Delineation of Landcover Boundaries in Areas Utilized or Avoided by Female Woodland Caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) Using Publicly Available Spatial Datasets.

The availability and utility of spatial datasets, at no cost to the end user, directly impacts the ability of government and non-governmental wildlife management agencies to delineate landcover utilization or avoidance for targeted wildlife species. The availability and utility of four datasets; Canada Land Inventory for Ungulates, Earth Observation for Sustainable Development of Forests, Provincial Forest Inventory for the Island of Newfoundland, and the Landsat 7 ETM+ were evaluated for their usefulness in delineating landcover boundaries in areas utilized by caribou during calving and post-calving. To perform this evaluation a representative sample of landcover features, in both utilized and avoided areas, were selected through the use of space-time scan statistics and maximum step length calculations, then landcover boundaries were recorded using spiral transects based on the Fibonacci sequence. The location of all land cover boundaries intersected during the completion of ground based transects were recorded and provided a baseline dataset for comparison to those depicted using the selected datasets. Object-oriented segmentation had to be completed for the Landsat ETM+ dataset before a comparison could be conducted. Root mean square error (RMSE) values were calculated for all datasets and compared with the ground based results. In addition, RMSE values were also calculated for a set of randomly generated boundary locations for each completed transect. For all datasets errors of omission were taken into account on an independent basis. Upon completion of the evaluation it was determined that all datasets, except the Earth Observation for Sustainable Development of Forests, where both the RMSE for random (r) and actual (a) boundary points (r=22.89, a=14.93, error 25meters (m)) was below the associated positional error of the dataset, would be useful for the delineation of landcover boundaries. The Canada Land Inventory (r=86.60, a=30.43, error 35m) was deemed useful only for its ability to provide information on historical location and permanence of boundaries at the landscape scale. To provide landcover delineation for the island of Newfoundland a combination of both the forest inventory (r=64.71, a=39.47, error 35m) and landsat datasets (r=37.02, a=27.92, error 30m) must be utilized along with a variety of ancillary data sources.