH 5.5-7.2) are generally mineral rich, whereas the fu...

The Arctic has a relatively consistent core ofplant species that occur throughout the circumpolar region, but there is also considerable east to west variation in regional floras, particularly in the southern bioclimate subzones. These differences are due to factors such as different histories r...

Various authors, working with different geobotanical traditions, have divided the Arctic into bioclimatic regions using a variety of terminologies. The origins of these different terms and approaches have been reviewed by the Panarctic Flora (PAF) initiative (Elvebakk 1999). The PAF and CAVM acce...

Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data were obtained from the USGS Global AVHRR 10-day composite data. (http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/1KM/1kmhomepage.asp) (Markon et al 1995). Glaciers and oceans were masked out using information from the Digital Chart of the World (ESRI 1993). The image...

Differences in substrate chemistry, including pH, govern the availability of essential plant nutrients. Soils in the circumneutral range (pH 5.5-7.2) are generally mineral rich, whereas the full suite of essential nutrients is often unavailable in acidic soils (pH < 5.5) or in soils associated wi...

The physiography map displays regions of plains, hills, mountains, glaciers and lakes. Generally, plains are flat or gently rolling landscapes less than 200 m above sea level. Hills are more dissected than plains (more surface roughness) and are 200-500 m in elevation. Mountains have greater surf...

The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is a measure of greenness. NDVI was calculated as: NDVI = (NIR - R) / (NIR + R), where NIR is the spectral reflectance in the AVHRR near-infrared channel (0.725-1.1 µm, channel 2) where light-reflectance from the plant canopy is dominant, and R is...

The Landsat-assisted environmental mapping of the northern coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska was funded by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the US Geological Survey and published by the Cold Regions Research and Experimental Laboratory (CRREL) as input to the Enviro...

Mapped polygons at 1:7.5 million scale contain many vegetation types. The map portrays the zonal vegetation within each mapped polygon. Zonal sites are areas where the vegetation develops under the prevailing climate, uninfluenced by extremes of soil moisture, snow, soil chemistry, or disturbance...

A fundamental problem for the CAVM is how to characterize the transitions in vegetation that occur across the roughly 10 °C mean July temperature gradient from the tree line to the coldest parts of the Arctic. Various authors, working with different geobotanical traditions, have divided the Arcti...

Elevation strongly influences soil moisture and patterns of tundra plant communities. Areas less than 100 m above sea level were separated to show low-elevation plains. Areas above 100 m elevation were divided into 333-m intervals to show decreases of about 2 °C, as predicted by the adiabatic lap...

The landscape age map shows the length of time (in thousands of years) that Arctic landscapes have been available for plant colonization and the development of plant communities (Raynolds et al 2008). For most areas, this would be the time since the most recent deglaciation. Other areas first bec...

This map portrays an estimate of above ground plant biomass for the tundra biome based on trans-Arctic field data and AVHRR NDVI (Raynolds et al. 2012). Aboveground phytomass was sampled on transects along the Arctic bioclimate gradient in North America (1750 km long, 8 locations sampled 2003–20...

Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data were obtained from the USGS Global AVHRR 10-day composite data. (http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/1KM/1kmhomepage.asp)(Markon et al. 1995). Glaciers and oceans were masked out using information from the Digital Chart of the World (ESRI 1993). The image...

The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is a measure of greenness. NDVI was calculated as: NDVI = (NIR - R) / (NIR + R), where NIR is the spectral reflectance in the AVHRR near-infrared channel (0.725-1.1 µm, channel 2) where light-reflectance from the plant canopy is dominant, and R is...

This data set was calculated from monthly AVHRR thermal infrared data (Comiso 2003). Summer Warmth Index (SWI) is the sum of monthly mean temperatures above 0 degrees Celsius. The months of May-September were evaluated for the years 1982 - 2003 (Raynolds et al. 2008).

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The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is a measure of greenness. NDVI was calculated as: NDVI = (NIR - R) / (NIR + R), where NIR is the spectral reflectance in the AVHRR near-infrared channel (0.725-1.1 µm, channel 2) where light-reflectance from the plant canopy is dominant, and R is...

Elevation strongly influences soil moisture and patterns of tundra plant communities. Areas less than 100 m above sea level were separated to show low-elevation plains. Areas above 100 m elevation were divided into 333-m intervals to show decreases of about 2 °C, as predicted by the adiabatic lap...

This map was created for the US National Science Foundation Land-Atmosphere-Ice Interactions (LAII) Flux Study and the Arctic Transitions in the Land-Atmosphere System (ATLAS) Study (OPP-9318530 and OPP-9415554).

The map covers all of northern Alaska, from the Brooks Range divide to the coast....

This map was funded by The Nature Conservancy to provide a seamless ecological context for analysis of the distribution of biodiversity in the Northern Alaska ecoregion. It covers all of Alaska north of the latitudinal treeline on the southern side of the Brooks Range. It is in raster tif format,...

This map is a Landsat-derived land cover classification of the Beechey Point, Alaska, 1:250,000-scale quadrangle with descriptions of the major vegetation units (Walker & Acevedo 1987). Eight Landsat-level units derived from multispectral scanner data, eleven photo-interpreted units, and eight co...

Mapped polygons at 1:7.5 million scale contain many vegetation types. The map portrays the zonal vegetation within each mapped polygon. Zonal sites are areas where the vegetation develops under the prevailing climate, uninfluenced by extremes of soil moisture, snow, soil chemistry, or disturbance...

Lake cover strongly affects the reflectance of the land surface over large areas of the Arctic, and was useful for identifying extensive wetlands. Lake cover was based on the number of AVHRR water pixels in each mapped polygon, divided by the number of pixels in the polygon. Since the imagery has...

Trend in Arctic biomass was calculated from a linear regression of biomass values for all years 1982-2010 (Epstein et al 2012). Pixels with significant trends (p < 0.05) were retained. Biomass was calculated from the relationship between AVHRR NDVI and ground sampling of biomass, as described bel...

This landcover map of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska was produced by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and published in 1995.

It is based on classification of 30-m resolution Landsat-TM satellite imagery, local topographic data, a map of terrain...

This map is the outcome of a multi-year project to produce a moderate resolution landcover base map for the North Slope of Alaska to serve as a primary base layer for long-term science and planning activities on the North Slope. New Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) 30 meter resolution landcover maps...