An automated system for multi-scale vegetation mapping

The geographical distribution of vegetation is commonly represented on maps. However, some map users require very detailed information down to species at individual levels, while others are satisfied with generalized data on a class or community. Representation of vegetation data at different levels of abstraction is required to satisfy the requirements of different applications. It is desirable to have an automated mapping system so that smaller-scale representations of vegetation data can be derived efficiently from larger-scale representation. This arficle presents the design philosophy of a prototype automated system for vegetation mapping using geo-information technology. We devised a user interface based on an extension of existing ArcMap applications with the integration of ArcObjects and Visual Basic customization. The Vegetation Mapping System (VMS) is developed with five windows of user interface: the raw data and code pages for source map data input, and the classification, tolerance, and scale pages for output at a user-desired scale. This system avoids the frequent problem of revising vegetation databases at different scales. It is different from other general mapping systems in that vegetation characteristics and spatial pattern are taken into consideration.