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March 2019: Seam Lines, Inventing LF, Data Call
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WHY? HOW? AND OTHER PUZZLERS
We've taken up short question/answer bits over the years, but some head scratchers deserve more space than others. So, we're opening up the floor to bigger prompts and will do the best we can to address your puzzlers. Send us your queries, would you? Either via email, or through the LF helpdesk. Whichever you choose, please indicate that you're asking a "puzzler" for the postcard. Thanks. 
 
PUZZLER: WHY ARE THERE LINES IN LANDFIRE PRODUCTS?
Some lines may drive you crazy, but there is an explanation ... If you’ve spent much time working with maps, whether you work with 1:24,000 paper quads or digital data in a GIS, you have probably encountered items that just don’t make sense. A cartographic enthusiast (nerd?) would call these “mapping artifacts.” One particularly irksome artifact, common in maps created from satellite imagery, including LF products, is abrupt linear changes or "lines" often referred to as "seam lines."

The hard boundary these lines create in ecological data, like vegetation cover type, are a real burr under the saddle of both the mapper and the map user. In this brief article we explore and explain some common sources of lines in LF products and how LF scientists work to minimize them.
INVENTING LANDFIRE
Every great success has an "origin story," and so does LANDFIRE. How did the idea of creating national geo-spatial layers (vegetation, fuel, disturbance, etc.), databases, and ecological models - available for free to the public - germinate and grow? Who designed the original project, and who made it happen? Bob Keane was one of three principal investigators in the LF Prototype Project that was conducted between 2000-2005, when the procedures, protocols, and scientific underpinnings were developed.

A Research Ecologist, Bob has been with the US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station at the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory since 1994. He received his B.S. degree in forest engineering from the University of Maine, Orono; his M.S. in forest ecology from the University of Montana, Missoula; and his Ph.D. in forest ecology from the University of Idaho, Moscow. Read the interview and learn how a 10-day wilderness pack trip figured into the genius behind LANDFIRE's design and implementation.
ANNUAL DATA CALL DEADLINE IS MARCH 31
To ensure that data are current, LF relies heavily on contributors for mapping improvements and updates. To that end, LF issues an annual Data Call, your reminder of, or introduction to, this opportunity.

LF's primary focus is on polygon disturbance and treatment activities that occurred in calendar years 2017 and 2018, with the goal of updating map layers in areas where vegetation and fuel have changed. The secondary focus is on vegetation/fuel plot data.
The deadline for the current data call is March 31, 2019. Submissions may be used as schedules allow or will be archived for future use. Click here for info on the LF Program website. Click here for the pdf announcement and links.

Feedback regarding LF data products is always welcome. Please submit comments through the LF helpdesk.
In March, members of LANDFIRE’s Environmental Dream Team met at USGS/EROS headquarters in Sioux Falls for three days to talk strategy, planning, and products.

Holding the US Department of the Interior’s Dream Team award, center, is Jeff Hess (Technical Support Services Contract, TSSC). Others in the photo are, back row, Brian Tolk (TSSC), Lucas Porter (TSSC), Julia Deis (TSSC), Daryn Dockter (TSSC), John LaVergne (TSSC), Tim Larson (TSSC), Joel Connot (TSSC), Doug Jaton (TSSC Director), Sanath Sathyachandran (Science Support Services Contract, SSSC) , and Frank Faye (US Forest Service). Front row: Janet Halverson (TSSC), Karen Schleeweis (Rocky Mountain Research Station), Birgit Peterson (US Geological Survey), Jeff Hess (TSSC), Jim Smith (The Nature Conservancy), Steve Zahn (USGS), Henry Bastian (Department of the Interior), and Paul Bourget (TSSC).
 

LF publishes a value attribute table for every geo-spatial product it makes. Value attribute tables contain information about every mapped value in a raster dataset. Attributes are dropped from rasters in some GIS operations, and can be easily rejoined from either the original raster dataset or an attribute table from the LF website. Look for the link “CSV for attribute tables” on any LF product web page to download its attribute table.

Reflection: In “The View from Here” (Dec 2018), the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center collected 16 essays that, in a variety of ways (and from a variety of authors), ask “How and why must we alter some of our most ingrained practices and perspectives?” -- Worth a read.
The LANDFIRE Program is a cooperative agreement between the USDA Forest Service, agencies of the Department of the Interior, and The Nature Conservancy. In accordance with Federal law and U.S. Department of Agriculture policy, the Program is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability.

Henry Bastian
DOI Business Lead
Frank Fay
USFS Business Lead
Dean Mireau

USGS-LF Project Lead

Jim Smith
TNC-LF Project Lead

Birgit Peterson
USGS Technical Lead

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