NERP Home
Scurity & Privacy Notice
Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory
Operated by Battelle
for the
U.S. Department of Energy
PNNL-SA-28799
Vegetation Mapping
1987, 1993, Dr. J. L. Downs
The vegetation map layer was compiled from medium-altitude, color, aerial photographs obtained in 1987 (1:20,000) and September 1991 (1:24,000). To minimize the amount of relief displacement, only the center one-third of the overlapping photographs was used. Color enlargements were used to aid in identifying ground cover. The 1991 photograph was provided by Benton County for that portion of the Hanford Site lying within county boundaries. The areas outside Benton County, which for the most part include portions of the site lying to the north and east of the Columbia River, were traced from 1987 aerial photographs originally flown for the Basalt Waste Isolation Project.
Original tracings were overlain and registered on USGS 7.5 min topographic maps (UTM, AND 27, zone 11) and data were digitized for use in GRASS (The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, Champaign, Illinois). Locations were referenced to existing roadways identified on both the aerial photographs and topographic maps. Classifications of land use/vegetation were verified through field observations in 1993 in as many areas as possible. Areas that are remote and not accessible from existing roadways were not visited and are assumed to be represented by the designated cover class. However, further verification may be required for site-specific uses. The current map of land- use/ vegetation cover for the Hanford Site has 13 classifications (shrub-steppe on slopes, shrub-steppe on the Columbia River Plain/Uplands, recovering shrub-steppe on the Columbia River Plain/Uplands, bunchgrasses on slopes, hopsage/greasewood, cheatgrass, abandoned old fields, riparian, agricultural areas, sand dunes, disturbed/facilities, water and basalt outcrops). For more information see "Habitat Types on the Hanford Site: Wildlife and Plant Species of Concern" by J. L. Downs, et al., 1993, PNL-8942, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland Washington.
For more information on this study and others, please go to the Ecological Monitoring and Compliance Project website.