Revisiting historical beech and oak forests in Indiana using a GIS method to recover information from bar charts

PeerJ

article

Brice Hanberry¹ 

[1] Rocky Mountain Research Station

关键词: Ash;    Data recovery;    Hickory;    Figure;    Sugar maple;    TIF;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.5158

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Historical GIS involves applying GIS to historical research. Using a unique method, I recovered historical tree survey information stored in bar chart figures of a 1956 publication. I converted PDF files to TIF files, which is a format for a GIS layer. I then employed GIS tools to measure lengths of each bar in the TIF file and used a regression (R224% of all trees) 44% of 8.9 million ha (i.e., where data were available in Indiana), oak forests dominated 29%, beech and oak forests dominated 4.5%, and oak savannas were in 6% of Indiana, resulting in beech and/or oak dominance in 84% of the state. This method may be valuable to reclaim information available in published figures, when associated raw data are not available.

【 授权许可】

CC BY