The International Biome Project selected a site for the Tundra Biome near Barrow, Alaska, within a few miles of the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory (NARL). It was in a relatively undisturbed area adjacent to Footprint Creek. The vegetation of this approx. 800 x 1100 m area was mapped based on field work in 1974, and was included as a pocket map in D.A. Walker’s MS thesis (Walker 1977, final figure). The map was subsequently used for mapping vegetation productivity (Webber 1978).
This is a vector map, printed at approximately 1:2000 scale in Walker (1977). Each polygon on this map outlines a landscape pattern recognized on black-and-white air photos. The landscape pattern results from a combination of microrelief, composed primarily of ice-wedge polygons and vegetation. Each landscape unit was visited in the field and described by a series of symbols which is entered on the map as a formula. The formula represents the mosaic of vegetation types present in each unit. The numbers in the formula refer to vegetation stand types (18 units), with coding for the vegetation on the polygon centers, rims (if present) and troughs (if present). The letters describe the geomorphological characteristics (18 microrelief units and 9 codes for type of polygon).
The map was digitized by Amelia Boyd in 2015, with direction from Marcel Buchhorn.
References
Walker, D.A., Webber, P.J. 1974. Vegetation map U.S. Tundra Biome study area, Barrow, Alaska. University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.
Walker, D.A. 1977. The analysis of the effectiveness of a television scanning densitometer for indicating geobotanical features in an ice-wedge polygon complex at Barrow, Alaska. M.A. Thesis, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 129 pp (2 maps).
Webber, P. J. 1978. Spatial and temporal variation of the vegetation and its production Barrow, Alaska Pages 37–112 in L. L. Tieszen, editor. The Ecology of Primary Producer Organisms in the Alaskan Arctic Tundra. Springer, New York.
