The California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) contracted with the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) and Aerial Information
Systems (AIS) to produce an alliance-level, vegetation classification and map of Western Riverside County, California. The
resulting classification and map products will be used to help establish a monitoring basis for the vegetation and habitats
of the Western Riverside County Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan (MSHCP). The plan aims to conserve over 500,000 acres
of land out of the 1.26 million acre total. This area is the largest MSHCP ever attempted and is an integral piece of the
network of Southern California Habitat Conservation Plans and Natural Community Conservation Planning (Dudek 2001, Dudek 2003).
Riverside County is one of the fastest growing counties in California, as well as one of the most biodiverse counties in the
United States. A wide array of habitats are found within the non-developed lands in Western Riverside County, including coastal
sage scrub, vernal pools, montane coniferous forest, chaparral, foothill woodland, annual grassland, and desert. In the CNPS
contract, vegetation resources were assessed quantitatively through field surveys, data analysis, and final vegetation classification.
Field survey data were analyzed statistically to come up with a floristically-based classification. Each vegetation type sampled
was classified according to the National Vegetation Classification System to the alliance level (and association level if
possible). The vegetation alliances were described floristically and environmentally in standard descriptions, and a final
key was produced to differentiate among 101 alliances, 169 associations, and 3 unique stands (for final report, see http://maps.dfg.ca.gov/references/ds170
). In a parallel but separate effort by AIS (as reported in this dataset), vegetation mapping was undertaken through interpretation
of ortho-rectified, aerial photographs for vegetation signatur
Citation
Title Vegetation - Western Riverside Co. [ds170]
publication Date
9999-01-01
presentationForm
mapDigital
cited responsible party
-
originator
organisation Name
California Department of Fish and Game (DFG), Aerial Information Systems (AIS),
To have consistent representation of the different vegetation types in the MSHCP and to develop the best possible models for
species distribution and abundance by addressing the needs of species' habitat at the appropriate resolutions.
notes: This metadata was automatically generated from the FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata standard (version
FGDC-STD-001-1998) using the 2012-06-20T17:21:00 version of the FGDC RSE to ISO 19115-2 transform.