The History of Vegetation Classification and Mapping in California

Since the completion of the first edition of this book much time and effort has been spent developing more accurate and efficient means of mapping vegetation. At the same time a similar amount of energy has been expended on vegetation classification. Vegetation classification was not directly discussed in the first edition (Colwell 1977). However, in current thinking, the two subjects are intimately related. Both will be discussed herein. The development in the 1980s of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has revolutionized vegetation mapping. Likewise, the development of the personal computer in the past 20 years has revolutionized the ability to analyze large data sets for vegetation classification. Since the writing of the manuscripts for the first edition of this book, the establishment of environmental laws at both state (California Environmental Quality Act, California Endangered Species Act, Natural Communities Conservation Act, etc.) and federal (National Environmental Planning Act, Endangered Species Act, Resources Planning Act, Forest Planning Act, etc.) levels, regulating the conservation and use of natural resources both within the state of California and nationally, has mandated more accurate assessment of vegetation as a measure of ecosystem health and species conservation. Great advances have been made in both classification and mapping vegetation. Many of the seminal developments in both subjects took place in California. For vegetation mapping, these include the development and production of updates to large-scale maps of forested lands using satellitebased remote sensing techniques headed up by the U.S. Forest