Forest land cover change (1975-2000) in the Greater Border Lakes region

Abstract

This document and accompanying maps describe land cover classifications and change detection for a 13.8 million ha landscape straddling the border between Minnesota, and Ontario, Canada (greater Border Lakes Region). Land cover classifications focus on discerning Anderson Level II forest and nonforest cover to track spatiotemporal changes in forest cover. Multi-temporal Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM), Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), and Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS) data from 1972 to 2000 were used to classify forest cover types and disturbances at 5-year intervals. A composite dataset depicting the period of forest disturbance was produced using the 1975-2000 sequence of land cover data. These land cover change data were produced to facilitate analysis of forest disturbance patterns, to support landscape simulation modeling, and to support cross-ownership land management within the region. A double-sided fold-out map shows A) forest land cover change across differently managed forests, and B) classified period of forest canopy disturbance for the entire study area. Digital versions of the map are available online, as are the datasets and code used to produce them. Order a printed copy of this publication Time series examples from differently managed areas of the Border Lakes ecoregion (PDF Map)(1.9 MB) Period of most recent forest canopy disturbance (PDF Map) (1.8 MB) Data set, including metadata, GIS data and supplemental files