Vibrant Planet Glossary

Assets - relate to non-safety aspects of the built environment on the landscape, such as structures. Assets are a SARA category and have a corresponding Objective RO used in Scenario Planning. 


Biodiversity - relates to Plant and Animal species in need of protection. Biodiversity is a SARA category and has a corresponding Objective RO used in Scenario Planning. 


Canopy Height Model (CHM) - represents the distance between the ground surface and the top of objects above the ground, such as trees and shrubs, as well as built infrastructure such as buildings. Notably, a canopy height model represents height of objects, rather than elevation. Imagine a cloth draped over the treetops (and down to the ground in openings); the Canopy Height Model is an abstraction of the shape and height of any objects on the landscape above the ground surface. A canopy height model is typically derived from a lidar point cloud, and can have varying degrees of resolution based on the quality of the lidar itself. 


Departure - A measure of how different processes, vegetation characteristics, or other current landscape conditions are from a reference condition. That reference condition could be a historic range of conditions, contemporary reference conditions, or other desired reference conditions. 


Distinct Management Areas (DiMAs) - a feature of the platform that allows a user to delineate specific areas that must be managed differently (either to different objectives, in light of existing or planned treatments, or in allowing different treatment types).


Disturbance effects (DE) - the impact of wildfire on a SARA is the disturbance effect, disturbance effect combined with treatment effects makes up a response function. Each SARA has response functions that vary based on six classes of flame length. 


EcObjects - fine-scale vegetation mapping polygons that encompass individual trees, clumps of trees, and openings. They are designed to map forest structure and composition. 


EcoUnits - areas with similar canopy height, vegetative, and topographic conditions that vary in size depending on landscape composition and configuration. 


Emphasized Objectives - Each SARA falls into an Objective Category (Assets, Safety, Recreation, Biodiversity, Wildlands Health, Ecological Commodity, Water, Science & Monitoring) that a user can emphasize in the platform. Each Objective can be emphasized on a multiplier scale of 0-5 and this weight will impact how the platform displays risk and opportunity as well as how the platform generates prioritized project scenarios. 


Emphasized Risk - relative risk of SARA value loss to wildfire within each management unit based on the objectives emphasized. 


Emphasized Opportunity - relative opportunity within each management unit for risk reduction, resilience, or restoration based on the objectives the user emphasizes. 


ForSys - ForSys is a scenario planning model created by the U.S. Forest Service for multi-objective restoration and fuel management planning. Vibrant Planet utilizes ForSys in the process of creating scenarios.  


GTR-315 - a framework for assessing wildfire risk and exploring mitigation options. 


Land Resume - represents a partitioning of the landscape based on unique combinations of ownership and land use designation. The Land Resume is a data layer used in landscape segmentation and is critical for delineating and differentiating areas that are operationally unique for project planning. 


LiDAR - imaging technology that is used for precise distance measurements.


Management Options - the eight umbrella treatment options Vibrant Planet applies based on operational constraints and greatest potential to reduce risk of adverse impacts of wildfire on SARAs.


Management units - relatively homogenous landscape groups based on horizontal and vertical vegetation structure, slope, biophysical condition, ownership, and land designation class. 


Objective - expression of user intention and value. In the platform, each stand object, or STELA polygon, is scored for each Objective, including the impact of treatment on value and risk. Each Objective directly encompasses one or more SARA categories. 


Planning Areas - the geographic area under consideration for land management project development. They may be further subdivided using Distinct Management Areas.


Projects - in the platform users create scenarios by weighting objectives and setting constraints. These scenarios include a series of projects which are prioritized based on the percent of RO they provide across the planning area. 


Quantitative Wildfire Risk Assessment (QWRA) - an assessment that considers how often fire occurs (likelihood), the intensity when a fire occurs (intensity), and the effects of fire on SARAs.  


Recreation - features primarily used for recreational purposes, such as piers and campsites. Recreation is a SARA category and has a corresponding Objective RO used in Scenario Planning. 


Resilience Opportunity (RO) - a score that is calculated for each management unit by exposing each SARA in the unit to the potential wildfire hazard to determine the potential loss, then exposing each SARA to the management option that will most greatly increase the resilience of that SARA. The RO is the difference in loss of value to the SARAs with no treatment versus the loss in value to the SARAs with the best management option. 


Safety - SARA category and has corresponding Objective RO used in Scenario Planning. Safety SARAs are aspects of the landscape/built environment that provide critical safety features, such as medical facilities or strategic fuel breaks. 


Strategic Areas, Resources, and Assets (SARA) - specific measurable resources that are spatially explicit. They may be ecological or anthropogenic in origin. 


Scenario - in the Vibrant Planet platform, a scenario is a collection of projects on a given Planning ARea. Scenarios can either be Optimized Scenarios, which result from Scenario Planning wherein the user provides inputs on Objective weights and constraints (project size, number, or budget), or Consensus Scenarios, which result from selecting areas of overlap between scenarios in the Comparison feature. 


Science & Culture - Areas or infrastructure on the landscape that are important for scientific study or are sites of cultural significance. Science & Culture is a SARA category and has a corresponding Objective RO used in Scenario Planning. 


Stewardship Atlas (STELA) - the final data product that Vibrant Planet platform operates on to produce plans. The unit of granularity is the management unit polygon, which is the result of the Landscape Segmentation process. Each attribute in the STELA is described in Appendix B of the Product Guide. Downloading a Scenario shapefile from Vibrant Planet provides the subset of the STELA that encompasses the Scenario projects. 


Response function - a numerical score based on a SARA’s response to disturbances and treatments.


Treatment effects (TE) - the ecological impact of a treatment on a SARA. 


Water - hydrologic and hydrogeomorphological processes and features that are important for socio-ecological function. Water is a SARA category and has a corresponding Objective RO used in Scenario Planning. Water SARAs may include surface and subsurface water features and flows, as well as areas of high erosion potential, and other areas related to water quality impacts. 


Wildfire Hazard - probabilistic intensity of a given disturbance. Hazard is a relative value that is calculated by multiplying the disturbance intensity metric by the disturbance probability. Hazard is independent of value, and does not account for how features of the landscape (ex: resources, built assets, etc.) would be affected by the disturbance. 


Burn probability (FSim) - the probability that a geographic location (30 m pixel) will experience a wildland fire. Modeled using FSim, which simulates the growth and behavior of hundreds of thousands of fire events, based on historical fire occurrences, weather, terrain, and fuel. 


Fire intensity (WildEST)- the flame length that the pixel is likely to experience when it burns. This calculation uses a model developed by Pyrologix, a Vibrant Planet subsidiary, that performs 200+ simulations and uses local fuel, weather, and topography to generate estimates of contemporary flame lengths within a given pixel.


Wildfire Risk - the probabilistic change in value when value is exposed to a given disturbance intensity. Risk accounts for both the disturbance hazard (intensity, probability) and how the value would respond to that hazard of a given intensity. Risk can be positive or negative, but is typically thought of as being negative (i.e. loss of value) hence, the risk per Objective values in the Stewardship Atlas attribute table only represents value loss due to disturbance hazard. 


Wildlands Health - areas on the landscape that represent vegetation groups that serve as a primary ecosystem component, such as Aquatic/Riparian Vegetation. Wildlands Health is a SARA category and has a corresponding Objective RO used in Scenario Planning.