Systematic inventories and standardized classifications of the nation’s biological resources are prerequisites to efficient natural resource stewardship.  With the recent endorsement of the National Vegetation Classification Standard Version 2 (NVCS) by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), there have been renewed efforts towards these goals.  However, despite federal mandates (e.g. Executive Order 12906) requiring federal agencies collecting or producing geospatial data to adhere to all relevant FGDC endorsed standards, adoption of FGDC standards remains voluntary for non-federal agencies.  Within the state of Oklahoma, for instance, this problem is exemplified by the range of resource professionals representing numerous federal, state, and non-profit entities, expressing the need for contemporary land cover datasets at a variety of scales to aid in an assortment of resource management initiatives.  To ensure consistency in attempts to address the needs of these disparate organizations, a consortium of stakeholders, including representatives from the Oklahoma Biological Survey, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, the Oklahoma Conservation Commission, and the Nature Conservancy, has formed to develop land cover dataset for the state of Oklahoma.  The purpose of this project is to assess a wide range of issues, from climate change monitoring to lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) habitat assessment.  Recently, the consortium agreed to the use of the NVCS to guide this effort.

Results/Conclusions

The Land Cover Geospatial Database for the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC LCGD) represents the first step in the development of a comprehensive Oklahoma Land Cover Geospatial Database.  Development of the GPLCC LCGD is an ongoing effort that has consisted of data acquisition, image analysis, and extensive ground truthing.  This poster presents the current status of these ongoing initiatives, as well as the current status of updates to the Vegetation of Oklahoma (Hoagland 2000), upon which the land cover dataset classification is based.