In the last section, we explored how Vibrant Planet builds a fine-scale vegetation model of your analysis area. Now, we’ll explore how the platform segments the landscape, making it easier to identify and prioritize areas for treatment.
Landscape resilience or community protection is implemented through smaller treatment units with a specific management action such as variable-density thinning or mastication. Vibrant Planet gives you a head start towards implementation by planning within a landscape delineated into detailed management units.
Identify land with similar characteristics and ownership
As discussed in Section 01, Vibrant Planet uses a Synthetic Canopy Height Model (Synthetic CHM) to map current and specific vegetation structure and height.
Then, to help you identify the best areas to prioritize treatment, the landscape is grouped into areas with similar vegetative and topographic conditions. These areas are then overlaid with applicable ownership and land use designations (the Land Resume). The result is a grouping of homogenous management units with similar biophysical characteristics and administrative jurisdictions that will respond similarly to a natural disturbance and/or management. Each management unit contains additional attribution, including polygon size and location, slope, ownership, land designations, canopy cover and height, and disturbance information.
These management units are the underlying basis for scenario planning and optimization. This is just one example of how Vibrant Planet does the front end work like planning and segmentation for you, helping you get to implementation faster.
Now that you understand the background landscape and segmentation data that Vibrant Planet uses to display your analysis area, let’s explore how we determine hazard.