Raster Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM) from AVHRR, MODIS and elevation data

Land cover maps are the basic data layer required for understanding and modeling ecological patterns and processes. The Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM), produced in 2003, has been widely used as a base map for studies in the arctic tundra biome. However, the relatively coarse resolution and vector format of the map were not compatible with many other data sets. We present a new version of the CAVM, building on the strengths of the original map, while providing a finer spatial resolution, raster format, and improved mapping. The Raster CAVM uses the legend, extent and projection of the original CAVM. The legend has 16 vegetation types, glacier, saline water, freshwater, and non-arctic land. The Raster CAVM divides the original rock-water-vegetation complex map unit that mapped the Canadian Shield into two map units, one with lichen-dominated vegetation and one with shrub-dominated vegetation. In contrast to the original hand-drawn CAVM, the raster map is based on unsupervised classifications of seventeen geographic/floristic sub-sections of the Arctic, using AVHRR and MODIS data (reflectance data and NDVI) and elevation data. The units resulting from the classification were modeled to the CAVM types using a wide variety of ancillary data. The map was reviewed by experts familiar with their particular region, including of the original authors of the CAVM from the U.S., Canada, Greenland (Denmark), Iceland, Norway (including Svalbard) and Russia.

Detailed information about the methods can be found in the publication to which this dataset is a supplement.

Citation

In order to use these data, you must cite this data set with the following citation:

Raynolds, Martha; Walker, Donald (2019), “Raster Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map”, Mendeley Data, v1 https://dx.doi.org/10.17632/c4xj5rv6kv.1