Vegetation - Gaviota Coast Dangermond Preserve [ds2957]

Site-specific surveys were conducted between 2015 and 2017 collected natural community and sensitive species data to be incorporated into WRA’s long-term geodatabase as supplementary data. WRA botanists then further refined vegetation alliance mapping by conducting accuracy assessment where site-specific surveys were conducted; when terrain made sites inaccessible, field botanists used binoculars to observe plant communities from an appropriate vantage point.Field maps generated by WRA used high-quality aerial photographs from 2010 to 2012 overlain with 10-foot contour lines. vegetation polygons were then hand-drawn by field biologists and later digitized using ArcGIS software.

Trimble Geo XH GPS units with sub-meter accuracy were used by the biologists to map especially small-scale landscape features and rare plant point-occurrences. The minimum mapping unit (MMU) is variable from 1.0 acres to point depending on the map feature type. There was a total of 50 mapping classes.

The overall Fuzzy Accuracy Assessment rating for the final vegetation map was not calculated, but much of the map was field checked.