A Subset of theNational Inventoried Roadless Areas for Region 2,

The Rocky Mountain Region

r2_ira01_u83z13 (shapefile name)

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Citation_Information:

Originator: Original data - USDA Forest Service - Geospatial Service and Technology Center (GSTC): Subset – Rocky Mountain Region (Region 2) from National Inventoried Roadless Area dataset – USDA Forest Service, Geospatial Services (June 2009)

Publication_Date:20000915, Updated 20030107, Updated 20030627, Updated 20080320

Title: National Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs) – Region 2

Edition: Final, Edited20030107, Edited 20030627, Edited 20080320

Geospatial_Data_Presentation_Form:Shapefile

Publication_Information:

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Publisher: Original Publisher - USDA Forest Service - GSTC

Description:

Abstract:

This dataset contains all National Forest Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs) for USDA Forest Service, Region 2, Rocky Mountain Region. The IRA data was originally submitted to GSTC by all national forests through their Regional Offices for the Forest Services Roadless Area Conservation Initiative.

The data was consolidated at the GSTC and used in the Draft Environment Impact Statement. Between the draft and final stages of the Environmental Impact Statement, the data was updated by the forests to reflect any corrections to Inventoried Roadless Areas that were based on existing forest plans and administrative record. The data was also supplemented to include Special Designated Area information and to include Inventoried Roadless Areas within Special Designated Areas. The data was resubmitted to the GSTC on July 21, 2000 for consolidation and the completed coverage was used in the Roadless Area Conservation Final Environmental Impact Statement. On October 15, 2002, the Gallatin National Forest submitted a technical correction to the Inventoried Roadless Area GIS database. A portion of the original GIS data was corrected to match the 1999 IRA maps that are part of the forest administrative record.

IRAs are based on completed forest plans, forest plans in revision where the agency has established an inventory (this information should be available in Appendix C of most forest plans), or other assessments that are completed and adopted by the agency. RARE II information was used in cases where aforest does not have a more current roadless inventory, which was established using RARE II information.

Purpose:

The purpose of this spatial dataset is to show where the Inventoried Roadless Areas are located. The EIS analysis team used this spatial data to assess the impacts of roadless area alternatives on Forest Service policies, use of the National Forests and the surrounding environment. It was used for analysis in combination with national characterization layers, such as ambient human population, forest mortality risk to insects and diseases, current land cover types, and others. All of these datasets include the entire lower 48 states, and are coarse resolution. The public also had a need to know where IRAs were located in their area and across the nation. The data was used to create a set of detailed maps published both on the web and in hardcopy form, (Volume2, Roadless Area Conservation EIS).

Supplemental_Information:

All of the following editing processes were performed using ARC/INFO software.

The IRA data was originally submitted to GSTC on December 3, 1999 for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The data was submitted in ARC/INFO export format (.e00), in most cases as individual national forest coverages, but in some cases together with other national forests. The original datasets submitted were derived from a variety of original source manuscripts, most IRA data had a scale of 1:24,000. Some datasets were of smaller scale, typically 1:126,720. Each national forest was originally compiled at a different time, from different source material, using various methods. Region 5 submitted one file, which included all national forests in that region (primarily the state of California). In these instances, individual coverages were extracted by national forest administrative unit, and edited separately. All data was imported, projected to Albers and audited to check for INFO item consistency. Unnecessary features were removed and label errors removed.

Each national forest dataset was spatially edgematched to a national forest boundary dataset compiled at GSTC for this purpose, and attribute information was added or corrected. It was GSTC's intent to change the original data as little as possible, altering the geometry only as necessary to fit the National Forest Boundary coverage, and editing attributes only for consistency or where apparent errors occurred.

Edgematched data to National Forest Boundary coverage by –

1) intersected the IRA and the NF boundary coverages using the UNION command with a fuzzy tolerance of 1.5 map units (meters)

2) deleted polygons that extended beyond NF boundary as long as they appeared to be sliver polygons created by union

3) deleted/absorbed polygons that did not extend to NF boundary by eliminating all interior polygons less than 5 acres in size that had no IRA category value or NF ownership status using ELIMINATE command

4) merged remaining polygon undershoots using the MERGE command via manual editing

5) conducted final quality assessment to check all work - this consisted of running acreage calculations for polygons before and after the edgematching process; all differences of 100 acres or greater were checked on screen and corrected if necessary; acreage calculations were run again after corrections were made to ensure there were no major changes (in some cases, changes were necessary after verifying with forest personnel that an error in the original data existed); a query was run on all coverages which resulted in a report showing frequency of polygons that had no ownership item and no IRA category - these were checked visually using hardcopy maps and phone calls to forests, if necessary, to verify what the polygons in question were; all IRA coverages were also checked visually on the screen to make sure there were no additional errors.

Regional coverages were created by first appending the completed individual national forest IRA coverages into administrative regional coverages, using the APPEND command with the polygon option. This resulted in seven regional coverages for Regions: 1 (Northern), 2 (Rocky Mountain),3 (Southwestern), 4 (Intermountain), 5 (Pacific Southwest), 6 (Pacific Northwest), 8 (Southern), and 9 (Eastern). These seven regional coverages were then appended into the national coverage, again, using the APPEND command.

The resulting national coverage was automatically edited, using the CLEAN command, with a fuzzy tolerance of 1.5meters. This removed geometric errors, and rebuilt topology. The coverage was then reprojected from Albers to decimal degrees for consistency with all other coverages used for analysis work.

Between the draft and final stages of the Environmental Impact Statement, the data was updated by the forests to reflect any corrections to Inventoried Roadless Areas that were based on their existing forest plan. The data was also updated to include Special Designated Area information and to include Inventoried Roadless Areas within Special Designated Areas. After these updates were made the data was resubmitted to the GSTC on July 21, 2000 for consolidation.

The final consolidation of the national IRA coverage was accomplished at the GSTC with the benefit of having one representative from each region to assist with quality control. All the completed regions were appended together into the national coverage and reprojected from Albers to decimal degrees for analysis and display in the Roadless Area Conservation Environmental Impact Statement. The IRAs only were selected from national coverage to make this dataset.

On January 7, 2003, a technical correction to the IRA GIS data was performed by GSTC on behalf of the Gallatin National Forest. The technical correction complies with direction described in the Roadless Area Conservation Rule 294.11 and Interim Directive 1920-2001-1 section 1925.05.

On June 27, 2003, a technical correction to the IRA GIS data was performed by GSTC on behalf of the Santa Fe National Forest. A portion of the original GIS data was corrected to match the IRA maps that are part of the forest administrative record. The technical correction complies with direction described in the Roadless Area Conservation Rule 294.11 and Interim Directive 1920-2001-1 section 1925.05. The correction removes roadless attributes from all polygons that comprise the Jemez NRA and East Jemez NWSR so that these two special designated areas are no longer shown as inventoried roadless areas. These areas were incorrectly shown as inventoried roadless areas.

On August 2, 2004, a technical correction to the Blue Mountain Roadless Area was performed by GSTC on behalf of the Manti-La Sal National Forest to more accurately reflect the 1983 Roadless Area Reevaluation as shown in the1986 Planning Record. The Blue Mountain IRA boundaries were re-digitized at higher resolution with the aid of topography and classified roads to match the boundary as intended in the Roadless Area Briefing Guide for Forest Planning for the Manti-La Sal National Forest. The technical correction complies with direction described in the Roadless Area Conservation Rule 294.11 and Interim Directive 1920-2001-1 section 1925.05.

On August 2, 2004, a technical correction along the border of the Salmon-Challis and Sawtooth National Forests was performed by GSTC. This correction fixes a data consolidation error that went undetected during the construction of the IRA GIS dataset. A 37,000 acre section of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area was mistakenly combined with the Squaw Creek IRA. The technical correction restores these two features back to their original state. The technical correction complies with direction described in the Roadless Area Conservation Rule 294.11 and Interim Directive1920-2001-1 section 1925.05.

On March 20, 2008, a technical correction to the name of an IRA on the Manti-La Sal National Forest was performed by the GSTC. This correction changes the name of the IRA from “Big Mak IRA” to “Roc Creek IRA” as requested by the Manti-La Sal National Forest. The technical correction complies with direction described in the Roadless Area Conservation Rule 294.11 and Interim Directive 1920-2001-1 section 1925.05.

6) In June 2009 the National Inventoried Roadless Area dataset (national coverage) was subset to reflect only the regional dataset (shapefile) for Region 2, the Rocky Mountain Region. The data for the Rocky Mountain Region (Region2) was reprojected to UTM, zone 13, NAD83.

***** Spatial Reference Information (Beg) *****

ProjectionParameters: Universal Transverse Mercator, Zone 13

NAD83

Spatial Information: Vector

Scale of original/hardcopy map: 1:24,000 to1:198,000

Feature Type: Polygon

Attributes:

Definitions:

CATEGORY

1B = Inventoried Roadless Areas where road construction and reconstruction is prohibited.

1B-1 = Inventoried Roadless Areas that are recommended for wilderness designation in the forest plan and whereroad construction and reconstruction is prohibited.

1C = Inventoried Roadless Areas where road construction and reconstruction is not prohibited.

***** Spatial Reference Information (End) *****

Time_Period_of_Content:

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Range_of_Dates/Times:

Beginning_Date:19991203

Ending_Date:20000915, Edited 20030107

Currentness_Reference:publication date

Status:

Progress: Complete

Maintenance_and_Update_Frequency:Unknown

Spatial_Domain:

Bounding_Coordinates:

West_Bounding_Coordinate: -110.185430

East_Bounding_Coordinate: -102.530452

North_Bounding_Coordinate: 45.107731

South_Bounding_Coordinate: 36.949883

Keywords:

Theme:

Theme_Keyword_Thesaurus:NA

Theme_Keyword:national inventoried roadless areas (subset)

Place: Region 2, Rocky Mountain Region

Place_Keyword_Thesaurus:NA

Place_Keyword:national forests

Temporal:

Temporal_Keyword_Thesaurus:NA

Temporal_Keyword:NA

Access_Constraints:

User needs to exercise caution regarding the spatial accuracy of these data. The source scales can vary. External features cannot be expected to align. The National Forest Planning Record Documents(Appendix C), other assessments adopted by the USDA Forest Service, or RARE II documents, are ultimately the official version of inventoried roadless areas.

Use_Constraints:

Data may be viewed and used by any and all entities upon request. However, data should not be changed or modified by anyone other than GSTC/USDA Forest Service. The USDA Forest Service does not guarantee the accuracy of this data.

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Direct_Spatial_Reference_Method:Vector

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Distribution_Liability:

The USDA Forest Service manages resource information and derived data as a service to USDA Forest Service users of digital geographic data. The USDA Forest Service is in no way condoning or endorsing the application of these data for any given purpose. It is the sole responsibility of the user to determine whether or not the data are suitable for the intended purpose. It is also the obligation of the user to apply those data in an appropriate and conscientious manner. The USDA Forest Service provides no warranty, nor accepts any liability occurring from any incorrect, incomplete, or misleading data, or from any incorrect, incomplete, or misleading use of these data.

Much of the USDA Forest Service data are compiled, processed, and maintained with ARC/INFO software developed by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI). Much of the information presented uses conventions and terms popularized by ARC/INFO and its user community. The mention of commercial firms or products is for clarity and identification of procedures and methods only, and no endorsements are implied by the USDA Forest Service.

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Metadata_Standard_Name:FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata

Metadata_Standard_Version:FGDC-STD-001-1998