Abstract:

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are powerful tools that areroutinely used in resource management. However, for these GIS tools tobe useful your data needs to be located spatially. It can be challenging toobtain, create, and use that data. Here I will present case studies thatused a few different GIS methods across several spatial scales to createvegetation maps here in south Florida and the Caribbean. In addition, wewill explore how various spatially explicit data can be combined to assessecological conditions of an area. In this case study, we can explore howcompiling the spatial data from multiple sources is just the being whentrying to assess natural resources.