Abstract
This California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) web site serves as a consolidated and centralized source of reference information dealing with location and assessment of aspen (Populus tremuloides) communities in California. The Data Center is part of the Aspen Delineation Project (ADP), a cooperative effort of the CDFG, the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Region, and the California State Office of the Bureau of Land Management. This collaboration falls within the Aspen Delineation Project's goals and objectives to help public agencies, as well as, non-governmental organizations and, private landowners to identify, map, treat, and monitor aspen habitats. The goals objectives of this collaboration have been undertaken because of the ecological significance of aspen in California ecosystems.
Though this website, the general public and the advanced user (government agencies, GIS users, academic/research communities, etc) can access the Data Centers interactive data maps as well as the aspen data for each stand in California. The CDFG also makes the whole master aspen database available for download use.
Goals of Aspen Data Center Collaboration
In recognizing the importance of facilitating the collection, storage, display, use, and sharing of quaking aspen spatial data within and among the involved agencies and contributing private landowners, the California Department of Fish and Game's Resource Assessment Program (RAP) has worked in collaboration with the Aspen Delineation Project and other contributing agencies and organizations to:
- Compile aspen location and assessment data statewide,
- Assemble and make available a web application master database that will hold all California aspen assessment location information,
- Create a user interactive web map of aspen locations,
- Produce a report that presents, summarizes and illustrates our stand of knowledge about the location and assessment of aspen in California,
- Assist in technical support in development of an integrated aspen data management system, and
- Help develop an MOU between agencies and private land owners regarding future aspen data collection and sharing.
The efforts of this project have been coordinated between the Aspen Delineation Project's principal investigator-David Burton, and the California Department of Fish and Game's (CDFG) Resource Assessment Program (RAP).
