Need for a New Map.

During the next few decades the Arctic will be strongly affected by many forces from within and outside the region including global climate change, cumulative impacts of resource development, native population increases, and tourists. The relatively simple and fragile ecosystems could be dramatically altered through changes to the vegetation, wetland destruction, and thawing of ice-rich permafrost. This could have important consequences to the wildlife resources and to the native peoples within the Arctic, as well as feedbacks to the global hydrological and atmospheric systems.

A new vegetation map would provide a common legend and language for ecosystems of the Arctic region. Such a map is needed for a wide variety of purposes related to anticipated global changes, land-use planning, and education.

Production of a new circumpolar Arctic vegetation map (CAVM) is now underway. In March 1992, an international workshop on Classification of Circum polar Arctic Vegetation was held in Boulder, Colorado. The participants recognized that knowledge of Arctic vegetation has increased dramatically in recent years and no single existing classification or map accurately portrayed the synthesis of existing knowledge. The attendees agreed to compile, edit, and publish a CAVM depicting the distribution and boundaries of Arctic vegetation north of the Arctic treeline at a scale of approximately 1:7,500,000. There was no means, however, to accomplish this goal until a new program came into existence.

Synchronously, yet independently of the Boulder Workshop, delegates from eight Arctic countries met at the first Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) workshop in Ottawa, Canada. The CAFF program is a component of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy, adopted by ministerial declaration in 1991 in Rovaniemi, Finland, by the eight Arctic countries: Canada, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. The CAFF represents a distinct international forum of scientists, resource managers, indigenous peoples, and conservationists sharing information on Arctic species and habitats. As lead agency for the United States, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, primarily through Regional Director David B. Allen, saw value in the Boulder Workshop proposal and worked toward coordinating the project. Toward this goal two international workshops have been held, in St. Petersburg, Russia and Arendal, Norway, to (1) lay the foundation for making a new circumpolar map, (2) formulate a strategy for making a vegetation map database, and (3) develop a framework for the vegetation map legend.

Scope and goals of the CAVM project

The circumpolar Arctic vegetation mapping project will provide a variety of mapped vegetation information fo r the arctic tundra and polar desert region based on our most recent scientific understanding. The project will be confined to the region north of the Arctic treeline. This region has clear climatic and ecological boundaries as well as many common political, cultural, and scientific issues t hat need to be addressed. By limiting the project to the Arctic tundra region, the project has a clear focus, a relatively small and well-defined group of regional experts who will do the mapping, and relatively small area for which the mapping protocols and legends can be developed. This is essential to keep the budget constrained and produce useful products within a short time frame. It is expected that once the arctic tundra region is mapped, it will be easy to expand the mapping effort into areas south of treeline. The project will produce three products at a scale of 1:7,5 00,000:

1. A photo-quality cloud-free and snow-free false-color infrared image of the circumpolar region derived from satellite imagery. This product is needed as a base map on which to draw vegetation boundaries. It will also be the first view of the actual terrain of the entire Arctic, and hence will have a wide variety of applications for arctic science and education. The product will be derived from a time series mosaic of Advanced Very High Resolution (AVHRR) images with 1-km picture elements.

2. A map of the relative vegetation greenness of the circumpolar region as portrayed by the maximum normalized difference vegetation index. Simil ar products have been prepared for the globe and North America and are extremely useful for examining spatial patterns of biomass production and fo r modeling the effects of climate change. This will be derived from a mosaic of AVHRR images. These first two products are nearing completion, an d the products should be published within a year.

3. A geobotanical database and derived maps of the circumpolar arctic tundra and polar desert region. The database will consist of an integrated map coded with landscape and vegetation information as interpreted on an AVHRR base map. Terrain units will be delineated on the basis of seven la ndscape factors: landscape unit, surficial geology, percentage cover of lakes, moisture status, depth of organic soil layers, soil texture, and soi l chemistry. Vegetation information will be coded according to six variables: phytogeographic zone, floristic sector, horizontal structure, domina nt plant growth forms, dominant plant communities, and characteristic plant community.

   Several recent international programs have recognized the special importance of the Arctic. In the United States, the Arctic System Science progra m of the National Science Foundation is developing an integrated program of scientific research that involves the marine, terrestrial, atmospheric, paleoenvironmental, and human aspects of the Arctic as they are related to global change. The International Arctic Science Committee and the CAFF project have recognized the CAVM as a priority research item, and numerous organizations including the United Nations Educational Program Global R esource Information Database at Arendal, Norway are devoted to developing spatial databases for the circumpolar region. Many ongoing circumpolar d atabase efforts, such as the new environmental atlas of Russia and the proposed circumpolar ecoregions mapping project, will require accurate spati al vegetation information based on the latest scientific knowledge.

    

   Project Organization and Schedule

   The CAVM project is organized such that experts in each region of the Arctic will do the initial mapping. Syn thesis win be done at the subcontinental scale at GIS centers in Alaska (USGS Alaska EROS Field Office), Scandinavia (GRID-Arendal) and Russia (Kom arov Institute in collaboration with Moscow State University). Contingent on funding, the regional draft maps will be completed by 1998, the conti nental syntheses by 1999, and final circumpolar synthesis by 2001. The overall CAVM Project Coordinator is Donald A. (Skip) Walker, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks. The Fish and Wildlife Service is leading the North American continental synthesis. F unding support for this synthesis has been received from the Bureau of Land Management (Alaska State Office), National Biological Service, Anchora ge and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Anchorage; these funds will be matched by the U.S. Geological Survey EROS Alaska Field Office, Anchorage .