PARENT SESSION
Oral Session 7: GIS / Remote Sensing I.
Presiding: E Ellis and P Valko
Monday, August 2, 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, Meeting Room B 116.

Distribution and conservation status of natural land cover types in North Carolina.

McKerrow, Alexa^*,1, Wentworth, Thomas¹, ¹ North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

ABSTRACT- The Gap Analysis Program of the U.S. Geological Survey recognizing the need for detailed land cover data a basis for conservation planning has supported the development of state based land cover products throughout the nation. The North Carolina Gap Analysis Project has completed the statewide land cover map with a total of sixty nine cover classes. Of those classes, fifty nine represent natural and semi-natural vegetation. We found that over 50% of the state is forested, but the pattern of forest cover varies widely between the ecological regions of the state. The mountains continue to support a greater concentration of forests, while the Piedmont and Coastal Plain are more fragmented with urban and agricultural classes interspersed throughout those regions. The Piedmont Dry-Mesic Oak Hardwood forest is the most extensive natural upland forest representing 7% of the state's land area. While this cover class is extensive, less than 2% of that acreage occurs on lands that are managed for biodiversity. Six of the natural cover types in the state have less than 1% of their distribution on conservation lands and another 25 have less than 10% in the conservation network. In this presentation we will focus on the distribution and conservation status of the natural cover types that were mapped in the state and provide an overview of the mapping methods.

Key words: Land Cover, Conservation, Gap Analysis, Distribution