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ABMI PHOTO-PLOT INTERPRETATION MANUAL Alberta

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1. NWOOD_ Nonwoody OBS Observations SP5 Species 5 PER Percent NV TYPE NonVeg Type SP5_PER Ppecles5 MODI Modifierl Percent NV PER ponyer USITE_HT U Site Height Mop1 PER Modifierl F Percent S Percent WIDTH Line Width UORIGIN U Origin MODI YR Modifier Year PER PT Pitter EO ON ee MOD2 Modifier2 YR Year AVG_WIDTH Average UDENSITY U Density MODI PER Moder Width Percent SIZE VAR Sie USPI U Species 1 MOD2 YR Modifier2 Year Variation STAND STRU Stand USP1 PER U Species Mop3 Modifier3 Structure Percent ORIGIN Origin USP2 speci Mopsypen Moer Percent ORIGIN YR Origin Year USP2_ PER EE MOD3 YR Modifier3 Year DENSITY Density Class USP3 U Species 3 LOL Landusel Level2 7 P LEVEL2 ji X 2 E U Species 3 LUI SITE HT Site Height USP3 PER Percent LEVEL2 Landuse2 Level2 SP1 Species 1 USP4 U Species4 INFRA_TY A SP1 PER Species 1 USP4 PER U Species 4 WAUL TY T White Area Percent Percent upland site type SP2 Species 2 USP5 spaas soL ON soil symbol SP2 PER S usps PER Y SPeele WTLD TY Wetland Type Percent Percent SP3 Species 3 NTW_TY NTW Type NUTR_REG Nutrient Regime SP3 PER PERE NTW PER NTW Percent HYDR REG Hydrodynamic Percent Regime Only available for features in the ABMI LINE feature class 7 Only available for features in the ABMI POINT feature class Only availab
2. SC Snow cover Snow or ice that is not part of a glacier but is found on the landscape during summer months GL Glacier Mass of perennial snow and ice with definite lateral limits typically flowing in a particular direction Rock Rubble BR Bedrock Unfragmented consolidated rock contiguous with the underlying material e g rock walls exposed ridges canyons cliffs RT Rubble talus Fragmented rock broken away from bedrock surface and blockfield moved to its present position by gravity or ice e g scree slopes MO Moraine Area of debris transported and deposited by a glacier Exposed Land BU Burned area Land showing evidence of recent burning natural or prescribed vegetation less than 6 crown cover present at time of interpretation RS River sediments Silt gravel and sand bars associated with former river channels and present river edges LS Pond or lake sediments Exposed sediments related to dried up lakes or ponds CC Clearcut fresh Land showing evidence of recent lt 5 yr full forest harvesting vegetation less than 6 crown cover present at time of interpretation RM Reservoir margin Land exposed by a drained or fluctuation reservoir found above normal water levels and may contain range of substrates e g gravel cobbles fine sediments bedrock MU Mudflat sediment Flat plain like area associated with lakes ponds rivers or streams dominated by fine textured sediments can be associated with freshwater or estuarine sou
3. Wetland codes to be used in Alberta s southern White Areas only no specific hydrodymanic or nutrient regime is associated with these NB1 The interpreter s call on the WTLD_TY attribute should reflect the inferred throughout the year conditions of the wetland NB2 The GVI itself may be used as an auxiliary data set to help the interpreter fill in the WTLD TY attribute where it exists Use of the GVI to identify seasonal White Area wetlands is encouraged but is left to the discretion of the interpreter 4 2 5 Infrastructures Infrastructure may be defined as the physical structures facilities equipment and or machinery that support human activities and that are visible in the image In addition to landcover and landuse interpreters are asked to identify individual infrastructures within agricultural and natural or semi natural land i e not within urban or industrial areas as well as to delineate areas with high density of infrastructure such as towns and industrial parks as polygons The ABMI Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 37 infrastructure classification scheme comprises two levels infrastructure class and infrastructure type which respectively correspond to the INFRA CL and INFRA TY attributes in the ABMI File Geodatabase The first level includes seven broad classes agricultural mining and industrial urban transportation aquatic buildings and compound infrastr
4. browse button next to the text box Next select the standards to be checked from those provided A full description of each standard is found in the ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual and the ABMI QC Manual NB Checks for only 10 quality control criteria sub criteria are currently available and implemented in the ABMI Quality Control Tool at this time More standards will become available for checking in future versions of the tool In order to output a QC Report click the check box next to Produce QC Report If this box is left unchecked a report will not be produced NB The user will only be able to change set the path and filename of the OC Report if Produce QC Report is selected Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 75 ABMI Quality Control Tool E IS Select ABMI File Geodatabase for OC File Geodatabase ll Select Standards Size Constraints IV SIZE1 Absolute minimum polygon size 0 5 ha JV SIZE2 Intermediate minimum polygon size 2 ha Adjacency Constraints IV ADJA1 Minimum difference between adjacent treed polygons JV ADJA2 Minimum difference between adjacent non treed polygons Attribute Completion JV ATTR1 Orphan non attributed features JV ATTR3 Attribute consistency This checks the follwoing ATTR3A Treed Overstory Attributes ATTR3B Treed Understory Attributes ATTR3C Non Treed Vegetation
5. NB The SIZE3 criterion from previous versions of the ABMI3P 5 ha has been removed in the current version of the protocols in order to better accommodate interpretation in forested are as 3 2 3 Spatial Constraints SPAT1 There cannot be lines from ABMI LINE running parallel that at some point are less than 5 m apart if this occurs one of them has to be artificially offset SPAT2 There cannot be points that are less than 10 m apart SPAT3 The accuracy of hard boundaries corresponding to clear edges in the image has to be better than 10m SPAT4 There cannot be polygons where the density of individual points exceeds 2 points ha Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 21 3 2 4 Adjacency constraints ADJA1 There cannot be forested polygons i e DENSITY A B C or D of any size where one or more of the adjacent polygons have the same dominant over and understory species the SP1_PER and USP1_PER for each have the same value the under and overstory crown closures are less than one class apart the site height and understory height differ be tween the two by less than 3 m the moisture regime corresponds to the same upland lowland situation and where relevant that share the same wetland type ADJA2 There cannot be adjacent non forested polygons simultaneously having the same level 3 landcover type the same level 2 land use type s and the same infrastructure type 3 2
6. iting Selecting a feature you wish to edit attributes for se 4 Selecting the Show Fields option located on the ABMI Edit toolbar Display Attributes The following form will be displayed and the attribute table for the selected feature will be opened if it is currently closed When the form is initially opened the All option button will be enabled and all fields in the table will be displayed To restrict the list of fields displayed to one of the available categories simply click on the appropriate option button provided on the form Note that if you are selecting fea tures from different layers then the order of fields depends on the last option button you selected when previously edit ing that table For example if you select a point and enable the Wetland button you will see the fields associated with wetlands If you then select a polygon the fields in the pol ygon attribute table are not automatically changed to wet land but left at what you selected prior to selecting the point You will have to click on another option button then reselect the Wetland button to update the field display for your polygons Attributes Show Fields C Treed Overstory Copy t Treed Understory Paste Treed Both OjU Copy Fields Al C Non Treed Non vegetated Selected C Wetland Modifier dier Short Names Misc C Landuse Al Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual
7. 4 2 9 5 Modifiers Some features maybe affected by a quality modifying its nature or condition that cannot be captured using the standard attributes In these cases there are three sets of three modifier fields MODx MODx PER and MODx_YR that offer the interpreter an alternative method for entering this information The MODx fields have a series of possible values that refer either to disturbance agent silvicultural treatment only for forested features surface type for non vegetated anthropogenic or natural features water seasonality aquatic features agricultural activity geographic context Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 57 for alpine and riparian areas or presence of shelterbelts A complete description of the valid values of this attribute can be found in the ABMI Photo Plot Data Model version 2 4 0 The MODx PER attribute is used to store the area of the feature affected or characterized by the condition or treatment that is stored in the modifier field MODx and should be filled whenever the corresponding MODx has a non empty value The one exception to this is the shelterbelt modifier see below The MODx_YR is used to store the year of occurrence if known The following briefly describes each set of modifiers Disturbance Agents These modifiers should be used when the effects of a natural disturbance are observed in a feature e g burn windthrow snow
8. IMG_SCALE Scale or pixel size m of the ortho image s Text 8 characters RMSE of ground control points used in the IMG_RMSE ortho rectification Floating Point 0000 00 Name of the company that acquired the IMG_CO image s Text 22 characters INT_NAME ae of the person who interpreted this photo Text 22 characters Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 60 INT_CO Interpreter s affiliation Text 30 characters INT_DATE Date of completion of the interpretation Date YYYYMMDD GWAREA_TY Green Area GA White Area WA or Text 2 characters VERSION version s to which the interpretation was done Hear ee characters GC NAME a of the Quality Control of this Text 22 characters QC_CO QC company responsible s affiliation Text 22 characters QC_DATE Date of completion of theQC Date YYYYMMDD Area of province where photo plot is located transitional between the two TR The ABMI photo plot mapping protocol 5 QUALITY CONTROL An audit process will validate the accuracy and quality of the inventory information by reviewing both the quality of the interpretation and the compliance to standards The audits will be performed by a company other than the Contractor i e the individual company that performed the interpretation and will consist of two parts 1 2 Plot by plot semi automated evaluation This first component comprises the checki
9. ss sss ssc sss ss ee ee ee ee eek neee 67 APPENDIX 3 ABMI Quality Control Tools sssssss sesse sesse Re Re Re Re Re Ge Re Ge ee Re Ge Ge ee 71 Tie SEE NE N N EN OR OE EES 81 Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 1 INTRODUCTION Inventories provide the basis for biodiversity monitoring by offering a baseline on which future comparisons as well as change and trend analyses are done ABMI requires a mapping protocol for preparing inventories with information on habitat and human use characteristics for each of the 1 656 3 by 7 km rectangles called photo plots within which ABMI terrestrial field plots are located A mapping protocol is the set of standards the required levels of detail and accuracy for features specifications the processes methods or rules for achieving the standards and guidelines explanations or suggestions on how to interpret or implement the above that dictate how the mapping activity should be performed The ultimate goal of the protocol is to ensure that the needs of the users are met and that the data are collected and stored in a consistent manner greatly facilitating data use and exchanges among the users This manual describes in detail the ABMI Photo Plot Protocol ABMI3P 1 1 Objectives The goal of the ABMI3P is to define the production process of the ABMI photo plot inventory including standards specifications and guidelines Specific objectives are
10. 38 shrubs 47 shrubs 58 softcopy See aerial photography species composition 11 23 25 stand structure 24 stratification 13 15 surveys 11 12 tall shrub 28 tree species 12 23 25 26 56 58 treed 15 16 22 23 24 27 28 31 32 33 44 49 57 water features 29 52 watercourses 46 50 wetland features 18 19 51 52 wetlands 15 31 35 37 67 White Area 8 27 47 56 57 Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 82
11. BU Buildings Enclosed structures and facilities BUIP Industrial plant Buildings associated with industrial or mill processing and manufacturing BUAN Building for Buildings constructed for the housing or animals butchering of animals e g stables henhouses abattoirs BUPL Building for Buildings constructed for the cultivation plants and care of plants e g greenhouses BUST Storehouse Buildings used for the storage of goods and products e g storage buildings warehouses BURS Residential Buildings constructed for human habitation building e g houses apartment buildings cabins BUOF Office building Buildings used for professional business purposes not for human habitation e g law government offices etc BUSP Indoor sport Buildings constructed for indoor facility recreational activities e g indoor arenas fitness clubs etc Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 39 BUCO Commercial Buildings used for commercial and sales building purposes not for human habitation e g shops malls etc BUFA Agricultural Buildings used for agricultural purposes facility or e g sheds barns etc building BUTW Tower A vertical structure erected for the purpose of observation long range communication etc E g look out tower radio tower etc BUTK Tank Enclosed structure used for the storage and or proce
12. In the past NFI photo plot inventories were derived from AVI This means that inter preters should strive for the preservation of AVI polygons within the central 2 km by 2 km por tion of ABMI photo plots changing them only when the outline is misaligned more than 10 m from the true observable in the photo boundary or when landcover landuse changes have sig nificantly altered the boundary or when the value of attributes in the polygon advise to split aggregate it to make it compliant with ABMI3P standards 3 2 Standards Audited for Quality Assurance The following is a list of specific standards that will be enforced through Quality Control QC The procedures to determine compliance to these standards can be found in the ABMI photo plot QC Manual 3 2 1 Topology e TOPO1 The ABMI POLYGON feature class cannot have gaps void space within the ex tent of the photo plot e TOPO2 Polygons cannot overlap e TOPO3 Polygons cannot have detached multi parts Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 20 TOPO4 The ABMI POLYGON feature class must be coincident with the ABMI PPLOT feature class 1 e the set of polygons must exhaustively cover the buffered photo plot and not exceed it TOPOS Lines must not overlap i e be on top of each other NB Lines will treated inde pendently of polygon outlines so no spatial constraints apply between lines and polygons TOPO6 Lines must not self ove
13. Infrared RGB will be used to capture other panel photography e g Panel B was acquired with a Vexcel Ultracam Lp at 40 cm spatial resolution 1 2 2 Ancillary Data The interpreter is entitled to use any reliable pre existing information that he she might have access to from previous spatially coincident works Ancillary data described only briefly in this document that may be provided by ABMI through Alberta Sustainable Resource Development ASRD may include but are not limited to clipped to the photo plot extent portions of AVI or GVI coverages AGRASID coverage roads pipelines powerlines seismic cutlines hydrography and Digital Elevation Models 25 m grid All these data are provided in the same projection used for the final product UTM zone 11 or 12 datum NAD83 A brief description of some of these items follows Alberta Vegetation Inventory AVI an air photo based digital inventory identifying the type extent and conditions of vegetation across Alberta s Green Area Its purpose is to provide assistance to the decision making process for forest management planning forest protection wildlife habitat conservation and integrated resource management activities Alberta Sustainable Resource Development 2005 e Grassland Vegetation Inventory GVI an air photo based digital biophysically based inventory of vegetation and human footprint across Alberta s White Area As part of the Alberta Government s Land Use Framewo
14. Vegetated Open Upland OUST Tall shrub OUSS Short shrub OUHG Herbaceous grassland OUHF Herbaceous forbs non wetland OUBR Bryophyte moss non wetland VOW Vegetated Open Wetland BOXC Bog Open permafrost collapse scar BOXN Bog Open permafrost no internal lawns FOPN lt Fen Open patterning no internal lawns FONS Fen Open permafrostor patterning shrub cover FONG Fen Open permafrostor patterning graminoid cover of forested peat plateau SONS Swamp Open permafrostor patterning shrub cover SOTS Swamp Open temporary shrub dominated SOSS Swamp Open seasonal shrub dominated SOQS Swamp Open semi permanentto permanent shrub dominated MONG Marsh Open permafrostor patterning graminoid cover MOTG Marsh Open temporary graminoid Dominated MOSG Marsh Open seasonal graminoid Dominated MOQG Marsh Open semi permanentto permanent graminoid dominated MOAG Marsh Open alkali graminoid Dominated MOAX Marsh Open alkali non vegetated NVG Non Vegetated NOW Open water OWWL lt Lakes OWWS lt Salt water OWWR River OWWA Reservoir OWWW Shallow open water OWWT Stream NSI Snow lce SIGL Glacier SISC Snow cover NRO Rock rubble ROBR lt Bedrock RORT Rubble talus blockfied ROMO Moraine NEL Exposed land ELBU Burnedarea ELRS River sediments ELCC Clearcut fresh ELES Exp
15. adding up all the individual point features in it cannot exceed 2 points per hectare If the actual density of potential instances is greater than this information on them should be conveyed through the available attributes within the polygon or through the use of a compound infrastructure where applicable If this is not possible the OBS field should be used to make note of this circumstance e Multiple Multi Point Features There can be up to three separate multi point features per polygon if it happens to contain instances of the three allowed types Note that each multi point feature can only refer to a single infrastructure or landcover type e Avoiding Double Counting The value of the attributes of the encompassing polygon shall not take into account the area in it that corresponds to multi points otherwise it would be double counted for example if a 10 ha prairie polygon fully covered by grass contains less than 20 ponds all smaller than 0 5 ha the ponds would be represented by a multi point feature and the polygon s NV_TYPE attribute must be empty since these water features are already accounted for e Minimum Size Each individual point has to represent an area of at least 50 m 8 m diameter There is an exception to this small buildings or infrastructures in natural and semi natural land for example isolated cabins or outhouses e Width In the case of infrastructures represented as points the AVG_WIDTH attribute is
16. deemed to store the width of the infrastructure itself e g a wellhead and not that of the associated terrain e g a wellpad e Capturing Area Only one of either AVG WIDTH or PER PT percent area of the encompassing polygon occupied by the multi point feature attributes need to be filled by the interpreter for multi point features since one can be derived from the other e Inappropriate Use There can be situations in which the spatial arrangement of the aquatic cover is not suited for multi point representation see Figure 1 In this case Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 52 information on water should be conveyed through the NV x attributes of the encompassing polygon x A amp o hk Layer I abmi_polygon x Z Target abmi_polygon Zi E Figure 1 Example of heterogeneous polygon with both open water and vegetation and where the spatial arrangement of the covers is not suited for multi point re presentation 4 2 9 Guidelines on Specific Attributes 4 2 9 1 Moisture Regime Soil moisture regime is classified with more detail in the ABMI3P than in AVI comprising nine classes rather than four The ABMI3P moisture regime classification is based on Beckingham and Archibald 1996 the same system that provided the basis for moisture regime codes in AVI but reflects ABMI s need for greater detail in wetland areas The moisture regime classif
17. o and both NTW_PER and NWOOD PER are lt 30 o and NV_TYPE is GL SC BR RT MO RS LS AS WL WS WR WA WW or WT NB1 The value of MOIST REG chosen for a given feature be it a heterogeneous polygon or a line feature traversing different soil types represents the moisture regime the most frequently found in the feature according to the interpreter s judgement NB2 Upland soils should have the following moisture regimes very xeric xeric subxeric submesic mesic subhygric or hygric wetland soils should have subhydric or hydric moisture regimes In other words only features that are designated as wetlands according to the the WTLD TY attribute should have subhydric or hydric moisture regimes any feature not designated as a wetland should not be given one of these lowland moisture regimes NB3 Moisture regime should always have a non null value and should be NA where it is not applicable 4 2 9 2 Management Status The main intention of the management status STATUS attribute is to identify land that demonstrates visual clues that it is being managed for some purpose versus land that does not show any visible signs of management or that has been used in the past but is currently abandoned i e is no longer managed The following guidelines should be observed e Forest In forested areas management status should be used to identify forest stands that o are regenerating e g from harvesting with the Natural Rege
18. v2 4 1 67 Copy and Paste This function allows you to copy the attributes from one feature to another You are not restricted to copying attributes within the same feature class but can copy attributes such as from a polygon feature to a multi point feature To copy and paste Copy All Attributes 5 Select the feature containing the attributes you wish to copy 6 Make sure the Selected option button has been selected 7 Click on the Copy button to place attributes in buffer 8 Select the feature features you wish to copy the attributes to 9 Click on the Paste button to perform the copy Copy Selected Attributes This is used if you only wish to copy certain attributes such as modifiers The set of attributes that are copied are based on the currently selected set of fields that were set using one of Show Fields option buttons Select the feature containing the attributes you wish to copy Select the set of fields to copy by clicking on one of the Show Fields option buttons Click on the Copy button to place attributes in buffer Select the feature features you wish to copy the attributes to Click on the Paste button to perform the copy Ae BN SS Short Names Use this checkbox to set the column names for the table If you check off this option then the actual database field names will be displayed for each column You may wish to use this option if you wish to make the columns as narrow as possible but still wish to determine th
19. 4 2 5 2 Compound infrastructures sss eee ee eee 44 4 2 5 3 Linear infrastructures sese eee eee 45 A2 6 3 Gities and TOWNS aa EERS a NR dence ods ER ESE DE Ge E KERE dad GER GE SEE es ERGER ee Des 45 A 2 7 Linear FeatureS is KEER GEREEN RS ays Vd cS VT aK Kavya RVOR RS gy Oe ER KAFEE RR ak 46 4 2 7 1 Use of Line Representation sese eee eee eee 47 4 2 7 2 Anthropogenic Corridors ierra T ee ee GR Re AR Re R ATR 48 Me WE eo N RE OE OK tae ees 50 4 2 8 Use of Multi Point Representation ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee 51 4 2 9 Guidelines on Specific Attributes ee ee ee 53 4 2 91 Moisture e T see aa a a abate rend 53 4 2 9 2 Management Status iese vanoa ee ee AA RAAE NAAR Re ee ee Re ee ee Re ee ee ee ee ee 55 4 2 9 3 Observatl NS is se eee ES vee See Re gs De see ee ERNA e Be Se Ge eg ee ge 56 4 2 9 4 White Area upland type WAUL TY 56 ER Red ele EE N RE EE OE ER EDE EE N 57 4 2 9 6 Hydrodynamic and Nutrient REGIMES iss se ese ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee Re ee ee ee ee ee 59 b R NE Ie eie RE EO EE OER bares 59 4 2 9 8 LanduSe AE ERNS EE ADS R ESEG EER GR AGE Ge ee Ee ER EE Ee DE EE Be SG eN AE GR ag ee ge de 59 4 2 10 Metadata CompletioN ee ee ee ee ee 60 5 Quality Control ss sede ee ee ge de ee eg N de ee ee N 61 6 References Ee RE ee Ene SE Ee ee ee ee DE SE ee ee N Ge eg ie id 63 APPENDIX 1 ABMI Photo Plot Classification Schemes eee sesse see see se ereenn 64 APPENDIX 2 ABMI Data Entry Utilities
20. 5 Feature Representation FEAT1 There cannot be ground features that are easily identifiable in the image and that were not mapped when they should according to the interpretation manual e g a neglected dugout FEAT2 There cannot be features whose referent on the ground is not visible in or cannot be inferred from the image FEAT3 There cannot be points that because of the size of the area they represent could have been mapped as separate polygons FEAT4 There cannot be lines that because of the width of the ground feature they represent could have been mapped as polygons FEATS There cannot be ground features that are represented as both polygon and line or both polygon and point 3 2 6 Attribute Completeness Consistency and Accuracy ATTRI There cannot be orphan non attributed features except within the photo plot buff er ATTR2 There cannot be features with empty attributes that should have been filled ATTR3 There cannot be inconsistencies in the values of interrelated attributes e g a lake feature with a mesic moisture regime ATTR4 There cannot be invalid values stored in attribute tables NB This is ensured by the FGDB domains and the data entry interface ATTRS There cannot be disagreements between the contractor and the auditor of 1 more than one class interval in ordinal attributes e g moisture regime density 2 greater than 20 in quantitative attributes e g modifier percentage 3 mor
21. SR eg ete oe ee 7 1 2 3 Alberta s Vegetation Inventories A Starting PoINE ee ee 8 1 2 4 Separation between Landcover Landuse and Infrastructure sees esse 8 1 2 5 Simultaneous use of Polygon Line and Multi point Features 005 9 1 2 6 Perlodic Updating sisie tien Ges leds e EERS Ee tie ne A Ee DEd 9 2 Photo Interpretation Procedures sesse ee ees ee EER ERK Re KERE EER RE ee ee enen Ek eke Ke ee 10 2 1 Steps Prior to Photo Interpretation eee RE RR ER ee ee ee RR Re Re ee ee ee ee Re ee 10 21 1 ads en ER EE EE N ER 10 2 1 2 Interpreter Field Plots sss eee eee eee 11 2 3 Air Calls N ER ER Ee athe wag Ses RR E E ee de oe ee ere 12 2 1 4 Other Plot Data ee 12 2 2 Age Interpretation Procedure ee ee ee ER ee ee ee ee Re Re ee ee ee ee ee AR Re ee ee ee ee ee ke 12 2 3 General Interpretation Procedure 12 2 3 1 General Directions ee ee ee ee 12 2 3 2 Digitization Guidelines ee ee ee 13 2 3 3 Delineation SedguenCce ee 15 2 9 4 Feature AttriDutON ie siese sed EES se we ee ee de EE De ev GES anes Gee Dek ge 16 KK Elle ie EO soevusdivnssvsenivbendsenesddvverdaedssenverineex 18 3 1General asDeets ie EE Se EDE SE ota ah weg EED EE EES Ee Eg eee 18 3 1 1 Feature Representation sse eee 18 3 1 2 Minimum Mapping Units MMU sese 19 3 1 3 Spatial eel eT 19 3 1 4 Data Format and Submission eee RR ER ER RR ee ee ee ee Re Re ee ee RR ee 20 SAME VEREER N AO a OE EE AE EE 20 3 1 6 Linkage t
22. Transportation Transmission amp Storage TRGP Transportation of goods people and equipment TREL Transmission of electricity TRFL Transmission of fluids TRIN Transmission of information TRST Storage TRWT Transportation transmission and storage of water RS Residential RSFH Detached family houses RSFA Attached family houses RSAB Apartmentbuildings RC Recreation RCOP Passive outdoor recreation RCOA Active outdoor recreation NU No Land Use NUUD Undeveloped PL Protected amp Limited Use PLNP National Park PLPP lt Provincial Park PLWS Wildlife Sanctuary PLHS Historic Site PLFN Reserve 65 Infrastructure Classification Scheme Infrastructure Legend UR Urban Facilities Cl Compound Infrastructures UBPL lt Parking lot CIAC Acreage UBGS Green space CIFM Farmstead UBSP Outdoor sport area CIRS lt Other residential UBCE lt Cemetery CIIN Industrial compound CIWL Wellsite compound AQ Aquatic Infrastructure CICM lt Commercial compound CIOT lt Oher compound infrastructure AQDA Dam AQWE Wier BU Buildings MI Mining and Industrial AG Agricultural Facilities AQCL Canal AQCU Culvert BUIP Industrial plant mill MIWM Windmill AGFL Feedlot AQBR Bridge aqueduct BUAN Buildingsfo
23. a large agricultural polygon containing several wellsites where each wellsite is lt 0 5 ha and consists of a wellhead and one or more storage tanks Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 44 NB A Note on Wellsites Wellsites gt 0 5 ha in size i e polygon features do not require that the wellhead and other infrastructures located therein be captured as separate point features Rather an appropriate infrastructure type e g MIWL or CIWL can be used in the wellsite polygon attributes to indicate the presence of a wellhead and if present other infrastuctures However wellsites lt 0 5 ha in size e g as found in the White Area should be represented using a multi point feature and attributed accordingly 4 2 5 3 Linear infrastructures Linear infrastructures include cutlines trails roads railways pipelines and powerlines The following specifications apply e Branching linear infrastructures should be split into separate ABMI LINE features o if there is a gt 5 m difference between the width of parent and child branches or o inroads if the surface type differs between the child and the parent branches or o in cutlines and trails if the child or parent branch is not maintained or is being reclaimed while the other is not e The width of those linear infrastructure features represented as lines is measured as follows o Roads from edge of gravel or pavement dirt etc to
24. all could be included into a single multipart line feature and therefore they would Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 18 only require a single record in the associated table Also note that when a polygon is dissected by linear features the net area occupied by its main cover type can be computed after interpretation through a series of automated spatial analysis steps the same applies to cases where the polygon also contains some multi point features Finally it should be noted that a single linear entity may require representation by different line features Such would be the case of a road network where the main sectors are paved but it contains branches that are gravel the gravel roads should constitute a separate feature Minimum length for isolated linear features is 50 m and maximum gap length is lt 20 m thus features with gaps of 20 m or more must be segregated into separate parts Finally note that the use of line features is restricted to 1 narrow lt 20 m antropogenic features outside urban or industrial areas 2 wetland or aquatic elongated lt 20 m width and gt 50 m length features occurring within forest land or within natural or semi natural vegetated land 3 isolated lines of shrubs trees gt 50 m length or linear aquatic features occurring within agricultural land and 4 linear aquatic features traversing settlements or industrial areas If none of the a
25. and Wetland Attributes ATTR3D Non Vegetated Landcover Landuse and Infrastructure Attributes ATTR3E Status Modifier and Unique Feature Class ttributes Once the the File Geodatabase and standards to be checked are selected and if appropriate Produce QC Report has been checked and the path and filename of the QC report file are sa tisfactory click OK This will begin the tool Progress bars will appear indicating the pro gress of the checking of each standard If the Cancel button on a progress bar is clicked while the process is running the checking of that particular standard is aborted However the tool will continue to check the remaining standards Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 76 Once the process is complete a message box shown below will appear to indicate the com pletion of the standards check wa i Standards Check Complete ABMI Quality Control Tool Output As described above the ABMI Quality Control Tool provides two types of output to the user The first is a set of new fields in the attribute table of the relevant feature class indicating which features do not meet each standard Here a new field is created for each standard be ing checked and contains text for each feature that does not meet the standard This output is automatic and not optional with the tool However the ABMI Quality Control Toolbar al
26. and or wet meadow vegetation present usually high nutrient content typically dominated by graminoids and covered with lt 25 shrubs may contain temporary to semi permanent standing water Treed Vegetation Modifiers Modifier Description Code Forested Closed canopy gt 70 tree cover F Wooded Open canopy gt 6 and lt 70 tree cover T Open Shrubs sedges graminoids herbs etc lt 6 tree cover O Wetland Complex Landform and Seasonality Modifiers Modifier Description Code Boece Presence of perennially frozen subsoil X present Pattern of open pools alternating with elongate shrubby to Patterning c lt R wooded ridges oriented perpendicular to direction of surface P present water flow Permafrost or patterning Patterning or permafrost are not present N present Surface water usually retained for only a brief period in early Temporary spring and occasionally for several days after heavy rainstorms T water typically dominated by dry wet meadow or low prairie vegetation no alkali saline salt crust present Surface water persists for more than three weeks in spring usually disappearing by early July deepest parts dominated by Seasonal shallow marsh zone usually with peripheral wet meadow and S water v low prairie zones vegetation lush relative to Temporary wetlands alkali saline salt crust not typically visible Marshes and lakes where water persists throughout the year in Semi to most years dominat
27. applicable unless specified in contract There are four main external sources of field data on current photo plot conditions ground plots established by ABMI field crews air calls and past plots and surveys Each will be discussed in turn e Ideally after the interpreters have reviewed available information they should make field visits so as to become familiar with the area and to collect detailed vegetation data from sample plots Familiarity with local vegetation conditions will enable them to substantially improve the quality of their work NB This and the bullets below are AVI requirements it is unlikely that ABMI will implement them due to financial constraints e Ground truth plot locations are normally determined using a GPS global positioning system device They are stored as points in the ABMI_RSFIELD feature class e Depending on the complexity of landcover a minimum of 4 field plots should be established within each photo plot More plots can be measured if the interpreter wants further confirmation of the vegetation or other conditions present Normally such plots are distributed fairly evenly across the vegetated portion of each photo plot so that the variation in vegetation cover can be sampled e Field plot data consists of records of vegetation species composition and height for any locations visited increment cores of selected dominant trees as well as presence extent height and density of understory vegetation A
28. damage insect attack disease outbreak flooding etc This will most often be used for but is not limited to forested features Treatment These modifiers should be used to identify the effects of silvicultural treatment performed in a forested feature within less than 5 years of the image acquisition date They include clearcutting harvesting pruning thinning prescribed burns etc Surface Type These modifiers should be used to identify additional non vegetated surface types both artificial and natural where the NV_TYPE attribute is already filled e g a river feature must have NV_TYPE WR and modifier may be used to capture the existence of river sediments within the feature so MODx SDD or to indicate the type of surface material used for roads roofs and other anthropogenic features Agricultural Surface These modifiers should be used when there is evidence of irrigation ploughing and or salinity e g salt deposits for an agricultural feature Open Water Seasonality These modifiers should be used to identify the seasonality i e permanence of aquatic features e g rivers streams lakes ponds etc or alkalinity of aquatic or other features e g agricultural features within both the White and Green Areas wherever it can be elucidated This should not be filled for wetland features i e where the WTLD_TY attribute is filled since the latter includes information on seasonality Mountainous Areas The Alpin
29. e Identify define and capture the external boundaries of the different types of natural and anthropogenic features that occur within the 3 by 7 km photo plots or when size or width of the features is small identify their location using a more abstracted representation points or lines e Characterize each identified feature by a set of attributes e Maintain metadata records about the capture process for each photo plot 1 2 Background The ABMI3P follows a baseline monitoring approach wherein initial maps are created using softcopy interpretation of recent air photos reusing existing information where possible in particular the Alberta Vegetation Inventory AVI and the Grassland Vegetation Inventory GVI These maps are then used as a baseline for future monitoring of the spatial distribution of habitat types and anthropogenic features within each photo plot In 2008 ABMI entered in an agreement with a group of researchers from the University of Calgary hereafter the Remote Sensing Group or RSG to develop ABMI s remote sensing component manage its implementation and identify design and conduct research to efficiently monitor habitat and human footprint 1 e the amount of land base transformed by humans to serve their needs across the Province The RSG initially proposed a series of modifications to AVI standards Alberta Sustainable Resource Development 2005 based on similar monitoring programs implemented Th
30. e Protected and Limited Use e Recreation e Residential e Services e Transportation Transmission and Storage e No land use NB Within Transportation Transmission and Storage there is a Level 2 landuse class for the transportation transmission and storage of water TRWT whereas the transmission of fluids TRFL class refers to all fluids with the exception of water e g oil and gas pipelines 4 2 10 Metadata Completion Table 9 lists the metadata attributes embedded in the ABMI PPLOT feature class All attributes but those referring to the sensor camera specifications i e SENS NAME SENS BANDS and ground control point RMSE i e IMG_RMSE should be filled by the contractor before sub mitting the photo plot and by the auditor during the subsequent quality control process These attributes should be filled for the core polygon in the ABMI PPLOT feature class i e the polygon for which SUBTYPE CORE They contain important information that is vital to effective data management and the ABMI archival of photo plots and could be important for subsequent analyses e g image date imaging sensor etc See the ABMI Data Model docu ment for more information on each of these attributes Attribute Description Format SENS_NAME Name of sensor or camera Text 80 characters SENS BANDS Type of film or spectral specs of the Text 80 characters camera sensor IMG_DATE Date of acquisition of the imagery Date YYYYMMDD
31. e g the agricultural areas around the Peace River region should also be classified according to the traditional AWI codes e The seasonal alkali and non vegetated modifiers listed in Table 4 are reserved for describing the non treed White Area wetlands located in southern Alberta as these are often best characterized by the seasonality of the standing water they may contain and the formation of saline deposits or crusts Since standing open water is implied by these wetland types e g in a semi permanent to permanent wetland additional description of any open water within White Area wetlands is not required either through additional feature delineation or through the attributes of the wetland feature itself e Open water features in the White Area that are lt 2 m deep and lt 10 ha in size should be designated according to their categorization within the auxiliary Hydrography data set provided to interpreters That is if a feature is designated as a wetland according to this data set it should be given a semi permanent to permanent wetland code but if the feature is designated as a standing water body according to the Hydrography data set e g reservoir lake lagoon dugout it should be given an appropriate open water NV_TYPE code and not classified as a wetland Open water features in the White Area that are gt 2 m deep and gt 10 ha in size should be given an open water NV_TYPE and not designated as a wetland e F
32. from airborne multispectral sensors has been acquired as an alternative to conventional film photography in further acquisitions For example Panel B was acquired with a Vexcel Ultracam Lp at 40 cm spatial resolution 4 2 Interpretation Once the stratification has been completed following the guidelines in Sections 2 3 2 and 2 3 3 attribution can proceed For a given feature the list of applicable attributes varies according to the type of cover In general treed features require more attributes than non treed features and from the former the more complex the structure and the more diverse species composition the more attributes that will require completion The following sections provide specifications and guidelines for mapping and attributing differ ent type of features as well as details on particular attributes that require further explanation than that provided in the Data Model document 4 2 1 Treed Features ABM is interested in information on trees whenever they are present The following specifica tions apply e Any feature where the tree cover exceeds 1 of its area is deemed treed and must have information on trees Treed features must have at the minimum a non empty value in the tree species SPx attributes and a non null value in the DENSITY attribute For the required attributes for forested vs non forested treed features see the next two bullets Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpre
33. has occurred JADJA2 Not Met in the Following Polygon Features Polygon 1D 5470253 7 5 2011 ADJA2 not met 5470254 Polygon ID 5470254 7 5 2011 ADJA2 not met 5470253 Note numbers in perenne indicate the Polygon ID s of the adjacent polygons with which the violation has occurred ABMI Remove Quality Control Fields Tool Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 78 The ABMI Remove Quality Control Fields Tool simply removes the new attribute fields that we re created by the ABMI Quality Control tool when the user is finished with them and no longer needs them ABMI Remove Quality Control Fields Tool Using the ABMI Remove Quality Control Fields Tool Click on the Remove QC Fields button on the ABMI Quality Control Toolbar A dialog box appears shown below The user must provide the File Geodatabase from which Quality Control fields will be deleted and the fields to be deleted Remove QC Fields from Attribute Table l x Select ABMI File Geodatabase File Geodatabase Feature Class es Select feature dasses from which to remove QC fields Fields Select the QC fields you wish to remove from the attribute table s of the feature dass es selected above V OC SIZE1 Abs min polygon size VY QC_ATTR1 Orphan features I QC_SIZE2 Int min polygon size IV OC ATTR3 Attribute consistency Vv OC ADJA1 Min difference btwn adjacent t
34. herbaceous snow ice or a descriptor of the terrain itself when the terrain has no cover e g moraine rock rubble There are three landcover attributes LC1 LC2 and LC3 each corresponding a hierarchical level of classification see Appendix 1 They are all filled automatically by a script as a function of the values of several other attributes so the interpreters need not to make calls on them This means that except for infrastructures represented as multi points e g buildings wellheads all features must have the attributes on vegetated surfaces and or non vegetated surfaces filled as appropriate Otherwise the feature cannot be assigned a landcover type 4 2 9 8 Landuse ABMI landuse classes see Appendix1 and the Data Model document refer to the activity that takes place periodically at or on the feature e g growing and harvesting annual crops or when there is no permanent or periodic activity the purpose of the feature e g timber harvesting A feature can have up to two different landuses and all features must have at least one land use identified even if it us just no land use The calls should be made at the x LEVEL2 Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 59 attributes since the Y LEVELI1 ones are automatically inferred from them The main categories of land use are e Agriculture e Fishing e Forestry e Industrial e Mining Oil and Gas
35. linear features such as rivers or anthropogenic corridors e g roads railways any such features lt 20 m wide in average are to be represented as lines There however some exceptions for features gt 20 m wide where the width along a small section of the feature can go down to 10m See Sections 4 2 6 and 4 2 7 for further details on delineating linear features Artificial bridging of detached parts is discouraged and is not allowed when the length not width of the bridge is greater than 20m If an existing AVI or GVI coverage of reasonable quality is available its geometry can be copied to the ABMI POLYGON feature class to save time in the digitization In this case the original AVI GVI outlines can be left untouched editing them only Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 13 1 when errors are found or when changes on the ground have significantly altered the feature 2 when the feature needs to be split into separate features or aggregated to some neighbours to make it coherent with the ABMI3P or 3 in general where modifying the outline is necessary to meet ABMI3P standards e The ABMI3P follows the What You See is What You Map principle That is we only inventory what is visible in the image For example an AVI polygon representing old cutblock with mature lodgepole pine trees surrounded by similar trees where there is no visible trace of the clearcut area cannot b
36. of just shrubs or a combination of the previous Shrub type or species if identifiable shrub height and percent cover must be recorded General tall and short shrub categories are provided where specific shrub species is not identifiable NB Tall vs Short Shrub Tall shrub represents shrub cover that is on average gt 2 m tall short shrub represents shrub cover that is on average lt 2 m tall Non woody vegetation This includes forbs grasses sedges bryophytes mosses lichens ferns and cereals and other annual crops as well as pastures Both the vegetation type and percent cover must be recorded Non treed vegetation in forested features Both non treed vegetation visible under the forest canopy and that existing in gaps within the forest canopy must be identified using the non treed vegetation attributes The following specifications apply to identifying non treed vegetation within forested features o Where DENSITY D non treed vegetation attributes need not be filled except where gaps within the forest cover exist in the latter case any non treed vegetation within these gaps must be identified o Where DENSITY C non treed vegetation attributes may be filled for the terrain in between the tree crowns if the interpreter feels it is relevant o Where DENSITY A or B non treed vegetation attributes must be filled whenever non treed vegetation is visible within the feature NB The density classes in the above three
37. should not be filled where the inferred spatial distribution of the native upland site type in the GVI layer does not cover at least 50 of the area of the ABMI polygon e If the interpreter is in agreement with the GVI native upland site type call s found in the GVI polygon underlying the ABMI polygon the site type in the GVI polygon best describing the ABMI polygon or the GVI site type occupying the most area within the ABMI polygon should be used to fill the WAUL_TY attribute for this polygon e If the interpreter is not in agreement with GVI native upland site type call s within the relevant GVI polygon they are encouraged to use the AGRASID and any other ancillary information provided in order to make a more appropriate call e If GVI does not existfor a particular photo plot in the White Area or parkland transition zones the interpreter is asked to fill WAUL_TY to the best of their ability using the imagery and information at their disposal such as AGRASID 3 0 In this situation the SOIL_TY attribute AGRASID 3 0 soil landscape model symbol CAESA 2001 should also be filled in order to capture important soil information for each relevant ABMI polygon In cases where the ABMI polygon overlaps with two or more AGRASID polygons the polygon best representing or covering the most area within a relevant ABMI polygon should be used in filling this attribute See the ABMI Photo Plot Data Model for more information on the SOIL_TY attribute
38. some additional restrictions apply Narrow linear features should be captured as lines in non urban regions of the White Area only if e they are wetland or aquatic in nature and visible no matter how narrow e they comprise some type of non natural surface or structure such as cement asphalt laid gravel etc and are visible no matter how narrow or e they comprise natural or semi natural vegetated or non vegetated surfaces such as grass dirt etc are 3 m wide and it can be inferred that they are permanent e g non cultivated boundaries between quarter sections Therefore transient linear features such as cattle made trails and tractor spiderwebs should not be mapped Reuse of lines from the provincial base layers The geometry of the access and hydrography layers can be reused for the ABMI LINE feature class when they correspond to features lt 20 m wide providing that the existing delineation conforms to ABMI3P standards Branching hydrography and transportation features from the provincial layers must be split into separate features when e the width of a child branch is less than half the width of the parent branch for rivers and streams or if there is a gt 5 m difference between the width of parent and child branches for roads or e the water seasonality modifier e g for streams or the surface type modifier e g for roads differ between the child and the parent branches e in cutlines and trails if th
39. the encompassing polygon In this case the OBS field of the polygon should include information on the density or total number of infrastructures of this type within the polygon and on the total or percent area they occupy e Where the above situation occurs in a polygon for more than one infrastructure type the interpreter will proceed in the same way this time using the compound infrastructure type see below that better represents the different types of infrastructures within the polygon e Where there are several instances of the same type of infrastructure less that 10 m apart from each other so that the standard SPAT2 cannot be met and when their density is less than 2 infrastructures per ha NB If it is greater then we would be in the situation described two bullets above then they can be captured using a single point placed on the most central infrastructure In this case an appropriate type of compound infrastructure should be chosen for this point and the number of individual infrastructures represented by the point should be noted in the OBS field An example of this situation would be a 5 ha forest stand containing 5 cabins where each cabin has at least one neighbouring cabin less than 10 m apart A point would be place in the most central cabin and the INFRA_TY would be CIRS compound infrastructure residential Note that if there were 10 or more cabins we would be in the situation described two bullets above Castilla
40. the other edge thus the ditch if present is not counted o Seismic cutlines and trails from edge of clearing to edge of clearing or edge of dirt i e visibly worn surface to edge of dirt as the case may be o Railways from the foot of the gravel slope to the foot of the opposite slope or the farthermost slope if there is more than one rail line o Transmission lines and pipelines distance between the farthermost apart cables or pipes or pipe width if there is only one if visible or inferable if not leave blank or when the corridor along which the line runs is narrower than 20 m the width of the corridor NB See section 4 2 7 1 below Anthropogenic corridors for more detail regarding delineation of these features 4 2 6 3 Cities and Towns Cities and towns large enough to occupy a large portion gt 40 or all of a photo plot should be delineated according to the following specifications Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 45 e If2 5 ha in size residential commercial and industrial areas should be mapped separately and identified using the appropriate type of compound infrastructure INFRA_TY attribute e If the city or town does not contain residential commercial or industrial areas 5 ha in size i e it is more heterogeneous and mixed and or has no clear boundaries between these it should be mapped as one polygon and identified as CIRS Other re
41. the set of existing fields in an ABMI feature class it creates virtual views of the database by turning on and off selected fields The order and list of fields that are displayed can be fairly easily changed by modifying the lists of fields the application uses each time one of the option buttons are clicked You may wish to consult someone who has some experience with VBA to assist you in this task You can customize the ABMI template as follows Open the MXT 1 Open ArcMap 2 From the File menu choose Open 3 A dialog box will be displayed to allow you to navigate to the MXT 4 From this dialog choose the Files of type dropdown box and select the mxt file filter 5 Navigate to the abmi mxt and select it Modify frmABMIAttributes l 2 3 4 Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 From the Tools menu select Macros and Visual Basic Editor to open the VBA editor Under TemplateProject select the user form named frmABMIAttributes Open the code window for the form and find the routine UserForm_Initialize You will find a number of lists defined in this routine These contain the names of each field that will be displayed when one of the option buttons is pressed You can rearrange the order of these lists to change the order of the fields displayed in the table window You can add a new field to display by copying one of the entries and modifying the field name to the one you wish to add to
42. they apply to polygon line and or point features as they reflect important anthropogenic activities conditions and natural processes that should be identified within the ABMI3P Agricultural water seasonality alpine and riparian modifiers are of particular interest and care should be taken to employ these modifiers wherever they are relevant 4 2 9 6 Hydrodynamic and Nutrient Regimes The hydrodynamic regime HYDR_REG and nutrient regime NUTR_REG attributes are used in describing water flow and nutrient supply levels in Green Area and Green Area type wetland features The corresponding codes are taken from the AWI Alberta Wetlands Inventory are governed by the rules and guidelines outlined therein see Halsey et al 2003 and do not generally apply to White Area wetlands in Alberta s southern regions e g WTLD TY MOQG SOOS etc Since the HYDR REG and NUTR_REG attributes typically have one unique valid value respectively stagnant slow moving or dynamic and oligotrophic mesotrophic or eutrophic per WTLD_TY code these two attributes will be filled by an automated script as part of the processing steps carried out by the Field Calculator Tool see Appendix 3 Therefore these attributes need not be filled by the interpreter but will be filled later by script 4 2 9 7 Landcover ABMI3P landcover classes Appendix are descriptors of the biophysical cover of the terrain encompassed within a delineated feature e g
43. 0 11 14 47 image data See aerial photography infrastructure 9 16 22 38 40 42 43 44 45 52 interpretation 2 5 6 8 9 10 11 12 13 19 20 22 23 30 56 61 irrigation 41 58 landcover 8 11 16 20 21 22 37 49 59 landuse 8 16 20 37 39 59 linear 14 16 19 27 39 45 47 50 51 59 lines 5 9 11 13 14 16 18 21 22 38 45 47 management status 55 minimum mapping length 14 Minimum Mapping Unit See MMU minimum mapping width 13 MMU 18 19 modifier 14 27 31 47 57 58 59 modifiers 35 51 58 59 68 moisture regime 22 53 54 55 multipart lines 18 19 multi point features 15 16 18 19 20 21 51 52 59 68 native grassland 56 57 native upland site type 56 57 NFI 20 30 non treed vegetation 27 28 non vegetated 16 28 29 30 44 47 49 58 59 nutrient regime 32 33 open water seasonality 58 origin 12 24 ploughing 58 points 5 11 13 18 21 22 51 52 polygon 10 13 14 15 16 18 19 20 21 22 25 27 43 48 49 50 51 52 53 55 56 57 59 67 68 74 protocol See ABMI3P QC 6 11 20 62 71 75 76 77 78 79 QC Manual 11 Quality Control See QC Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 81 Quality Control Tools 23 71 riparian 16 58 59 salinity 58 scale 6 13 19 23 shelterbelts 16 27 58 59 short shrub 28 shrubs 34 shrubs 19 24 27 28 shrubs
44. A general pine species P cannot be identified alongside a specific pine species such as Jack pine Pj within the same feature Examples of appropriate combinations within a polygon include Aw Pb Bw Sw Fb Fa Se Fd Sb Lt Lw Pl Pj Pa Pf Over and understory tree species are to be listed in the attribute table in decreasing order of occurrence based on percent crown closure e g SP1 will represent the most abundant tree species in the overstory SP2 the second most abundant etc The photo interpreter will decide the sequence in which the tree species are listed in features where two or more species have similar crown closure percentages based on which species he or she estimates has the greater percentage of crown closure When more than five tree species occur in a stand the percentage of the canopy represented by each of the additional coniferous or deciduous species is added to one of the first five Species as appropriate Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 25 Table 2 List of tree species names and symbols Interpretation and ESE Database Code Confirmed Generalized species code White spruce Picea glauca Sw Sw Engelmann spruce Picea engelmannii Se Se Black spruce Picea mariana Sb Sb Lodgepole pine Pinus contorta Pl P Jack pine Pinus banksiana Pj P White bark pine Pinus alb
45. ABMI Remote Sensing Group August 2011 ABMI PHOTO PLOT INTERPRETATION MANUAL Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute Remote Sensing Group Version 2 4 1 August 2011 ALBERTA MONITORING INSTITUTE Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 ABMI Remote Sensing Group About this document Title Purpose Filename Authors Document history Current version Changes to previous version Date Status Target readership General readership Correct reference Copyright notice August 2011 ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual To provide guidance in particular specifications and stand ards to interpreters working in ABMI photo plots ABMI photoplot InterpManual v240 sent20110431 pdf Guillermo Castilla Jennifer Hird Bryce Maynes and Greg McDermid V20081103 First version based largely on AVI V20081217 2 version incorporating recommendations from the ad hoc working group ABMI ASRD and Timberline and further streamlined and put into the format of AVI Chap ter 4 depletions V20090107 incorporating feedback from Jim Schieck ABMI V20090119 version 2 1 1 incorporating further feedback This version was the one used for the 1 pilot V20090401 version 2 1 2 incorporating feedback from ABMI Workshop participants ABMI ASRD Timberline GreenLink and used for a pilot V20090924 incorporating feedback and evaluation of the oe pilot V20091021 incorp
46. Albertan users and producers are familiar with AVI Therefore designing a protocol that resembles AVI will facilitate the interpretation of ABMI map products The reason ABMI does not use AVI products directly is that they exhibit different levels of detail and up to dateness in different parts of the Province and are available only for parts of the Green Area For the White Area a different inventory the GVI Grassland Vegetation Inventory is available which also incorporates requirements from wildlife experts An alternative to the chosen solution would have been to use AVI for the Green Area and GVI for the White Area However ABMI needs a single protocol that can be applied consistently and efficiently throughout the Province 1 2 4 Separation between Landcover Landuse and Infrastructure An important difference between the AVI and GVI and the ABMI3P is that the ABMI3P makes a clear distinction between landcover and landuse Each ABMI landcover class is a descriptor of the biophysical cover of the terrain encompassed within a delineated feature e g herbaceous or when the terrain has no cover a descriptor of the terrain itself e g moraine In contrast ABMI landuse classes refer to the activity that takes place periodically in the feature e g growing and harvesting annual crops or when there is no permanent or periodic activity the initial purpose of the feature An example of the latter is a seismic cutline who
47. Cutlines Narrow straight strips of cleared terrain resulting from seismic exploration many of them later used for vehicular ATV snowmobile access o Trails curvilinear strips of cleared terrain that are used mainly for recreation This layer includes hiking trails and trap lines o Pipelines Narrow corridors containing underground pipelines for transmission of petrochemical fluids o Powerlines Corridors containing poles towers and lines for transmitting electricity o Hydrography A line layer containing streams rivers canals ditches aqueducts etc as well as a polygon layer containing lakes ponds reservoirs lagoons etc 1 2 3 Alberta s Vegetation Inventories A Starting Point AVI Alberta Vegetation Inventory was developed to map vegetation in a manner that would meet the basic needs of most forest managers including wildlife biologists Various users were expected to enhance the inventory as required in order to better suit their needs For example wildlife habitat maps can be created from the AVI vegetation polygons following sampling to collect auxiliary information on understory vegetation and other attributes of interest to wildlife managers This is one of the three reasons why the ABMI3P standards are similar to AVI s Another reason is that this similarity allows for the reuse of valuable existing AVI information which will in turn decrease the production cost of the new information And last but not least both
48. ELON FTNN SOOS gt FINR MONG gt FINI MOTG gt SFNN gt MOSG gt STNN gt MOQG MOAG gt MOAX Legend VGT Vegetated Treed VTU Vegetated Treed Upland TUFC Forest conifer TUFD Forest broadleaf TUFM Forest mixed VTW Vegetated Treed Wetland BTXC Bog Wooded permafrost collapse scar BFXC Bog Forested permafrost collapse scar BTXN Bog Wooded permafrost no internal lawns BFXN lt Bog Forested permafrost no internal lawns BTNN Bog Wooded permafrostor patterning no internal lawns BTNR Bog Wooded permafrostor patterning internal islands of forested peat plateau BTNI Bog Wooded permafrostor patterning internal lawns FTPN lt Een Wooded patterning no internal lawns FTNN Fen Wooded permafrostor patterning no internal lawns FTNR lt Een Wooded permafrostor patterning internal islands of forested peat plateau FTNI Fen Wooded permafrostor patterning internal lawns SFNN Swamp Forested permafrostor patterning no internal lawns STNN Swamp Wooded permafrostor patterning no internal lawns Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 VGO Vegetated Non Treed VOU
49. Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 43 4 2 5 2 Compound infrastructures Compound infrastructures refer to clusters of inter related infrastructures that have a common purpose use or owner The cluster may be delineated as a single polygon if it covers an area gt 0 5 ha or as a single point if they cover an area lt 0 5 ha Thus the compound infrastructure INFRA_TY values should be used where multiple inter related infrastructures can be delineated as a single feature Entities that should be delineated as a compound infrastructures include farmsteads acreages hamlets villages and small towns commercial centres e g large shopping centres or malls outside of urban areas and industrial oil and gas or mining facilities including wellsites with multiple infrastructures The following specifications should be followed for the delineation and attribution of these features e No individual infrastructures within the feature should be captured separately as their presence is implicit in the compound infrastructure identification e The INFRA TY attribute should be filled with the appropriate compound infrastructure code e g CIAC CIFM CIRS CIIN CIWL CICM or CIOT e The LUI LEVEL2 and LU2 LEVEL2 where relevant should be filled to reflect the most prevalent use or uses observed for the feature e g RSFD for acreage RSFD plus one of AGST AGLV etc for farmsteads RSFD and SESM for
50. Txx or forested xFxx o Do not have permafrost xxXx patterning xxNx internal lawns xxxl xxxR or collapse scars xxxC E g MOAG MOAS MOAX Table 5 lists the 28 most common wetland classification 4 letter code combinations of the ABMI3P that will be found within Alberta This list is based on information contained in the AWI Halsey et al 2003 as well as the GVI Alberta Sustainable Resource Development Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 35 2010 A list of the valid DENSITY NUTR_REG and HYDR_REG codes associated with each wetland class in particular for the AWI based codes is also provided The following four letter codes form the list of valid WTLD_TY attribute values that can be used by the interpreter to classify a wetland Table 5 Green and White Area wetland type codes and descriptions for the WTLD TY attribute along with the associated valid DENSITY NUTR_REG and HYDR_REG values for each Wetland A Valid Attribute Values Description Type DENSITY NUTR REG HYDR REG Forested permafrost e g BFXC peat plateaus bog with D O STA collapse scars Forested permafrost e g BFXN peat plateaus without D O STA collapse scars Wooded permafrost e g BTXC peat plateaus bog with A B C O STA collapse scars Wooded permafrost e g BTXN peat plateaus bog without A B C O STA collapse scars BTNN Wooded bog without ABC o STA int
51. Watercourses The delineation of watercourses will depend on the width of the river or stream channel i e the space bounded by the banks measured from foot to foot of the banks slope and on whether it is either completely covered by water or contains patches or islands of river sediments or vegetation e Delineation o Channels lt 20 m wide in average are to be delineated as line features Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 50 o Channels on average gt 20 m wide are to be delineated as polygon features In this case if the channel is lt 20 m wide in some short sections it is acceptable to follow the true boundary of the channel within reason When the channel is more than 100 m wide i e when it is better referred to as a flood plain and the wiggly subchannel s where water actually runs is are gt 20 m wide on average then there will be two polygons a river polygon and a wider channel polygon The former will be nested in the latter If the nested water channel braids only those branches that are on average gt 20 m wide will be delineated and the rest will be subsumed in the wider channel polygon If the subchannels are lt 20 m wide in average they cannot be delineated as a nested feature and therefore will be subsumed in the main channel NB Avoiding Duplication Where channels are delineated as polygons their representation is not to be duplicated by the delineat
52. a QC Report text file It provides the date and time the tool was run the File Geodatabase in which standards were checked the standards that were checked and the list of features identified by POLYGON_ID ARC_ID or POINT_ID that do not meet each standard NB If the path and filename selected for the OC Report text file is the same as one that already exists this can happen easily when using the default path and filename automati cally set by the tool the tool does not overwrite the existing file Rather it appends the new OC Report onto the old one in the same file If this happens open the text file go to the end and scroll up until you find a time stamp which is the beginning of the new re port al abmi_574_fixedTopo_QCReport5 Notepad Fie Edit Format View Help Fee e eee ee We Ve Ve Ve We Ve Ve Ve Ne Se Ne Se ieee ee ee ee e Ve Ve Se Ne de Se Ve Ve Ve Ve Ve Ve Ve Ve Ve Se Ve Se Se Se e Ve Ve Ve Ve Ve Ve Ve ie Ne eee ABMI Compliance to Standards Report Tool Version 2011 07 05 Mapping Protocol version 2 4 0 File Geodatabase Checked ic Users jnklasse Documents ABMI QCc_Tool Updating_Tool_v240_Spring2011 TestDatasSets_v240 abmi_574_fixedTopo gdb Date of Report 7 5 2011 Time of Report 11 51 32 AM Standards checked Absolute Minimum Polygon size Intermediate Minimum Polygon size Minimum Difference Between Adjacent Treed Polygons Minimum Difference Between Adjacent Non Treed Polygons Orphan Feat
53. a classification For details regarding the provided Data Entry Utilities see Appendix 2 Ensure all applicable feature attributes are properly completed Attributes and their domains range or list of valid values are fully described in the ABMI Data Model document version 2 4 1 2 3 2 Digitization Guidelines The interpretation process is divided in two stages stratification where features are delineated and classification a k a attribution where the relevant attributes of each delineated feature are filled Stratification of the photo plot is based upon biophysical criteria that can be recognized and differentiated into homogeneous units by softcopy interpretation of the provided imagery The following guidelines are suggested The digitization sequence should be polygons first then points then lines Feature digitization should NOT take place at visualization scales finer than 1 2 000 or coarser than 1 5 000 Outlines should appear sufficiently generalized at the 1 20 000 scale hence convoluted polygon boundaries and spurs close to the minimum mapping width for non linear polygons 20 m are to be avoided Furthermore the interpreter should strive not to add superfluous vertices not changing the bearing or giving a wiggly appearance to the outline As a guideline there should not be consecutive vertices in an outline that are less than 5 m apart on the ground NB This minimum mapping width refers to the mean width of
54. aining more than one infrastructure such as a road and a pipeline The corridor itself and the principal largest or most relevant infrastructure located therein should be delineated and attributed according to these specifications However the delineation and attribution of additional infrastructures within the corridor should meet the following specifications e Ifall additional infrastructures are gt 20 m in width and where the space in between them is lt 20 m the infrastructures should be delineated as adjacent polygons that share a Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 49 common boundary This common boundary should be placed in the absence of a visible edge equidistant to the imaginary centerlines of both infrastructures If the space between these infrastructures is 2 20 m this space should be delineated as a separate polygon These additional polygons should be attributed with the appropriate land cover of the infrastructure or the corridor land use and infrastructure type e If all additional infrastructures are lt 20 m in width they should be delineated as ABMI LINE features and again attributed with the appropriate land cover land use and infrastructure Crossings Where two polygon representing linear infrastructures gt 20 m in width cross one of them must be interrupted since there cannot be polygon overlap In this event precedence to preserve the continuity o
55. artially or wholly filled with water may also represent abandoned open mining pit AQDI Ditch Narrow anthropogenic watercourse build to convey or redirect water for irrigation or drainage does not have well maintained reinforced banks may be covered with vegetation AQSP Spillway Anthropogenic structure build for the passage of superfluous water from a dam in the form of a paved apron on a dam structure AQWC Water control device An anthropogenic device on a ditch canal river or stream for controlling water flow or level other than a weir or dam e g sluice gates Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 41 AQDK Dock A water side platform used for the loading or unloading of people goods or equipment onto boats ships or other watercraft AQRE Reservoir An artificial water body created by impoundment of water behind an anthropogenic structure such as a dam berm dyke or wall AQOT Other types of aquatic infrastructure Other infrastructure associated with the control transportation and or storage of water CI Compound infrastructure Dense cluster of infrastructures sharing a common purpose or use e g farmsteads acreages industrial plants facilities CIAC Acreage Single family isolated residential section of land e g not part of a larger settlement not associated with farming or agricult
56. ata format chosen to store the data Softcopy interpretation requires that the information in the photo be assessed in a logical systematic and objective manner so that the standards are achieved This section Section 2 describes the steps to be taken before during this process 2 1 Steps Prior to Photo Interpretation 2 1 1 Preparation Gather base information e g access layer hydrography layer and other reference materials including existing AVI or GVI maps and if available previously interpreted photos and available ground plot data related to the area to be interpreted As a general rule existing vegetation and other GIS base layers will be provided as part of the materials of the photo interpretation contract Have the aerotriangulated digital aerial photos ready to use in your ArcMap compatible softcopy system Again the digital images and the aerotriangulation support files will also be provided as part of the materials of the photo interpretation contract Have the corresponding instance of the ABMI PPLOT feature class ABMI photo plot frame dimensions 3x7 km along with a 100 meter buffer for linework extension and the other feature classes ABMI POLYGON ABMI POINT and ABMI LINE loaded in ArcMap an empty FGDB will be provided for each photo plot If an existing AVI coverage less than 10 years old is available its geometry not the attributes can be copied to the ABMI FGDB as the initial ABMI POLYGON feature class whi
57. ated i e interpreted using the best available information and the interpreter experience e Digital files for all of the recent forest fires are listed on the Historical Spatial Wildfire Data from Forest Protection Division s external web site Use the most current version of this data to assist in estimating tree stand age e If age can be estimated record the approximate year of origin of the feature in the ORIGIN_ YR field 2 3 General Interpretation Procedure 2 3 1 General Directions The following is the procedure for completing the ABMI photo plot interpretation e Interpret the photos to ABMI3P standards and specifications described in following sections using your ArcMap compatible softcopy environment of choice and with the help of the ancillary information you gathered prior to commencing the interpretation Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 12 Interpretation coverage must extend 100 m past photo plot true border buffer area already included as a ring polygon in the ABMI PPLOT feature class Attribution of polygons within the buffer whose boundary does not traverse the true frame represented by the ABMI PPLOT subtype 1 core of the photo plot is not required The use of the ABMI data entry interface for ArcMap provided as part of the contract materials is mandatory since it completely precludes the occurrence of typing errors during attribution a k
58. ature e For isolated shelterbelts not included in the above situations e g located between agricultural fields o The shelterbelt should be delineated as a separate line feature providing it meets delineation standards e g 50 m in length and attributed according to ABMI standards e g species height density etc Note for Z density stands only SP1 must be identified and other tree attributes remain optional 4 2 2 Non Treed Vegetation The ABMI Data Model includes attributes about non treed vegetation This includes attributes about type height and percent cover of shrubs NTW_TY NTW_HT NTW_PER and type and percent cover of non woody vegetation NWOOD TY NWOOD PER The following specifications apply Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 27 Non treed vegetation must cover gt 6 of the feature s area for it to be identified within the attributes of the feature Thus the x PER attributes must have value gt 6 where the corresponding attribute are filled Conversely if the non treed vegetation covers less than 6 of the feature it cannot be reported NB The non vegetated percent attributes have a different meaning than species percent attributes in AVI since they refer to percent area and not percent of the crown closure as in the SPx_PER fields Non treed woody vegetation This comprises shrubs in open canopies gaps with shrubs in closed canopies larger patches
59. bove applies the regions with a different cover type cannot be explicitly repre sented and information on them is indirectly included through the attributes of the encompassing polygon e g percent area occupied by this cover type within the polygon 3 1 2 Minimum Mapping Units MMU Interpreters are asked to delineate polygons such that significant and observable differences exist between them and their neighbours Polygons are delineated to minimum polygon sizes of A 0 5 ha or B 2 ha according to the following criteria A 0 5 ha minimum if one of the following occurs wetland or aquatic features within larger anthropogenic features e g settled areas or nat ural or semi natural lands anthropogenic features within natural or semi natural lands treed vegetation within agricultural land B 2 ha minimum for all other situations 3 1 3 Spatial Accuracy The level of precision required for the outlines of the ABMI POLYGON feature class is 0 5 mm at a scale of 1 20 000 ground distance of 10 m That is the visible boundary of the feature in the ortho photo must lie within 10 m from the digitized outline NB This applies only to hard boundaries i e boundaries corresponding to clear edges in the image soft boundaries are as sessed indirectly and have a larger tolerance In the case of the ABMI LINE feature class the Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 19 reference is the i
60. bullets represent the combined density of both overstory and understory For example if DENSITY C and UDENSITY B then the overall density of the polygon is D 4 2 3 Non Vegetated Cover Features either partially or completely devoid of vegetation can be partially or completely described using the NV TYPE and NV PER respectively type of non vegetated cover and percent area of the feature occupied by this cover A list of valid attribute values for NV_ TYPE is provided in Table 3 Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 28 e Non vegetated type This includes both terrestrial e g exposed soil snow and aquatic e g lakes reservoirs covers Aquatic cover takes precedence over terrestrial covers The NV_TYPE attribute should be used to identify water features where they exist If additional non vegetated covers exist within a feature the MODx attributes should be used to fill additional covers e g sediments in a river channel NB Where the name of a stream river lake reservoir or other feature is known the interpreter is asked to include this information in the OBS field e Non vegetated percent This refers to percent area of the feature covered by the non vegetated surface identified in the non vegetated type attribute NB1 The non vegetated percent attribute has a different meaning than the species percent attributes since it refers to percent area and not percent of the cr
61. ch will be subsequently edited An exception to this is the case when after visual inspection it is found that more than half of the AVI outlines would need to be modified to register correctly with the observed features in the image In this case the AVI coverage will still be used as reference information but its outlines will not be used as an initial template Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 10 e IfaGVI coverage exists the linework of those GVI polygons that would be relevant under ABMI standards can be reused always making sure that the standards on minimum size and difference between adjacent polygons see Sections 3 2 2 and 3 2 4 are observed e In the case of lines the geometry of those features from the access and hydrography layers narrower than 20m can be copied to the ABMI FGDB as the initial ABMI LINE feature class providing this delineation conforms to ABMI standards e Have handy the latest version version no indicated in the contract of this interpretation manual and other ABMI documents that can be used as reference such as the ABMI Photo Plot Data Model and the QC Manual It is highly recommended that the person doing the interpretation has read these documents prior to starting work in the photo plot especially this Manual In particular interpreters must have in mind at all times the list of standards provided in section 3 2 2 1 2 Interpreter Field Plots NB Not
62. d type WAUL_TY This attribute is intended to capture the GVI native upland site type present in native grassland polygons within ABMI photo plots from the White Area and parkland transition zone That is WAUL_TY should not be filled for agricul tural or other non treed anthropogenic polygons or for forested polygons The following specifications should be followed when filling this attribute See the ABMI Photo Plot Data Model document for more information e The most current GVI data set and the native upland site types interepreted therein should be used as a guide to determine the most appropriate native grassland site type for each relevant ABMI polygon feature within regions covered by GVI Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 56 e Relevant ABMI Polygon Features These include those native grassland polygons o for which the most common vegetated land cover is non treed i e tree density is lt 6 and non treed vegetation either woody or non woody is gt 10 o or for which 50 or more of their area corresponds in the GVI layer to a native upland site type NB If an ABMI polygon overlaps with a GVI polygon in which both native upland and non native upland e g anthropogenic or non upland site types occur note that a GVI polygon can carry up to four different site types the spatial distribution of the native upland site type must be carefully considered The WAUL TY attribute
63. description of the vegetation seen while travelling to from each plot is also recorded in the notes Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 UH e Before trespassing on any land except Alberta Crown land not under a disposition field crews must obtain access permission from landowners managers or disposition holders 2 1 3 Air Calls NB Not applicable unless specified in contract Air calls i e descriptions of vegetation obtained by flying over an area to be interpreted are also a valuable source of information to interpreters Descriptions obtained from flights over the photo plot should be recorded in written or tape recorded notes NB This section should be developed more in future as to give instructions to ABMI field crews to take digital pictures during flights to field locations the most likely source of ground truth 2 1 4 Other Plot Data NB Not applicable unless specified in contract Ground data from other sources can also provide valuable assistance to interpreters Generally this source includes temporary and permanent sample plots PSP as well as various surveys such as those done to assess regeneration success Data and information including tree species height and density can be obtained from these sources This information can be included in the ABMI RSFIELD feature class 2 2 Age Interpretation Procedure e The age of even aged forest stands will be roughly estim
64. dths e g edge of clearing to edge of clearing and the widths of the infrastructures within The following specifications should be followed when mapping corridors s Corridor 20 m wide 1 The corridor and the infrastructure contained therein should be delineated as one polygon feature 2 This feature should be attributed with the appropriate land cover indicating the vegetated or non vegetated surface of the corridor itself as well as the non vegetated and or artificial surface of the infrastructure land use and infrastructure type 3 Example a gravel road 12 m wide with grassy strips 4 m wide at each side It would be a single polygon 20 m wide whose attributes would be NV TYPE AS NV_PER 60 NWOOD TY HF NWOOD PER 40 MODI SGV MODI PER 60 LU_LEVEL2 TRGP Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 48 INFRA TY TRRD s Corridor lt 20 m wide 1 The corridor and the infrastructure contained therein should be delineated as a single line feature 2 This feature should be attributed with the appropriate land cover indicating the vegetated or non vegetated surface of the corridor itself as well as the non vegetated and or artificial surface of the infrastructure land use infrastructure type and width 3 If the corridor widens in some sectors e g a borrow pit beside a road the corridor itself will still be represented as a line while the widened area shou
65. e child or parent branch is not maintained or is being reclaimed while the other is not Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 47 Capturing linear feature width The width of a linear feature is directly captured when this feature is delineated as a polygon However line features captured as part of the ABMI LINE feature class require the WIDTH attribute which is measured in meters to the closest integer to be filled in all instances Guidelines for capturing this attribute are found in Section 4 2 5 3 above 4 2 7 2 Anthropogenic Corridors Anthropogenic corridors or right of ways are linear features that generally contain one ore more linear infrastructures e g roads pipelines transmission lines In order to avoid double counting and increase efficiency the cleared area forming the corridor and the infrastructure itself should be considered one and the same Therefore they should be captured as a single feature whose attributes encapsulate the land cover land use and infrastructure present within NB Those anthropogenic corridors containing more than one infrastructure should only capture the principal largest or most relevant infrastructure as part of that feature s attributes while additional infrastructures are delineated and attributed as separate ABMI LINE features See guidelines for multi purpose corridors below The delineation of anthropogenic corridors varies with their wi
66. e fields associ ated with the column Uncheck this option to display the full alias name that has been associated with the field Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 68 Troubleshooting The application customizes the attribute window by turning columns on or off If you are having problems with the columns there are several things you may wish to try Manually Turn on Fields 1 Right click on the ABMI layer in the ArcMap table of contents and select Properties from the context menu 2 Click on the Fields tab on the Properties form 3 Click on the Select All button to turn on all the fields If this does not turn on all the layers then try next Set Column Width If the column width is set to 0 then you will not see the column even if it is turned on 1 From the Attribute window select the Options button 2 Click on the Restore Default Column Widths option This should restore the column widths and display any columns that may have been hidden S Selected Attributes of abmi_polygon OBJECTID Shape Shape_Length Shape_Area MOIST_REG STATUS 1246 173663 B7478 814393 MSC Mesic UK Unknown or undecidable Null gt Record 14 1 DD Show Al J Selected Records 1 out of 2 Selected Options 2 Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 69 Customization The application uses a simple approach to displaying fields in the table window Using
67. e modifier listed under the Locational Context modifiers in the Data Model document should be used to identify any features or land above the maximum elevation for tree species where tree cover is lt 1 i e above the treeline These areas may be vegetated and be dominated by shrubs herbs lichens etc or be non vegetated and be dominated by rock talus snow and or ice Riparian Locations The riparian modifier the other modifier listed under the Locational Context modifiers in the Data Model document should be used to identify all features or land adjacent to flowing water e g a river or stream whether seasonal or not This modifier reflects areas that are transitional between aquatic features and the surround upland areas Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 58 Shelterbelts The shelterbelt the one modifier listed under the Special Features modifiers in the Data Model document should be used to identify polygon and line features that have 10 of their perimeter edge or length for linear features flanked by or composed of shelterbelts e g a farmstead or acreage or a shelterbelt or shelterbelts running alongside a road For these features the MODx PER attribute represents the percentage of the perimeter or length if the feature is linear of the feature that is composed of or flanked by shelterbelts NB The interpreter should be diligent in using modifiers wherever
68. e retained in the ABMI FGDB A fully reclaimed wellpad would be another example or a wellhead appearing in the government database that is not visible on the image e The geometry of the access and hydrography layers can be reused for the ABMI LINE feature class when they correspond to features narrower than 20m providing that the existing delineation conforms to ABMI3P standards When it does not conform the delineation has to be modified accordingly In all cases each individual line must be assigned possibly as a subpart to the correct type of feature That is there cannot be ABMI LINE features that contain subparts of different type e g a cutline segment and a pipeline segment Conversely a subpart cannot share vertices or nodes with other subparts of the same feature i e a subpart has to be a line or group of lines disconnected from other subparts of the feature e Branching hydrography and transportation features from the provincial layers must be split into separate features only when 1 the width of a child branch is less than half the width of the parent branch for rivers and streams or if there is a gt 5 m difference between the width of parent and child branches for roads or 2 the water seasonality modifier e g streams or the surface type modifier e g roads differ between the child and the parent branches e An isolated line i e not connected to other line features less than 50 m in length should no
69. e term feature is used throughout this document to refer to both entities on the ground and their digital representation Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 5 in other regions Subsequently a working group composed of key personnel from Alberta Sustainable Resource Development ASRD and forest resource inventory companies was established to review the proposed modifications The recommendations of this working group were addressed and the protocol tested in a pilot study comprising two photo plots and carried out by certified interpreters from two companies Greenlink Forestry Incorporated and TECO Natural Resource Group Ltd in winter 2009 After the successful completion of the winter 2009 pilot the results were evaluated and a new batch of recommendations was prepared The latter resulted in a subsequent version of the protocol 2 1 2 which was tested in a 16 plot pilot in spring 2009 that involved the same two companies As a result of this second pilot a new version 2 2 of the ABMI3P incorporating recommendations and feedback from the contractors and intended to address issues that arose during the spring 2009 pilot This new version also included for the first time a formal Quality Control QC process as well as a new preliminary set of GIS based QC Tools Version 2 2 of the ABMI3P was then tested in a third 8 plot pilot undertaken over the late fall and winter of 2009 2010 this time
70. e than 3 m in height attrib utes 4 and more than 20 years in year attributes e g ORIGIN YR UORIGIN YR MODx_ YR ATTRG6 The value selected for a given categorical attribute by the contractor and the auditor must coincide with at least 80 accuracy for calculation of this accuracy see the ABMI QC Manual It should be noted that higher accuracy is expected in species type and percent at tributes e g SPx SPx PER with a difference of more than 20 the White Area upland site type attribute e g W A UL TY and the infrastructure type e g INFRA TY attribute Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 22 NB The Contractor will be provided with a set of automated Quality Control Tools that automat ically test compliance to many of these standards A description of these tools is found in Ap pendix 3 4 SPECIFICATIONS AND GUIDELINES In this section the processes methods or rules for achieving the standards are described and ex plained with further detail where necesary 4 1 Air Photo Acquisition The acquisition of imagery is not part of the interpretation contracts therefore the photogrammet ric flight specs are not treated in this document In the case of Panel A some 330 plots acquired in summer 2008 ABMI opted for conventional aerial photography where the film was colour the scale 1 30 000 the scanning resolution 15 microns and the ground resolution 0 5 m Digital im agery
71. eation of wetland features e Wetlands surrounded by upland areas natural semi natural or non natural should be delineated as polygons if they are gt 0 5 ha in size and delineated as a multi point feature if lt 0 5 ha in size e Nested wetlands e g wetland features of one type surrounded by a wetland feature of another type such as islands of treed bogs in a shrubby fen should only be delineated if they are gt 2 ha in size e g as a polygon Therefore nested wetlands are not to be captured if smaller than 2 ha not even as multi points In this case a note should be made in the OBS field indicating the presence and type of nested wetland features e g 20 BTNN pockets e Wetlands in the province s Green Area are to be classified according to the traditional AWI codes for bogs fens marshes and swamps e g BTXN FTNR MONG STNN these designations generally assume that open water is not present in the wetland If open water is present within a delineated wetland feature the interpreter should use the appropriate method for identifying its presence i e either as a multi point or polygon if appropriate or as a non vegetated surface within the attributes of the wetland feature itself Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 31 e Any treed wetlands across the province or wetland features in the northern portions of Alberta that are surrounded by White Area features
72. ed by deep marsh and shallow marsh zones Permanent with peripheral wet meadow and low prairie zones and isolated Q water pockets of fen zones emergent vegetation such as cattails and bulrushes present often occur adjacent to open water 33 Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 Alkali or Surface water retained for variable time periods from a few saline crust weeks to several months vegetation cover is variable to none A present distinct alkali saline salt crust is visible Local Landform and Non Treed Vegetation Modifiers Modifier Description Code Colbe Sea Circular to irregularly shaped lighter toned areas with sharp C boundaries Internal lawns with islands Presence of forested islands surrounded by lower wetter areas R of forested often representing internal lawns peat plateau Internal lawns Uniform areas with little microtopography I Home Internal lawns not present N lawns present Shrub cover Shrubs cover gt 25 and tree cover lt 6 S Graminoid Graminoids dominate shrub cover lt 25 and tree cover lt 6 G dominated Non c x l Little to no vegetation lt 10 vegetation cover X vegetated As outlined in the AWI Halsey et al 2003 a number of local restrictions on the combination of the four letter codes exist reflecting the nature of Albertan wetlands typically encountered within Alberta s Green Area The following summarizes the
73. ending upon their size their surroundings and whether or not they are accompanied by other infrastructures Further details are provided below e When there is a large 0 5 ha individual infrastructure surrounded by either natural vegetation e g an isolated parking lot in a provincial park or agriculture e g a feedlot surrounded by farmland it should be represented as a polygon e Isolated infrastructures e g a lookout tower a dugout that are lt 0 5 ha in size and surrounded by natural semi natural or agricultural land are to be captured as ABMI POINT features Such features may consist of a single point if there is only one instance of the infrastructure type within the encompassing polygon or multiple points if there are several instances e ABMI POINT features representing infrastructures need only be attributed with the infrastructure type e g INFRA TY and size either average width AVG WDITH or percentage of the encompassing polygon PER PT NB The encompassing polygon should not reflect these infrastructures in its attributes i e if all the infrastructures within a polygon are captured as points then the INFRA TY of that polygon should be empty e Where the density of individual infrastructures of a given type precludes their representation as an ABMI POINT feature because there are more than 2 infrastructures of this type per ha information on their presence should be captured in the INFRA TY attribute of
74. er than SITE_HT NB2 The secondary height SEC_HT attribute present in previous versions has been removed from the ABMI3P due to unresolved ambiguities in its use e Species composition Up to five species within the overstory can be identified Further specifications on tree species identification are provided below e Species percentage The percentage of crown closure corresponding to each reported species SPx PER to the nearest 10 must be filled The sum of all species percentages for an overstory or understory species composition must equal 100 e Understory If there are visible trees growing under the canopies of larger adjacent trees similar attributes for species species percentage height and crown closure with the prefix U e g UDENSITY exist to report on the understory layer The height of the understory must be gt 3 m below the height of the overstory i e gt 3 m shorter As with overstory if UDENSITY is A B C or D the USP1 USP1 PER UORIGIN and UORIGIN YR must also be filled however if UDENSITY is Z only USP1 must be filled NB All these attributes follow the same standards as in AVI and are explained with further detail in the Data Model document e Tree Species A list of the common naturally occurring Alberta forest tree species with their corresponding code is given in Table 2 A general tree species identifier cannot be mixed with a more specific species identifier within the same call e g
75. ernal lawns BTNI Wooded bog with internal A B C 0 STA lawns Wooded bog with forested BTNR permafrost bog and A B C O STA internal lawns BOXC Veneer bogs with collapse 7 o STA scars BOXN Veneer bogs without 7 0 STA collapse scars FTNN Non patterned wooded A B C M SLO fen with no internal lawns Non patterned wooded fen with islands of PEER forested peat plateau and M SES internal lawns Non patterned wooded FTNI fen with islands of internal A B C M SLO lawns FTPN Patterned wooded fen A B C M SLO FOPN Patterned open fen Z M SLO FONS Non patterned open 7 M SLO shrub dominated fen Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 36 Non patterned open Hoe graminoid dominated fen m oe MONG Oper ER DI Z E DYN dominated marsh Open temporary MOTG graminoid dominated Z n a n a marsh MOSG Open seasonal graminoid 7 ma aa dominated marsh Open semi to permanent MOQG graminoid dominated Z n a n a marsh MOAG Open alkali graminoid 7 aih nf dominated marsh MOAX Open alkali non 7 si vegetated marsh SENN Coniferous forested D MOV swamp STNN Coniferous wooded A B C M MOV swamp SONS Deciduous open swamp Z M MOV SOTS Open temporary shrub 7 ala sa dominated swamp soss Open seasonal shrub 7 ma ae dominated swamp SOOS Open semi to permanent 7 GE wia shrub dominated swamp
76. f photo plots required to ensure a minimum of one photo plot per interpreter exceeds a 25 sample the former will be used in selecting photo plots for audit The photo plot manual evaluation involves two subcomponents 1 a photo plot Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 61 wide check of specific criteria and 2 a thorough evaluation of interpretation quality over a subset of features in each selected photo plot Two sets of accuracy scores are calculated as a summary of the audit results which provide a means of setting objective thresholds for the pass or fail of an audited photo plot Each score is calculated separately and is subject to a separate rejection threshold For a photo plot to pass the audit it must obtain a passing score in each of the two components For further details on the ABMI quality control procedures please refer to the ABMI Photo Plot QC Manual version 2 4 1 Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 62 6 REFERENCES CITED Alberta Sustainable Resource Development 2005 Alberta Vegetation Inventory Interpretation Standards Version 2 1 1 Resource Information Management Branch Edmonton Alberta 99 pp Alberta Sustainable Resource Development ASRD 2010 Grassland Vegetation Inventory GVD Specifications 5 Edition Government of Alberta June 29 2010 89 pp Beckingham J and Archibald J 1996 Field guide to ec
77. f the polygon is given to roads then to railways then to powerlines and finally to pipelines Bridges When a road or railway gt 20 m in width crosses a river or water body through a bridge the corresponding polygon should be continued even if the bridge is lt 10 m wide If this is the case bridge lt 10 m wide the outline of the polygon will be artificially offset outwards at the bridge to keep the SIZE4 standard Note that transmission and pipeline corridors represented as polygons must be interrupted at a river crossing provided the river is represented also as a polygon and not as a line NBI Where an infrastructure is not within a defined surrounding corridor e g roads in agricultural or grassland areas it should be delineated as follows If it is on average gt 20 m wide it should be delineated as a polygon or if it is lt 20 m wide it should be delineated as a line feature In each case the feature should be attributed correctly with land cover even if it is just gravel asphalt or cement the most appropriate land use s and an infrastructure type NB2 Twinned or divided highways e g the TransCanada highway should be treated as one infrastructure feature They should be delineated as a polygon feature given the divided highway infrastructure type INFRA TY TRRT and attributed with the land cover of the road surfaces as well as the separating unpaved section between the two road surfaces 4 2 7 3
78. focused on grassland and mountain areas Based on the results of this pilot and further recommendations from the contractors who worked on it an operationally ready version of the ABMI3P was produced version 2 3 1 This version was employed in a 54 plot contract that spanned fall 2010 to spring 2011 The current protocol version 2 4 1 again reflects additional refinements that resulted from the previous 54 plot contract focused mainly on addressing remaining ambiguities in the mapping of anthropogenic features and increasing efficiency In particular 1 the minimum mapping width for linear features was increased from 10 m to 20 m the original standard the AVI the reason for this change is that 10 m increased considerably the amount of linework and in some cases created problems to correctly represented some ground features such as cutblocks that often got fragmented into pieces smaller than the minimum size for upland polygons 2 the 5 ha minimum mapping size constraints were removed to enable easier polygon delineation particularly in forested areas 3 a greater emphasis is placed on the use of compound infrastructure types as opposed to the separate delineation of individual infrastructures and 4 a unified wetland coding classification system is introduced replacing the separate Green Area and White Area systems The new system is based on the Alberta Wetland Inventory classification with additional codes and modifiers for capturing W
79. gitization The follow ing sequence is suggested 1 Linear features gt 20 m wide represented by polygons a Access features roads pipelines powerlines b Aquatic features both man made channels and natural rivers 2 Developed land represented by polygons a Clearings e g wellsites landings b Industrial features c Agricultural features d Settlement features 3 Non vegetated undeveloped areas represented by polygons a Lakes reservoirs b Fresh cutblocks c Rock or exposed land d Ice and snow 4 Vegetated areas represented by polygons a Non forested areas i Bryophytes grass and other forbs ii Shrubs iii Non treed wetlands iv Cutblocks v Combinations of these which may include some trees that don t cover a large enough area to meet he minimum polygon size or exist at too low a density lt 6 crown closure to be classified as part of a stand b Forested areas vi Non productive areas including treed wetlands vii Old cutblocks viii Pure conifer stands ix Pure hardwood stands x Mixedwood stands Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 15 5 Small lt 0 5 ha pockets of anthropogenic wetland or aquatic types in a polygon of differ ent type represented as multi points a Isolated small man made features e g scattered cabins in a forest b Small aquatic features e g ponds in the prairies c Pockets of wetland e g small bogs in a borea
80. gleying mineral or organic soils permanent seepage less than 30 cm below the surface HDC Hydric Water removed so slowly that the water table is at or above the soil surface year round gleying mineral or organic soils NA Not Applicable No soil or most of soil covered with impervious material moisture regime not applicable n a The hygric regime is generally considered to correspond to AVI s mesic moisture regime Moisture regime is an important attribute for vegetated features and non vegetated features that include soil e g a freshly ploughed field It need not be identified for aquatic features or non vegetated features that do not contain soil e g rock rubble river sediments glaciers etc The following guidelines should be used for attributing moisture regime e MOIST_REG should be filled for features where o the DENSITY and or UDENSITY attributes are A B C or D o or at least one of NTW PER or NWOOD PER is 30 o or one or both of DENSITY or UDENSITY is Z neither are A B C or D and at least one of NTW_PER or NWOOD PER is gt 30 o or NV_TYPE is BU CC ES RM MU or ON e MOIST_REG should not be filled i e it should be given a value of NA for Not Applicable for features where Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 54 o the DENSITY and UDENSITY attributes are lt null gt or Z i e neither are A B C or D
81. h the long list of attributes during data capture a Field Display Utility has been created that groups attributes into logical categories e g treed overstory treed understory non vegetated landuse wetland that can be easily browsed and edited by interpreters as needed The attributes that should be filled depends on the nature of the feature which is re flected in the attribute groups available in the Field Display Utility In addition to the Field Dis play Utility the ABMI FGDB takes full advantage of the ability of the FGDB to constrain data entry through the use of Domains sets of pre specified valid values for each attribute This way the majority of non numerical attributes are entered using drop down menus which prevent the occurrence of typos during feature attribution Appendix 2 describes the utilities created by ASRD s Doug Crane to facilitate attribution which include the ability to copy and paste between features and which are customizable Table 1 List of attributes that can be completed by the interpreter additional descriptions and specifications are also found in the ABMI Data Model document Field Name Description Field Name Description Field Name Description MOIST REG Moisture SP4 Species 4 NTW_HT NTW Height Regime Management Species 4 NWOOD_ STATUS Statis SP4_PER Percent TYPE Nonwoody Type Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 16
82. hamlets or small towns e When a compound infrastructure is represented as a polygon land cover vegetated surfaces non vegetated surfaces should be identified using relevant treed non treed and non vegetated attributes e g the entire area may be covered by artificial impervious surfaces or it may be partially vegetated as in a farmstead or acreage e When a compound infrastructure is represented as a single point feature of the ABMI POINT class i landcover attributes need not to be filled 1i AVG WIDTH would refer to the average dimension of each individual infrastructure and not to the size of the area which is necessarily lt 0 5 ha iii the point representing the compound infrastructure should be placed on top of the most central infrastructure and iv the total number of individual infrastructures that this single point represents should be noted in the OBS field Note that even where multi point delineation standards could be met if the individual infrastructures are functionally related they should be captured by a single point e Where there are several instances of the same type of compound infrastructure within a polygon they should be included in the same ABMI POINT feature consisting of as many points as instances of that compound In this case the OBS field of that multi point feature should contain the mean number of individual infrastructures that each single point represents As example of this situation would be
83. hin a multi point feature share the same attribute values For example a multi point feature could be a set of small lt 0 5 ha each bogs of the same type within an upland forest polygon Instead of delineating individually each bog the interpreter simply needs to place a point in the centre of each bog and then fill a single record in the attribute table Note that that a multi point feature may consist of a single point Note also that a polygon may contain up to 3 different multi point features The use of multi point features is restricted to 1 aquatic wetland or anthropogenic features occurring within natural or semi natural vegetated land and 2 aquatic or wetland features within anthropogenic features including agriculture settlements and industrial areas The multi point representation has been included because at a small extra cost it allows bypassing the limits that the minimum polygon size imposes on the capture of the above type of features that are very relevant for ABMI As multipart lines ABMI LINE if they are elongated and narrower than 20 m e g seismic cutlines transmission lines gravel roads A multipart line feature is a set of not necessarily interconnected lines that share the same attribute values Note that unlike multi point features multipart lines are not spatially constrained within a single polygon For example if all the seismic cutlines in a photo plot have the same width and age status they
84. hite Area seasonalities and alkalinity 1 2 1 Image Data ABMI photo plot inventory is done through softcopy interpretation of aerial photography wherein a human analyst visualizes the air photos in a stereo viewing monitor digitizes features on the screen and estimates the values of the relevant attributes for each delineated feature Management level inventories in Alberta are normally done using medium scale aerial film 1 15 000 or 1 20 000 However in the case of ABMI photo plots the scale chosen as a reference was 1 30 000 since softcopy photogrammetry enables the use of smaller aerial photo scales reducing the cost per km of the imagery In particular this scale enables capture of the entire photo plot using a single flight line and only 5 overlapping frames Sun angle concerns and leaf phenology limit the period when aerial photography can be taken to the months of May through September The ABMI s 1 656 sites are stratified into five panels for data acquisition purposes each consisting of 36 clusters of 9 sites each the plan is to acquire one panel per year Panel A Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 6 photography was captured by Land Data Technologies Inc during summer 2008 using a conventional photogrammetric colour film Agfa X100 The camera used was the Zeiss Jena LMK with lens number 7385826 C focal length 152 141 mm Digital imagery from an airborne multispectral sensor
85. ication system to be employed by interpreters is presented in Table 8 Table 8 Moisture regime codes descriptions and definitions employed in the ABMI3P aoe re Equivalent Code Description Definition AVI Code VXR Very Xeric Water removed extremely rapidly in relation to d supply soil moist for negligible period of time following precipitation XRC Xeric Water removed very rapidly in relation to supply d soil moist for brief periods following precipitation Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 53 SXR Subxeric Water removed rapidly in relation to supply soil moist for short periods following precipitation SMS Submesic Water removed readily in relation to supply water available for moderately short periods following precipitation MSC Mesic Water removed somewhat slowly in relation to supply soil may remain moist for significant but sometimes short period of the year available soil moisture reflects climatic inputs SHG Subhygric Water removed slowly enough to keep soil wet for significant part of the growing season some temporary seepage and possible mottling below 20 cm HGC Hygric Water removed slowly enough to keep soil wet for most of the growing season permanent seepage and mottling present possible weak gleying SHD Subhydric Water removed slowly enough to keep the water table at or near the surface for most of the year
86. icaulis Pa P Limber pine Pinus flexilis Pf P Ponderosa Pine Pinus ponderosa Py P Balsam fir Abies balsamea Fb Fb Alpine fir Abies lasiocarpa Fa Fa Douglas fir Pseudotsuga menziesii Fd Fd Alpine larch Larix lyallii La Lt Tamarack Larix laricina Lt Lt Western larch Larix occidentalis Lw Lt Trembling aspen Populus tremuloides Aw A Balsam poplar Populus balsamifera Pb A Paper white birch Betula papyrifera Bw Bw Manitoba maple Acer negundo Mm Mm Plains cottonwood Populus deltoides Cp A Narrow leaf cottonwood Populus angustifolia Cn A NB Some anthropogenic features will require tree attributes to be filled as appropriate For example an abandoned pipeline corridor may contain a natural regeneration of young spruce from the forest it dissected or a farmstead may contain several pockets of trees Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 26 4 2 1 1 Shelterbelts Shelterbelts are defined as linear arrangements of trees and or shrubs i e narrow features lt 20 m wide found in developed regions and are either planted or the remnants of vegetation clearing within the surrounding area often serving as a means of local protection against wind and in clement weather Shelterbelts are a recurring feature within the Province s White Area and are important for local wildlife The following specifications apply for delineating shelterbelts e For features not representing agricult
87. ing back and storing water Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 40 AQWE Weir A low dam see AQDA placed across a river or stream to raise or divert water flow allows for water flow i e not used for water storage AQCL Canal Anthropogenic watercourse build to convey water for irrigation has well maintained reinforced banks AQCU Culvert Covered anthropogenic structure for conveying water flow under a road railway or other obstruction to divert run off and prevent flooding and erosion AQBR Bridge Aqueduct Road or walkway constructed for transportation of people goods or equipment over terrain e g rivers conduit constructed for carrying large quantities of flowing water above the terrain AQSW Sewage lagoon An artificial depression constructed to contain effluent or water for commercial industrial or waste water treatment AQTP Tailing pond Ponds used for the storage and sedimentation of solid particles from water borne refuse material tailings resulting from industrial processes AQDG Dugout An artificial depression on agricultural land constructed to catch run off water for use by livestock AQWT Water tank An enclosed container constructed for the storage of water AQQU Water filled quarry An open excavation from which building stone rock sand or gravel was taken that is p
88. ion of an additional linear feature Attributing Watercourses o For both channels mapped as polygons and channels mapped as linear features the NV_TYPE should be WR river or WT stream whether or not the predominant cover is water Note that explicit information on the presence of river sediments in the channel could be given using the MOD1 attribute see Data Model document o Vegetation attributes should be used to report on vegetative elements within the channel and modifiers used to indicate water seasonality and to identify additional surface types e g gravel river sediments and their percentage cover in the feature o Where a channel is gt 100 m wide and contains nested polygon subchannels the channel should have have RS river sediments as NV_TYPE while the subchannels the river itslef will have an appropriate open water NV_TYPE 4 2 8 Use of Multi Point Representation The minimum size constraints impose a limit in the amount of spatial heterogeneity that can be captured by polygons in the ABMI compilation Notwithstanding the ABMI3P has a provision to bypass this constraint in the case of anthropogenic aquatic and wetland features the use of multi point features implemented in the ABMI POINT feature class Whenever there are features of these three types too small to be represented as individual polygons the interpreter can create a multi point feature to capture them A multi point feature is a set of poi
89. is system is largely based on that described by the Alberta Wetlands Inventory AWI Halsey et al 2003 which focuses on describing wetlands in Alberta s Green Area but also contains elements derived from the Grassland Vegetation Inventory GVI Alberta Sustainable Resource Development 2010 that enable a more appropriate description of the seasonal wetlands found in Alberta s White Area The four letter coding approach employed by the AWI is suitable for adaptation to a province wide system through the introduction of additional GVI based modifiers Thus the ABMI3P wetlands classification system is based on four attribute or modifier elements resulting in a four character code These four elements listed by position in the code include 1 a wetland class 2 a treed vegetation modifier 3 a wetland complex landform modifier and 4 a local landform and non treed vegetation modifier A list of the possible values of each element and their descriptions is provided in Table 4 Some values are only to be used in describing wetlands in either the Green or White Areas of Alberta while others are more widely applicable NB The location of a given photo plot relative to these two areas is stored in the GWAREA TY attribute filled as part of the ABMI PPLOT feature class attributes The following set of guidelines should be used when delineating and categorizing wetlands The following minimum mapping units and specifications apply to the delin
90. l forest 6 Linear features lt 20 m wide represented by lines b Access features narrow roads railroads also includes seismic cutlines c Aquatic features both man made e g canals and natural e g small streams d Treed features in non forest polygons isolated shelterbelts narrow stretches of riparian vegetation 2 3 4 Feature Attribution The ABMI Data Model fully described in a germane document contains over 90 attributes that enable interpreters to capture a wealth of information about the delineated features The values of attributes for a given feature are stored as a single record in the corresponding feature class point line or polygon attribute table allowing users to easily exploit the database Many of the se attributes are computed automatically based on the values of other attributes For example the landcover class to which a feature belongs is assigned by a script based on the values of the vege tation attributes or when vegetation is absent on the value of the non vegetated type NV_TYPE attribute Many attributes are only applicable in special situations and not all of them apply simultaneously As a result interpreters usually need to fill only 5 to 15 attributes per feature depending on whether it is non vegetated or vegetated and on whether or not it repre sents an infrastructure A list of attributes that can be completed by the interpreter is provided in Table 1 To facilitate navigation throug
91. lawn collapse scar related modifiers xxxC xxxR xxxI or xxxN but not shrubby xxxS or graminoid xxxG E g BFxC BTxR FTxN FTxI Both temporary xxTx and seasonal xxSx wetlands Lentic Temporary and Lentic Seasonal in the GVI classification system respectively o Are identified as marshes Mxxx if they contain lt 25 shrub and are dominated by graminoids xxxG o Are identified as swamps Sxxx if they contain gt 25 shrub xxxS o Are open xOxx and are not wooded xTxx or forested xFxx o Do not have permafrost xxXx patterning xxNx internal lawns xxxI xxxR or collapse scars xxxC E g MOTG MOSG e Semi permanent to permanent xxx wetlands Lentic Semi Permanent to Permanent in the GVI classification system o Are identified as marshes Mxxx if they contain lt 25 shrub and are dominated by graminoids xxxG o Are identified as swamps Sxxx if they contain gt 25 shrub xxxS Are open xOxx and are not wooded xTxx or forested xFxx o Do not have permafrost xxXx patterning xxNx internal lawns xxxI xxxR or collapse scars xxxC o If forested or wooded should have the no internal lawns modifier xxxN E g MOQG SOQS e Alkali xxAx wetlands Lentic Alkali in the GVI classification system o Are identified as marshes Mxxx since they generally contain lt 25 shrub o Are open xOxx and have variable graminoid xxxG to no xxxX vegetation o Are not wooded x
92. ld Calculator tool must be run on a File Geodatabase before the QC Tool can be ap plied the QC Tool requires that land cover classes and fields be filled before it can fun pro perly ABMI Field Calculator The ABMI Field Calculator Tool uses a series of scripts to automatically fill a number of attribute fields in the ABMI POLYGON ABMI LINE and ABMI POINT feature classes of the ABMI photo plot File Geodatabases FGDBs that can be filled on the basis of attributes previously filled by the interpreter The list of filled fields is shown in Table 1 For more information on each of these attributes please see the ABMI Data Model document Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 71 ABMI Field Calculator Tool ABMI QC Tools Field Calculator Table 1 Fields filled by the ABMI Field Calculator Tool ABMI_POLYGON Fields LC1 LC2 LC3 NV CLASS LUT LEVEL LU2_LEVEL1 INFRA_CL HYDR_REG NUTR_REG ABMI_SITE POLYGON_ID MPT_CNT AREA_NET PER_POLY ABMI LINE Fields LC1 LC2 LC3 NV CLASS LU1_LEVEL1 LU2_LEVEL1 INFRA_CL HYDR_REG NUTR_REG ABMI_SITE ARC_ID ARC_AREA ABMI POINT Fields LC1 LC2 LC3 NV_CLASS LUT LEVEL1 LU2_LEVEL1 INFRA_CL HYDR_REG NUTR_REG ABMI_SITE POINT_ID POLY_NUM PT_CNT PT_AREA AVG_AREA Note AREA_NET is not yet implemented in this tool Using the ABMI Field Calculator Tool Click the Field Calculator button on the ABMI Quali
93. ld be captured as a polygon only if it is larger than 0 5 ha or if it represents and anthropogenic feature within semi natural or natural land as a multi point Attributing Corridors In all cases a feature s landcover should be identified using the appropriate attributes That is e Vegetated corridors should have treed and or non treed attributes filled as appropriate e Non vegetated corridors should have relevant non vegetated attributes filled e Corridors with mixed vegetated and non vegetated surfaces should have both sets of relevant attributes completed with percentage attributes indicating the percent cover of non vegetated or non treed vegetated cover e Anthropogenic corridors should have MOD1 field filled with the type of surface since infrastructure surface type is one characteristic that will separate different types of linear infrastructures from one another e g an asphalt vs a gravel road NB The NV_TYPE attribute and a MODx attribute are both to be used to identify the surface type of the infrastructure within a corridor For example the NV_TYPE could be artificial surface while the MODx attribute would indicate the type of artificial surface e g asphalt cement etc the associated percentage attributes will have the same value i e the percent of the corridor covered with that artificial surface Multi Purpose Corridors The above specifications also apply to multi purpose corridors e g those cont
94. le for features in the ABMI POLYGON feature class Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 17 3 STANDARDS 3 1 General aspects 3 1 1 Feature Representation The type of representation chosen for a given feature will depend on size and width the feature The most common one is the polygon which represents a contiguous area having a relatively homogeneous cover that differs in some relevant respect from the surroundings A polygon may contain a single cover type or contain regions with a different cover type than the main one re ported for the polygon Regions inside a polygon belonging to a cover type other than the poly gon s may be represented in three different ways As individual polygons ABMI POLYGON feature class if they exceed the Minimum Mapping Unit MMU size constraint either 0 5 or 2 ha depending on the land cover of the region and that of the surrounding polygon see Section 3 1 2 for details As multi points ABMI POINT if they are smaller than the MMU size and represent anthropogenic wetland or aquatic features A multi point feature is a set of points located within the same polygon that represent either individual occurrences of a given cover type different than that of the encompassing polygon e g small ponds in a forest or individual infrastructures of the same type within the polygon e g several wellheads scattered across an agricultural field All points wit
95. maginary medial axis of the feature but see the exception noted in Section2 3 2 and in the case of ABMI POINT it is the centroid of the feature that is each individual point should be within 10 m of the actual centroid of the ground feature it represents 3 1 4 Data Format and Submission The contractor will be provided with an empty ESRI File Geodatabase FGDB that will be popu lated during the interpretation and that must be returned complete and internally audited All fea tures must be in the NAD83 UTM projection Zone 11 or 12 North depending on the location of the photo plot The list of attributes and other details can be found in the ABMI Photo plot Data Model document version 2 4 0 3 1 5 Metadata The attributes of the ABMI PPLOT feature class within the FGDB provide a container for metadata regarding the imagery interpretation and QC of the ABMI photo plot to which it corre sponds e g image type acquisition date interpretation company etc An attribute identifying whether the photo plot is within the Green or White Areas or is transitional between the two is also included The contractor must fill in all relevant attributes before submitting the photo plot See Section 4 2 10 for further details 3 1 6 Linkage to NE The contractor shall take into account that the ABMI photo plot compilation will be used by the Government of Alberta to extract a 2 km by 2 km photo plot for National Forest Inventory NFI purposes
96. nd by passes the size limitations of polygon representation by enabling the capture of too narrow or too small features through the use of a more abstracted representation namely multi part lines and multi points which can be used to represent features such as seismic cutlines and dugouts respectively This is one of the reasons why the chosen format to store the data is the File Geodatabase FGDB a relatively new spatial data format released by ESRI the Microsoft of the GIS world that is a de facto industry standard in North America The ABMI FGDB con sists of 5 feature classes i e collections of geographic features with the same geometry type ABMI PPLOT a polygon feature class that act as a container and summary for the rest it comprises the core and buffer boundaries of the photo plot It also includes a time stamp to dif ferentiate between the ongoing compilation and future ones updates and or remaps as well as metadata for the ABMI photo plot ABMI POLYGON a polygon feature class contains all polygon features ABMI POINT a multi point feature class containing points related to polygons ABMI LINE a multipart polyline feature class that contains all line features ABMI RSFIELD a point feature class containing points related to field verification of the photo plot interpretation NB Not yet implemented in this version There is one separate table per feature class and one record per feature in the table Excep
97. neration RN or Artificial Regeneration RA codes or o are not regenerating after harvest or fire with the No Regeneration NR or o show no current visible signs of silvicultural treatments or previous harvest such as old growth forests that are unmanaged with the Natural Unmanaged Land NU code e Non Forest In non forested areas the following guidelines should be used o The general management status of In Operation IO should be used to designate all areas that are in use and show signs of current human activity industrial areas agricultural areas mining commercial use settlements Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 55 o Any features that show signs of previous activity but are not being maintained and or are abandoned e g a wellhead or wellsite should be given a managements status of Abandoned AB o Another possibility is that the area is Under Construction UC e g a subdivision or new development under construction at the time of image acquisition where cleared earth and unfinished infrastructures may be visible o Finally the Natural Unmanaged Land NU code should be used to designate natural non forested areas such as some wetlands that do not show signs of past or present human activity NB The Unknown or Undeterminable UK code may be used where none of the above codes can be appropriately used but should be used only sparingly 4 2 9 3 Obser
98. ng for compliance to standards of several topology criteria size constraint criteria adjacency criteria and attribution criteria through semi automated procedures i e the ABMI QC Tools described in Appendix 3 Because of the semi automated nature of these evaluations and because the QC Tools are provided to interpreters beforehand for use in initial internal evaluations the assessments in this portion of the ABMI QC are carried out in all the photo plots included in a contract It is assumed that the interpreter employs the provided QC tools to ensure the consistent high quality of the photo plots before they are submitted to an exteral auditor for evaluation so that relatively few photo plots will need further correction with regard to the compliance to standards Sampled plot manual evaluation This second component involves the manual evaluation of size and spatial constraints feature representation rules attribute completeness and consistency and of the interpreta tion of the photo plot itself As these are manual they will not be performed on every completed photo plot Rather a random sample taken from all photo plots that comprise a contract and consisting of at least 25 of them will be selected for audit by an external auditor If several separate interpreters have completed photo plots as part of a contract i e under one contractor a minimum of one photo plot per interpreter is included in the selection If the number o
99. nts located within a single polygon that represents individual occurrences of one of these three types of ground features All points within a single multi point feature share the same attribute values For example a multi point feature could be the set of small lakes lt 0 5 ha existing in an upland forest polygon Instead of delineating each lake individually the interpreter simply needs to place a point in the centre of each lake and then fill a single record in the attribute table The following specifications apply to the use of multi point features Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 51 e Allowed Uses of Multi Points The use of multi point features is currently restricted to o aquatic wetland or anthropogenic features occurring within natural or semi natural vegetated land and o aquatic or wetland features within anthropogenic features including agriculture settlements and industrial areas NB There are specific guidelines for the use of multi points in capturing infrastructures See Section 4 2 5 1 for more details e Number of Points per Hectare A multi point feature may consist of a single point and in this case the SIZE VAR attribute must have value VL very little or consist of a large number of individual points that must all lie within the same polygon A polygon may contain up to 3 different multi point features However the total number of points in a polygon
100. o NE REDE Deeg Site SE eevee ted dented wee Sees SA event ORE See 20 3 2 Standards Audited for Quality Assurance ees ese eke ee ee Re ee Re ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee 20 SA TOPOLOGY RE N EE OR ER EE ER ORE AE 20 3 2 2 SIZE Gonstraints testes besks be sg DE Eg GE es ee Ge Ee ge Se bg eg DR ges bood 21 3 2 3 Spatial Constraints Ee EE EG ES ee Ee Ee Pe ds cts EED Se GE ESE Ee ER te 21 3 2 4 Adjacency constraint ese se ss de ee Ee Ee Ee ee ee ee ee Ee ee de ee ee be RTs 22 3 2 5 Feature Representation sse eee 22 3 2 6 Attribute Completeness Consistency and Accuracy eee 22 4 Specifications and Guidelines sss ees ee ee ee Ee ee Ee Ee Ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee 23 4 1 Air Photo AcdulsiHON sen EER VEER GEES RES Re AR GOEDE EE EES RR ee ED EES VEER RE Gee Se ges ee Geek ae 23 A 2 Interpretalion EE EE RE GE AE GE N Ee ee GE EG De ER ER Ee Es Ke ee duets eN PR Ee 23 Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 ABMI Remote Sensing Group August 2011 42 1 Treed Features RES OS pee ee ane ae bane ener iA vee 23 4 2 A Veo he lterbelts 22 us ater EN asian ease ore ee Re ed a eed tates N EE PA eee eat 27 4 2 2 Non Treed Vegetation sees eee 27 4 2 3 Non Vegetated Cover ee ee ee ee ee 28 42A Wetlands EE RE EE IE 31 A 2 5 Ihirastrietuf8S Ee EE ee EE GE GEE OES EG VERRE DE Re KERR E ee eg Gee Ses Ee 37 4 2 5 1 General specifications for infrastructures eee eee ee ee ee ee Ee Re Re ee ee ee ee 42
101. odatabse but because the browse window that appears here is designed to only show FGDBs these are not shown Select ABMI Photo Plot File Geodatabase x CI FaedT al GERTY File Geodatabase Show of type File Geodatabases lt Cancel Once the File Geodatabase is selected you should check the box Specify ABMI Photo Plot ID and type the ABMI photo plot ID into the ID text box if the photo plot ID of the FGDB has never been specified in order to fill the ID fields in each feature class e g ABML ID etc If ABMI ID etc have already been filled by a previous application of the Field Calculator tool you need not enter this information However if you do not en ter a photo plot ID and the FGDB does not have one specified a message box will prompt you to enter an ID To run the tool click Calculate Fields The tool will begin processing It may take from a few seconds to up to a minute to pro L cess so please be patient The mouse pointer will be displayed as an hourglass icon while the tool runs Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 73 Once the process is complete a message box shown below will pop up indicating the completion of the field calculation bone x i Field Calculation Complete ABMI Field Calculator Tool Output As described above the ABMI Field Calculator Tool fills particular fields in the ABMI File Geodatabase Belo
102. ollowing subsections provide further details on the use of lines for feature representation Section 4 2 7 1 and on how to deal with specific linear features such as anthropogenic corridors Section 4 2 7 2 and watercourses Section 4 2 7 3 NB A linear feature that is gt 20 m wide on average may contain some short sections where the width of the feature is below 20 m In these cases it is recommended that the interpreter follow the true boundary of the feature in order to capture the most accurate representation possible Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 46 4 2 7 1 Use of Line Representation General restrictions on the use of lines The use of the ABMI LINE feature class is confined to linear features lt 20 m wide that meet one of the following conditions e wetland aquatic or anthropogenic features occurring within forest land or within natural or semi natural vegetated land therefore linear features such as animal made trails should not be mapped e lines of shrubs trees or linear aquatic features occurring within agricultural land or e linear aquatic features traversing settlements or industrial areas Therefore streets hedges transmision lines and other linear features that are not aquatic cannot be captured individually as lines when they are located within a urban polygon Use of lines in the White Area Due to the abundance of linear features within the White Area
103. or some wetland features in the White Area particularly those surrounded by agriculture it is often easier to include the small lt 2 ha shrubby or grassy upland areas directly adjacent to the wetlands themselves as part of the wetland feature delineations since they are not anthropogenic as is the surrounding agriculture This is allowed and it is for this reason that seasonal shrubby or grassy wetland categories are provided e g SOTS SOSS Table 4 Summary of AWI based four level classification scheme with additional descriptions and modifiers to be used in capturing White Area wetlands Wetland Class Class Description Code Bo Peatland gt 40cm peat low stagnant water flow oligotrophic B 8 nutrient regime Fen Peatland gt 40cm peat low water flow mesotrophic nutrient F regime Green Area Non peatland lt 40cm peat seasonally varying s water levels mesotrophic nutrient regime treed or shrubby R wam l k White Area Stagnant or slow flowing pool high nutrient content usually covered with gt 25 shrubs Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 32 Green Area Non peatland lt 40cm peat seasonally varying water levels high water flow eutrophic nutrient regime non treed does not typically contain standing water Marsh White Area Periodically or permanently flooded absence of M trees emergent
104. orating feedback from ABMI This was the version used for the 3 pilot V20100426 V2 3 0 final adjustments made based on gig plot pilot V20100616 V2 3 1 minor editorial changes some additional adjustments to criteria standards This was the version used for the 54 plot contract of FY 2010 11 V20110429 V2 4 0 Change of minimum width now at 20 m and size constraints removal of the 5 ha constraint addi tion of a unified wetland classification system additional emphasis on use of compound infrastructure types and revised standards for anthropogenic corridors V20110831 2 4 1 Minor editorial changes 2011 08 31 Final Draft used for operational level photo plot mapping within the ABMI Persons involved in ABMI photo plot mapping Public Castilla G Hird J Maynes B McDermid GJ 2011 ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual Version 2 4 1 A few paragraphs of this document are partial verbatim repro ductions of ASRD s AVI interpretation standards 2 1 1 Appendix on Data entry tools provided by his author Doug Crane ASRD Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 ABMI Remote Sensing Group August 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS MME OG UCTION EE EE OR OR OR EE OR OE RE N EE iiia 5 kies ER EE hie 5 12 BacKground si EE GE AE GR AE ee hea EE Re 5 12 1 Image Data is REEDE RE EE eg AR ae ey De EE eg GE Ge ger ree ed 6 1 22 Ancillary Data ss EE ig chee EDE sett ONSE a etd anes SES
105. osed soil or substratum ELLS Pond or lake sediments ELRM Reservoir margin ELMU Mudflatsediment ELON Other non vegetated undeveloped NAS Artificial surface ASAS Artificial surface 64 Landuse Classification Scheme Land Use y AG FO FI IN MII PL SE TR RC RS NU AGCA LR FOHA INMA MIOG PLNP SEAC RCOP RSFH Ea AGCP INGE MIOP PEPE SESM TREL RCOA RSFA AGCF INDT MIPE PLWS SEOF HIRERE RSAB AGLV PLHS SEHE TRIN AGST PLFN SEED TRST SERE gt TRWT SEPR SETR SEDT Legend AG Agriculture AGCA Annual crops AGCP lt Perennial non forage crops MI Mining AGCF Perennialforage crops AGRL Livestock Animal husbandry AGST Agricultural storage EO Forestry FOHA Forest harvesting IN Industrial INMA Manufacturing industry INGE Generation industry INDT Disposaland treating El Fishing Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 MIOG Oil and gas extraction MIOP Surface mining MIPE lt Peat extraction SE Services SEAC Accommodation SESM Commercial SEOF Business SEHE Health SEED Education SERE Religious SEPR Protection SETR Transportation SEDT Waste disposaland treatment TR
106. osites of Northern Alberta Natural Resources Canada Canadian Forest Service Northwest Region Edmonton AB Special Report 5 CAESA Soil Inventory Project Working Group 2001 AGRASID Version 3 0 Soil Landscapes User s Manual Edited by Brierley J A Martin T C and Spiess D J 28 pp Halsey L A Vitt D H Beilman D Crow S Mehelcic S and Wells R 2003 Alberta Wetlands Classification System Version 2 0 Alberta Sustainable Resource Development Edmonton Alberta National Wetlands Working Group 1988 Wetlands of Canada Ecological Classification Series No 24 Sustainable Development Branch Environment Canada Ottawa Ontario and Polyscience Publications Inc Montreal Quebec Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 63 APPENDIX 1 ABMI PHOTO PLOT CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES Landcover Classification Scheme Land Cover VGT Vegetated Treed VGO NEES Non Treed NVG Non Vegetated E VTW VTU VOU vow NOW NSI NRO NEL NAS BTXC TUFC OUST BOXC SISC ROBR ELBU L m ASAS BFXC TUFD OUSS BOXN OWWS SIGL RORT ELRS BTXN gt TUFM OUHG FOPN gt OWWR ROMO ELLS BRXN OUHF FONS gt OWWA ELCC BTNN OUBR FONG OWWW ELRM BTNR SONS L gt OWWT ELMU BTNI SOTS ELES FTPN SOSS
107. own closure as in the SPx PER fields NB2 The sum of DENSITY UDENSITY NTW PER NWOOD PER and NV PER can exceed 100 as there can be overlap between these covers and both DENSITY and UDENSITY are expressed as ranges Table 3 ABMI3P non vegetated type codes descriptions and definitions Non Vegetated Class Type Description Definition Open Water WL Lake Naturally occurring water body more than 2 meters deep in some portion boundary of lake is the natural high water mark WS Salt water Naturally occurring water body containing salt or generally considered to be salty WR River A watercourse at least 20 meters wide formed when water flows between continuous definable banks flow may be intermittent or perennial but does not include ephemeral flow where not definable channel and or banks are present WA Reservoir An artificial water body created by impoundment of water behind an anthropogenic structure such as a dam berm dyke or wall WW Shallow open water Naturally occurring water body less than 2 meters deep WT Stream A watercourse less than 20 meters wide formed when water flows between continuous definable banks flow may be intermittent or perennial but does not include ephemeral flow where not definable channel and or banks are present Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 29 Snow Ice
108. ranimals MIWL Wellhead AGNU Nursery AQSW Sewage lagoon BUPL Buildings for plants MICH Chimney flares AGS Silo AQTP Tailingspond BUST Storehouse MILF Landfill AQDG lt Dugout BURS Residential building MITL Tailingspile AQWT Water tank BUOF Office building MIRS Rubbly mine spoils AQQU lt Water filled quarry BUSP Indoor sport facility MIPT Pit gravel borrow AQDI Ditch BUCO Commercial building MIYD lt Yard or landing AQSP Spillway BUFA Agricultural building MIOT Other mining industry AQWC Water control device BUTW Tower AQDK Dock BUTK Tank AQRE Reservoir BUOT Other type of building AQOT lt Other aquatic infrastructure BUUK Unknown building Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 66 APPENDIX 2 ABMI DATA ENTRY UTILITIES This appendix describes the utilities created by Doug Crane ASRD to facilitate attribution which include the possibility of copying and pasting between features and customizing the appli cation The purpose of the ABMI Field Display Utility is to provide a set of tools to enable interpreters to easily view and collect ABMI attributes The utility can be opened by 1 Adding the ABMI layer or layers that you wish to edit to ABMI Edit x Domain Order ShowFields ArcMap Note only add layers for a single plot not multiple plots 2 Starting an Edit session and select the FGDB containing the ABMI layers you will be ed
109. rces ES Exposed soil or Any exposed soil or substratum not covered by other substratum categories including areas of recent disturbance where vegetation cover is less than6 e g collapse scars slides debris torrents pipeline right of ways ON Other non vegetated Other non vegetated where other exposed land categories undeveloped cannot be reliably chosen Anthopogenic Covers AS Artificial surface Anthropogenic surface typically comprising several types of impervious surface materials e g commercial or industrial urban areas with a combination of cement asphalt roof material gravel etc Generally based on the NFI Land Cover Classification Version 4 0 1 January 2004 Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 30 4 2 4 Wetlands Wetlands are defined by the National Wetlands Working Group 1988 as land that is saturated with water long enough to promote wetland or aquatic processes as indicated by poorly drained soils hydrophytic vegetation and various kinds of biological activity which are adapted to a wet environment While wetlands within Alberta vary considerably in their characteristics from the very stable often treed wetlands of the province s more northern forested region to the seasonally variable non treed wetlands of the province s southern agricultural areas the ABMI3P employs a comprehensive system for wetland classification that can be applied across Alberta Th
110. reed polygons Vv QC_ADJA2 Min difference btwn adjacent non Removers a treed polygons Click the browse button EE on the dialog box A browse window will appear see exam ple in the Field Calculator Tool section When opened for the first time within the current ArcMap session the browse window will automatically navigate to the directory and folder in which the first layer or dataset present in the open map document is found Find the File Geodatabase of interest select it and click Select Next select the Quality Control fields to be deleted and click Remove Fields Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 79 Once the selected fields have been removed this should take only a second or two a messa ge box shown below appears that indicates the removal of the selected fields and lists the fields removed ArcMap xj S Removal successful Fields Removed ABMI_POLYGON Feature Class QC_SIZE1 OC SIZEZ QC_ADJA1 OC ADJAZ OC ATTRY QC_ATTR3A OC ATTR3B OC ATTR3C OC ATTRSD QC_ATTR3E ABMI_LINE Feature Class QC_ATTR1 QC_ATTR3A QOC_ATTR38 QC_ATTR3C OC ATTR3D QC_ATTR3E ABMI POINT Feature Class QC_ATTR1 OC ATTR3A QC_ATTR38 QC_ATTR3C OC ATTR3D QC_ATTR3E Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 80 INDEX ABMI Photo Plot P
111. rk initiative the GVI forms a portion of the Base Data Component as a means of upgrading spatial information in support of land managers and effective decision making Alberta Sustainable Resource Development 2010 e Agricultural Region of Alberta Soil Inventory Database AGRASID a digital database describing the soil landscape over Alberta s agricultural areas comprised of soil landscape polygons compiled at a scale of 1 100 000 and land systems polygons rolled up from the soil landscape polygons to a scale of 1 250 000 CAESA 2001 This database is the result of the compilation of multiple soil surveys and is intended to provide information on soil and landscapes within a uniform standard The Soil Landscape Model symbols the portion of the AGRASID database relevant to ABMI photo plot mapping are a combination of soil information e g reflecting the dominant co dominant and significant soils found in the polygon and landscape information e g reflecting morphology genesis relief slope and surface forms e Alberta Government Base Layers a series of vector based Geographic Information System GIS layers or coverages may be provided by ASRD in support of photo plot mapping These may include Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 7 o Roads Major and minor road ways paved gravel unimproved roads and truck trails o Railways Railway tracks both abandoned and active o
112. rlap 1 e a line may not overlap itself TOPO7 Lines must be contained by the ABMI PPLOT feature class i e they cannot ex ceed the buffered photo plot TOPOS Multi point features must not overlap TOPO9 Multi point features must be properly inside a feature from ABMI POLYGON meaning that i they should not be placed on top of a polygon outline and ii all points within a multipoint feature must lie inside the same polygon TOPO10 Multi point features must be contained by the ABMI PPLOT feature class 3 2 2 Size Constraints SIZE1 There cannot be polygons smaller than 0 5 ha SIZE2 There cannot be polygons smaller than 2 ha representing upland non forested semi natural vegetation within forest or agricultural land or representing upland vegetated areas within settlements or there cannot be forested polygons smaller than 2 ha where one or more of the adjacent polygons is mixed forest or the same type of forest deciduous or conifer than the polygon SIZE3 There cannot be polygons representing linear entities e g rivers roads that are less than 20 m width on average SIZE4 There cannot be polygons containing some section such as a protrusion or narrow ing of less than 10 m width SIZES There cannot be bridges a corridor that artificially connects a pocket of some land cover type with a neighbouring polygon of the same type longer than 20 m SIZE6 There cannot be isolated lines that are less than 50 m long
113. rotocol See ABMI3P ABMI LINE 11 14 17 21 71 72 ABMI POLYGON 10 13 17 21 71 72 74 ABMI PPLOT 10 13 21 ABMI RSFIELD 11 12 ABMIGP 5 6 8 9 10 12 14 20 29 51 53 59 access 10 11 14 15 16 aerial photography 6 9 10 12 13 23 56 age 12 18 air calls 11 12 Alberta Vegetation Inventory See AVI alpine 26 58 ancillary data 9 anthropogenic features 5 16 18 19 26 47 51 52 57 aquatic 16 18 19 29 31 38 42 47 51 52 57 58 ArcMap 10 12 13 67 69 70 71 AVI 2 5 7 8 10 11 13 14 20 24 25 28 29 53 branching 14 19 45 47 51 bridging 13 21 buffer 10 13 22 68 classification 9 13 32 38 42 53 59 compound infrastructures 38 corridors 21 26 38 45 46 crown closure 15 24 25 28 29 56 Data Entry Utilities 13 67 Data Model 11 13 16 20 23 24 25 27 56 57 58 59 71 delineation 11 14 15 27 44 45 50 51 density 11 12 15 22 24 27 28 52 56 57 digitization 13 15 feature class 10 11 12 13 14 16 17 20 21 68 70 73 74 75 77 FGDB 10 14 16 20 22 71 73 Field Display Utility 16 67 field plots 11 File Geodatabases See FGDB forest 6 12 16 19 24 25 26 30 47 55 forested 15 24 28 34 36 37 55 56 58 Grassland Vegetation Inventory See GVI Green Area 8 17 22 36 56 GVI 5 7 8 10 11 13 56 57 height 11 12 22 24 25 27 28 56 hydrography 7 1
114. se general rules along with the additional rules guiding the classification of White Area wetlands based on information provided in the GVI Alberta Sustainable Resource Development 2010 Bogs Bxxx fens Fxxx and swamps Sxxx may be forested xFxx wooded xTxx or open xOxx however non peat accumulating wetlands such as marshes M or swamps S that are either forested F or wooded T are always designated as swamps S E g BFxx FTxx SFxx STxx Marshes Mxxx may only be open xOxx i e they cannot be wooded xTxx or forested xFxx E g MOxx Patterning xxPx is restricted to fens Fxxx in Alberta while regional permafrost xxXx is almost exclusively restricted to bogs Bxxx fens Fxxx can be combined with xxPx or xxNx but not with xxXx whereas bogs Bxxx can be combined with xxXx or xxNx but not with xxPx E g BxXx BxNx FxPx FxNx Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 34 e Because patterning xxPx and permafrost xxXx are restricted to fens Fxxx and bogs Bxxx all non peat accumulating wetlands such as swamps Sxxx and marshes Mxxx are restricted to the no internal lawns xxNx modifier E g MxNx SxNx e Open wetlands BO FOxx MOxx may be given shrubby xxxS or graminoid xxxG vegetation modifiers E g FOxS MOxG e Forested to wooded bogs BFxx BTxx and fens FFxx FTxx may be combined with permafrost and internal
115. se main landuse class is TRGP Transportation of Goods People and Equipment Since the seismic survey took place only once the landuse of this feature is better described by its purpose which was to transport the exploration machinery from one survey node to the next A feature can have up to two different landuses e g the above cutline could have also a second landuse RCOA Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 8 Recreation Outdoor Active if there are signs that it is being used for hunting or by off road vehicles such as ATVs Since this activity purpose based concept of landuse does not allow for the description of infrastructures as landuse classes a third classification scheme infrastructure was created to allow for the storage of information on the type of infrastructure some of the features represent such as roads parking lots pipelines transmission lines wellheads silos or houses Since in general there is no one to one correspondence between landcover type landuse type and infrastructure type for a given feature the ABMI3P allows for the storage of this information in separate attributes The three classification schemes landcover landuse and infrastructure can be found in Appendix 1 of this document 1 2 5 Simultaneous use of Polygon Line and Multi point Features Another important difference with AVI is that the ABMI3P takes advantage of modern GIS tech nology a
116. sidential In this case the name of the city or town must be noted in the OBS attribute e Only the following areas should be segregated as individual features from within the polygon or set of polygons representing the town or city o Railways o Twinned divided highways see definition of TRRT infrastructure types in Table 7 o Green spaces e g city or provincial parks golf courses that are 2 ha in size these will be delineated as polygon features o Aquatic or wetland features e g natural or artificial lakes rivers reservoirs ponds etc with the exception of private and public pools They can be delineated using multi points lines or polygons e Relevant vegetated and non vegetated attributes land use attributes and infrastructure attributes e g INFRA TY UBGS for green spaces should be completed for the above two sets of features e The name of the municipality should be indicated in the OBS field if it is known 4 2 7 Linear Features Linear features may be represented as lines or polygons depending on their width Linear features lt 20 metres wide e g streams railroads pipelines cutlines some roads are to be delineated as lines belonging to the ABMI LINE feature class In contrast linear features that are gt 20 m wide on average e g rivers highways are to be delineated as polygons belonging to the ABMI POLYGON feature class see Section 3 1 1 for more information on these two classes The f
117. so contains a tool that will remove these fields once the user is finished with them see following section Below is an example of the OC ATTR3A field that is created when the ATTR3 standard is checked NB The tool inserts the words Within buffer within each QC field of those features that are contained completely within the 100m buffer that surrounds each ABMI photo plot These feature are not checked for these criteria i e they do not need to meet these standards In this situation no subsequent action is required for the features in questi on Ed Attributes of abmi_polygon as Within buffer Within buffer B Within buffer Within buffer Within buffer Within buffer B 7 5 2011 1 Inconsistencies STAND_STRU vs DENSITY amp or UDENSITY Fi 7 5 2011 1 Inconsistencies STAND STRUI vs DENSITY amp or UDENSITY E 7 5 2011 1 Inconsistencies SP1_PER sum of SPx_PER lt gt 100 1 Record al aF 7 fri gew All Selected Records 0 out of 274 The second output produced by the tool is optional for the user and comprises QC Report text file listing the contents of each of the temporary quality control fields appended to the at tribute table In other words it provides a written list of the features that do not meet each of Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 77 the standards checked by the tool Below is an example of
118. ssing of fluids BUOT Other types of Other building that are not adequately buildings described by the above designations BUUK Unknown A building or construction that the building interpreter is not able to identify MI Mining and Infrastructure associated with mining and industrial industrial activities MIWM Windmill Generator operated by wind using vanes MIWL Wellhead Infrastructure and or equipment constructed over a well e g oil gas water wells MICH Chimney flares Infrastructure usually vertical constructed for the escape or expulsion of gasses from an industrial or mining facility MILF Landfill Infrastructure associated with the disposal of solid waste by burial between layers of dirt MITL Tailings pile Structures and facilities used in the storage of waste materials from industrial processes MIRS Rubbly mine Discarded overburden or waste rock spoils resulting from mining of ore MIPT Pit gravel Surface excavation for the purpose of borrow extracting gravel sand etc MIYD Yard or landing Open space used for the storage of mining or industrial materials may be dirt gravel paved e g storage of logs other solid materials MIOT Other Other facilities or structures associated with mining industry mining and or industrial activities AQ Aquatic Infrastructure associated with the control infrastructure transportation and or storage of water AQDA Dam Anthropogenic structure constructed on a river or stream for hold
119. t be captured Conversely a discontinuous linear feature i e a line having some portions not visible in the image can be delineated as a continuous line if the gaps are less than 20 m in length e When digitizing narrow lt 20 m features as lines the imaginary centerline of the feature should be used as reference An exception to this is when there are line features that run closely in parallel e g a narrow road flanked by a pipeline In this case the lines representing the different features must lie 5 m apart and hence the pipeline may be shown a few meters off its actual location if it is closer than 5 m to the road centerline Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 14 e Finally in the case of multi points see section 3 1 each point should be placed close to the centroid of the feature represented by the point 2 3 3 Delineation Sequence Stratification should be done in a methodical way so as to achieve consistent results The inter preter should begin by looking over the full photograph to obtain a general impression of the fea tures found within Stratification should then proceed one type of feature at a time beginning with the most obvious and easily recognized and working toward the most difficult to classify from the known to the unknown Reliable ancillary spatial information in general information provided within the contracts may be displayed as an overlay to guide di
120. t for ABMI PPLOT and ABMI RSFIELD all the tables look similar meaning that most of their attributes are the same although there are a few specific attributes that only exist in one or two tables Each attribute has a predefined format and domain set of valid values The domains are used to enforce data integrity and thus help Quality Control QC 1 2 6 Periodic Updating The ABMI3P is compatible with a baseline monitoring approach that progresses sequentially in three steps 1 Establish an initial baseline information source with new map products derived from softcopy interpretation of airborne imagery using existing inventories as ancillary data where possible Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 9 2 Update the baseline information at time T 5yr through change analysis of high resolution satellite imagery 3 Re map the baseline information at time T 10yr using new airborne imagery If the standards have changed the baseline information is modified to allow tracking of real changes The original feature boundaries are also maintained whenever possible during updates to facilitate the tracking process 2 PHOTO INTERPRETATION PROCEDURES ABMI3P is a mapping protocol based on softcopy interpretation that is designed to enable simple data entry and validation using the tools and structures found in ArcMap the most popular commercial GIS package and its File Geodatabases FGDB the d
121. tation Manual v2 4 1 23 e Non forested treed features A feature can be treed and not be classified as forested providing the DENSITY attribute has as value Z i e with crown closure lt 6 In this case only the SP1 field must contain some information the others being optional e Tree density DENSITY ground covered by the vertical projection of tree crowns is measured using AVI crown closure classes as per the list provided below see also the Data Model Document Note that DENSITY refers to the overall crown closure of the feature For example if the feature contains pockets of non vegetated terrain the DENSITY attribute should account for these which may result in an overall DENSITY lower than that within the forested portions of the polygon Where crown closure 1 and lt 6 DENSITY Z Where crown closure 2 6 and lt 30 DENSITY A Where crown closure 2 30 and lt 50 DENSITY B Where crown closure 50 and lt 70 DENSITY C Where crown closure 2 70 DENSITY D e Forested features For forested features i e stands where DENSITY A B C or D there are a number of additional attributes that must be filled Stand Structure The vertical structure of the forest STAND STRU It has three non null values 1 single storied for stands of even height with only one canopy layer of co dominant trees that may or may not be punctuated by scattered dominant trees This includes stands
122. the table display 70 APPENDIX 3 ABMI QUALITY CONTROL TOOLS The following describes the set of Quality Control Tools developed by Jennifer Hird and updated to the current ABMI photo plot mapping standards v2 4 1 These tools are intended to provide interpreters with a series of automated procedures that i automatically fill those ABMI attribute fields that can be inferred from the interpreter s calls e g land cover attributes wetland hydro dynamic and nutrient regimes etc ii test the compliance to a series of required quality stan dards and append temporary attribute fields that will hold the output of these quality checks and iii remove the temporary fields The ABMI Quality Control Toolbar should automatically be loaded when the provided mxt file is used as a template for an ArcMap session NB If you are in an editing session you must save your edits and stop the editing session be fore using these tools ABMI Quality Control Toolbar The picture below shows the ABMI Quality Control Toolbar which contains 3 separate buttons one for each of the tasks outlined above NB If the toolbar does not appear or was accidentally closed simply go to View Tool bars and click on ABMI QC Tools This should place a checkmark next to ABMI OC Tools in the menu and the toolbar should appear ABMI Quality Control Toolbar ABMI QC Tools x Field Calculator dC Tool 23 Remove QC Fields The Fie
123. ty used for conveying fluids e g petrochemicals water etc TRPW Powerline A corridor containing poles towers and transmission line lines for the transmission of high voltage electricity Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 38 TRCU Cutline A narrow linear clearing with light usage may be the result of seismic exploration or a corridor for minor pipelines surface may be exposed soil rock and or low vegetation TRTR Trail A linear clearing constituting a minor vehicular access route generally without bridges or ditches surfaced with dirt and or low vegetation TRAR Airport runway A licensed or unlicensed landing runway airfield strip facility for aircraft may be paved or surfaced with grass or gravel may have lighting UB Urban facilities Structures and facilities associated with urban landuse UBPL Parking lot A paved asphalt or cement flat area constructed for the temporary storage and parking of motor vehicles UBGS Green space Vegetated space designated for passive public recreational activities e g urban parks public gardens UBSP Outdoor sport Structures and facilities associated with area active recreation and leisure activities e g golf course soccer field horse track etc UBCE Cemetery Infrastructure associated with cemetery grounds e g maintenance storage buildings access roads etc
124. ty Control Toolbar A dialog box shown below appears The user must provide the path and name of the File Geodatabase and the ABMI photo plot identification number i e between 1 and 1656 of the photo plot to which the tool is to be applied ABMI Field Calculator x Select the ABMI File Geodatabase of the whose fields you wish to fill and the ABMI ID photo plot number of the File Geodatabase File Geodatabase K oo O T Specify ABMI Photo Plot ID ID NOTE This process may take a few seconds so please be patient cameras cone Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 72 Click the browse button EE on the dialog box A browse window will appear see exam ple below When opened for the first time within the current ArcMap session the browse window will automatically navigate to the directory and folder in which the first layer or data set present in the open map document is found Find the File Geodatabase of interest select it and click Select NB The browse window is designed to show only FGDBs for the user s selection i e it will not show other types of files including feature classes If a File Geodatabase is double clicked the window will appear blank If this happens simply go back up one le vel in the directory Double clicking a FGDB would normally show the feature data set s or feature class es present in the File Ge
125. uctures The second level further divides these classes into more specific infrastructure types Both can be found in Appendix 1 and are described in Table 7 below Additional specifications follow Table 7 Description and definition of ABMI infrastructure classification codes Infrastructure Codes Description Definition Class Type AG Agricultural Infrastructure related to agricultural facilities activities AGFL Feedlot Infrastructure associated with the housing and controlled feeding of livestock AGNU Nursery Infrastructure associated with the cultivation of young tree seedlings shrubs etc for the purpose of future transplanting or reforestation AGSI Silo An enclosed covered structure built for the storage of grain fodder or other agricultural products TR Transportation Infrastructure related to the transportation utilities of goods people fluids electricity equipment etc TRRL Railway A road or track for trains consisting of parallel steel rails supported on wooden crossbeams TRRD Road A roadway constituting an access route for vehicular traffic surface may be paved asphalt concrete gravel dirt had one or more lanes TRRT Road A roadway in which the two way traffic is Twinned Divided separated by a distinct unpaved section of land often grass covered at least 10 m wide TRPL Pipeline A line of underground or aboveground pipes of considerable length and capaci
126. ural activities i e does not contain farming related infrastructures CIFM Farmstead Single family isolated residential section of land e g not part of a larger settlement associated with farming or agricultural activities i e shows signs of farming or animal husbandry infrastructure CIRS Other residential Other clusters of residential related infrastructures e g villages hamlets ribbon developments suburbs of adjacent acreages CIIN Industrial Industrial compounds or facilities e g oil and gas facilities and plants surface mining infrastructures etc CIWL Wellsite Operating wellsites containing wellheads structures tanks and other features CICM Commercial Cluster of commercial infrastructures e g malls commercial parks etc that have no residential component to them CIOT Other compound infrastructure Other clusters of related or similar purpose infrastructures NB When an infrastructure s purpose or classification is uncertain the interprer can use the BUUK code unknown building 4 2 5 1 General specifications for infrastructures e INFRA CL is derived automatically based on the INFRA TY value Therefore interpreters are asked to only fill the latter Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 42 e Individual infrastructures may be represented as points lines or polygon features dep
127. ural fields e g farmsteads acreages roads that have one or more shelterbelts along 10 of their perimeter and or contain shelterbelts in their interior o A modifier FSB Shelterbelt should be used in the MODx attributes to indicate the presence of a shelterbelt s along the perimeter of the feature o A MODx PER should be filled to reflect the percentage of the feature s perimeter that is flanked by the shelterbelt s rather than the percent area covered by the shelterbelt s For linear features either those delineated as a polygon such as a road corridor or those delineated as a line such as a cutline this means that a shelterbelt flanking one side of the linear feature represents 50 of that feature s perimeter Thus shelterbelts flanking both sides of the feature e g on both sides of a road should be captured by a MODx PER value of 100 NB This rule also applies to roads lt 20 m wide thus represented as lines that are flanked by shelterbelts o Vegetation attributes of the polygon should include the the shelterbelt as well as other vegetated areas within the feature itself i e shelterbelt vegetation is not attributed separately from other vegetation within the feature when the FSB modifier is used o Those shelterbelts not located in the perimeter but in the interior are lumped together with other vegetation existing in the feature and captured as a whole in the vegetation attributes that are filled for the fe
128. ures Attribute Consistency List of Polygon Features where Standards Are Not Met SIZE1 Not Met in the Following Polygon Features Polygon ID 5470254 7 5 2011 SIZE1B not met lt 0 25 ha Polygon ID 5470382 7 5 2011 SIZE1A not met gt 0 25 ha lt 0 45 ha Note numbers in poe eng indicate the Polygon ID s of the adjacent polygons with which the violation has occurred SIZE2 Not Met in the Following Polygon Features Polygon ID 5470066 Polygon ID 5470098 Polygon ID 5470133 Polygon ID 5470145 7 5 2011 SIZE2A not met 5470073 5470533 7 5 2011 SIZE2A not met 5470738 7 5 2011 SIZE2A not met 5470134 7 5 2011 SIZE2A not met 5470228 Polygon 1D 5470151 7 5 2011 SIZE2A not met 5470432 Polygon 1D 5470230 7 5 2011 SIZE2A not met 5470347 Polygon 1D 5470256 7 5 2011 SIZE2A not met 5470129 Polygon ID 5470365 7 5 2011 SIZE2A not met 5470363 5470369 Polygon 1D 5470369 7 5 2011 SIZE2A not met 5470365 Polygon ID 5470394 7 5 2011 SIZE2A not met 5470423 Polygon 1D 5470554 7 5 2011 SIZE2A not met 5470035 Polygon ID 5470617 7 5 2011 SIZE2A not met 5470629 5470631 Polygon 1D 5470631 7 5 2011 Polygon Lp 5470741 SIZE2A not met 5470016 5470021 5470617 5470629 5470640 5470642 SIZE2A not met 5470219 5470738 7 5 2011 Note numbers in parentheses indicate the Polygon ID s of the adjacent polygons with which the violation
129. vant feature class as well as if the user so chooses a QC Report a text file containing the same output NB The Quality Control Tool can only be run once the Field Calculator Tool has been ap plied to a File Geodatabase Please ensure that the land cover class and other fields are fil led properly before running the Quality Control Tool ABMI Quality Control Tool OC Tool Using the ABMI Quality Control Tool Click the QC Tool button on the ABMI Quality Control Toolbar A dialog box appears shown below The user must provide i the File Geodatabase in which he she wishes to check the standards 1i the standards he she wishes to check 111 whether a QC Report should be produced in text file format and iv if so the location and filename of the report Click the browse button on the dialog box A browse window will appear see example in previous section When opened for the first time within the current ArcMap ses sion the browse window will automatically navigate to the directory and folder in which the first layer or dataset present in the open map document is found Find the File Geodatabase of interest select it and click Select NB When a File Geodatabase is selected a default path the same folder as the File Geodatabase and filename are set for the OC report text file automatically This can be easily changed by manually editing the text in the OC Report text box or by clicking the
130. vations All feature classes polygon point and line have an attribute called OBS that can be used to report observations or clarifications about some piece of information that could not be recorded using the other attributes Interpreters are encouraged to use this field whenever they feel some additional information should be added For instance when the name of a feature such as a settlement e g town city a stream a river a lake etc is known the interpreter is asked to put this in the OBS field 4 2 9 4 White Area upland type WAUL_TY The native grassland and prairie of Alberta s White Area are not as easily characterized by specif ic vegetative characteristics as the forested Green Area in a softcopy interpretation environment At the spatial resolution of the air photos used for interpretation herb and forb species height and density are not as reliably identifiable as tree species height and crown closure The native grasslands of the White Area are better described using recognizable soil and landscape features as evidenced by the GVI s Grassland Vegetation Inventory approach The GVI includes 14 na tive upland site types that describe native grassland areas in terms of typical landforms soil chemistry and or moisture and soil textures To capture pertinent information on native grass lands within Alberta s prairies the ABMIP3 includes a native grassland soil based site type at tribute the White Area uplan
131. w is an example of the land cover class ABMI site ID and polygon ID fields in the ABMI POLYGON feature class after they have been filled by the tool iix _ Landcover1 Landcover2 Landcover3 ABMIID PolygoniD Multipoint Count j N sy VGT 547 TUFD 5470240 TUFD 547 5470470 547 5470227 547 5470027 547 5470066 547 5470136 547 5470169 547 5470192 547 5470238 547 5470314 547 5470533 HEEE lt Q kl Al ee Al aAalalal NT UIL VIW VTU VTU VTU Vry VGT Record 14 a 0 mt eau All Selected Records 0 out of 274 Selected NB If an attribute table is open while the tool is run the changes made by the tool to attribu te fields will not appear automatically Close the attribute table and re open it for the new field values to show ABMI Quality Control Tool The ABMI Quality Control Tool tests for the compliance to ABMI standards of a completed pho to plot File Geodatabase It is meant as a tool to help interpreters test the compliance to standards during internal quality control checks before the final File Geodatabase is submitted to the client The tool checks a subset of the ABMI standards listed in the Standards Audited for Quality Assu rance section of the ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual and provides output in the form of Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 74 new fields in the rele
132. with a Z density overstory and an A B C or D density understory or stands with an A B C or D density overstory and a Z density understory or no understory 2 multi layered for stands containing an A B C or D density overstory with an A B C or D density understory of trees that are a minimum of 3 m below the top canopy as well as any additional possible distinct layers 3 complex for stands with multiple vertical indistinct layers NB1 STAND STRU must be filled for all forested features excluding treed features with a Z density overstory and no understory or vice versa NB2 This attribute applies only to tree canopies the presence of other layers of vegetation such as shrubs is not taken into account e Origin and Year The feature s ORIGIN e g natural regeneration afforestation and year of origin ORIGIN YR must be filled NB If signs harvesting are visible on the image whether new or old the ORIGIN should be HAR post harvest natural or artificial regeneration This captures the information that a particular stand was harvested at one point and that the effects of this are still visible e Height The height of the most abundant type of trees present in the overstory SITE HT is measured in metres to the closest integer Castilla Hird Maynes McDermid ABMI Photo Plot Interpretation Manual v2 4 1 24 NBI For understory height use USITE HT USITE HT must be gt 3 m short

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