Herbaceous cover estimates for the sagebrush ecosystem in 2017

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The USGS developed a dataset that estimates 2017 herbaceous annual percent cover predicted on May 1st with an emphasis on annual grasses. These data were developed to provide land managers and researchers with early-season, near-real-time predictions of spatially explicit percent cover predictions of herbaceous annual vegetation in the study area.

This data comes with several caveats. First, as an early-season dataset, it will not reflect the end-of-season estimated percent cover of annual grass in many areas. In fact, some areas with annual grass cover will reflect no cover at this early date. Second, these estimates should be viewed as relative abundances. Third, each pixel in the dataset represent 250-meters and can include a geolocation error of up to 125 meters. Comparing this dataset to similar datasets with different spatial resolutions can lead to substantial differences between datasets. Fourth, this dataset represents annual herbaceous for 2017 forecast on May 1. This dataset is a forecast, and mapping could improve with later map development dates (e.g., July 1). This forecast is considered accurate and reasonable given this early season of mapping.