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Harvard Forest Data Archive

HF360

Land Zones in New England 1940-2070 from 2017 Wildlands and Woodlands Report

Related Publications

Data

Overview

  • Lead: David Foster, Brian Hall, Brian Donahue
  • Investigators:
  • Contact: Information Manager
  • Start date: 1940
  • End date: 2016
  • Status: complete
  • Location: New England
  • Latitude: +41.00 to +47.47 degrees
  • Longitude: -73.70 to -67.00 degrees
  • Elevation: 0 to 1917 meter
  • Datum: WGS84
  • Taxa:
  • Release date: 2023
  • Language: English
  • EML file: knb-lter-hfr.360.4
  • DOI: digital object identifier
  • EDI: data package
  • DataONE: data package
  • Related links:
  • Study type: historical
  • Research topic: conservation and management
  • LTER core area: disturbance patterns, land use and land cover change
  • Keywords: agriculture, conservation, geographic information systems, land cover, land use, management, spatial vector
  • Abstract:

    This dataset contains two GIS datalayers, one CSV file and an associated R script used to produce figures for the 2017 Wildlands and Woodlands report. The “wedge diagram” data (HF360-01-landcover-data.csv) shows actual percent landcover estimates across New England from 1940 to 2010 and straight-line trends needed between 2010 to 2070 to reach the Wildlands and Woodland vision by 2060. The published diagram can be seen in figure 1 of the 2017 Wildlands and Woodland report.

    In hf360-03-community-forests.zip, the GIS layer shows towns that contain community forests as determined by the authors of the report.

    In hf360-04-wildland-woodland-zones.zip, the GIS layer shows Wildland and Woodland Zones as illustrated in the report. It was created by starting with the Wildland and Woodland zones from the 2010 report and adding in areas with high agricultural land use. These types are meant to be conceptual and not prescriptive.

    Wildlands and Woodlands Report:

    Foster, D. R., Lambert, K. F., Kittredge, D. B., Donahue, B. M, Hart, C. M., Labich, W. G., Meyer, S., Thompson, J. , Buchanan, M., Levitt, J. N., Pershel, R., Ross, K., Elkins, G., Daigle, C., Hall, B., Faison, E. K., D'Amato, A. W., Forman, R. T. T., Del Tredici, P., Irland, L. C., Colburn, B. A., Orwig, D. A., Aber, J. D., Berger, A., Driscoll, C. T., Keeton, W. S., Lilieholm, R. J., Pederson, N., Ellison, A. M., Hunter, M. L., Fahey, T. J. 2017. Wildlands and Woodlands, Farmlands and Communities: Broadening the Vision for New England.

  • Methods:

    Wedge Diagram Creation Files

    The files used to make the "wedge diagram" of landcover change over time (Wildland and Woodlands Report, Figure 1) include hf360-01-landcover-data.csv, which contains landcover data and goals, and the associated R script, hf360-02-wedge-diagram-graph.txt. The output file of the R script is a PDF. Users can either use Adobe Illustrator or alter the R script to change the appearance of the labels as desired.

    Community Forests Shapefile

    The zipped file hf360-03-community-forests.zip contains data for New England towns that were determined by Wildland and Woodland researchers to have community forests. Forests highlighted in the Wildland and Woodland report are denoted by a 1 and SiteName is the property name for highlighted town forests.

    Wildland and Woodland Zones Shapefile

    The zipped file hf360-04-wildland-woodland-zones.zip contains data for Wildland and Woodland Zones as shown in the report. This layer was made as a raster format using Model Builder. The process started with the Wildland and Woodland zones from the 2010 report which did not consider agricultural lands. Making this file involved calculating the percent agriculture in the 2011 NLCD landcover for a 6km window across New England with a 500m cell size snapped to the original 2010 Wildland and Woodland Zones (see related dataset, HF359 Natural Land Zones in New England in 2006 from 2010 Wildlands and Woodlands Report). The result was converted to a polygon layer. Polygons with more than 20% agriculture were then ‘burned’ into the original Wildland and Woodland Zones via “Erase” and “Merge”. The zones shown in the “Name” field were subjectively created by Brian Donahue and Brian Hall based on the percent natural land in the original 2010 types and the type of agriculture for the newly added agricultural zones. As with the original 2010 types, this layer should be viewed as conceptual or at best, a very rough estimate of where different landscape types could be located. There were many subjective decisions which had to be made to create this illustrative layer.

    GIS Projection

    All of the GIS layers are in Albers NAD83 projection files.

  • Organization: Harvard Forest. 324 North Main Street, Petersham, MA 01366, USA. Phone (978) 724-3302. Fax (978) 724-3595.

  • Project: The Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program examines ecological dynamics in the New England region resulting from natural disturbances, environmental change, and human impacts. (ROR).

  • Funding: National Science Foundation LTER grants: DEB-8811764, DEB-9411975, DEB-0080592, DEB-0620443, DEB-1237491, DEB-1832210.

  • Use: This dataset is released to the public under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 (No Rights Reserved). Please keep the dataset creators informed of any plans to use the dataset. Consultation with the original investigators is strongly encouraged. Publications and data products that make use of the dataset should include proper acknowledgement.

  • License: Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal (CC0-1.0)

  • Citation: Foster D, Hall B, Donahue B. 2023. Land Zones in New England 1940-2070 from 2017 Wildlands and Woodlands Report. Harvard Forest Data Archive: HF360 (v.4). Environmental Data Initiative: https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/66f633f17af5eda2f964aa018ced480b.

Detailed Metadata

hf360-01: landcover data

  1. year: year
  2. wildlands: proportion of New England that was or would be Wildlands under a Wildlands and Woodlands future (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  3. protWoodlands: proportion of New England that was or would be unprotected forestland under a Wildlands and Woodlands future (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  4. unprotectedForest: proportion of New England that was or would be unprotected forestland under a Wildlands and Woodlands future (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  5. futureAgOrUnprotForest: proportion of New England that was or would be either agricultural land or unprotected forest under a Wildlands and Woodlands future (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  6. farmland: proportion of New England that was or would be farmland under a Wildlands and Woodlands future (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  7. developed: proportion of New England that was or would be developed under a Wildlands and Woodlands future (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)
  8. waterAndWetlands: proportion of New England that was or would be either water or wetlands under a Wildlands and Woodlands future. Note this value remains constant across all Years. (unit: dimensionless / missing value: NA)

hf360-02: R script used to make landcover change diagram

  • Compression: none
  • Format: R script
  • Type: script

hf360-03: New England towns with community forests

  • Compression: none
  • Format: Esri shapefile
  • Type: vector GIS

hf360-04: wildland and woodland zones

  • Compression: none
  • Format: Esri shapefile
  • Type: vector GIS