LAND TYPE ASSOCIATIONS -- A LAND MANAGEMENT, RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, AND RESOURCE PROTECTION TOOL

Land Management, Resource Planning, and Resource Protection involves the inventorying, monitoring, evaluation, predictability, interpretations, and mapping of the natural resources. Land Type Association mapping for the Manti-LaSal National Forest, Price Utah, is a Geospatial/GIS integrated map of the bedrock geology, surficial unconsolidated geology, soils, geomorphology, groundwater and surface hydrology, and existing vegetation. These interdependent natural resources are needed to properly and adequately define a functioning ecosystem and provide the basis for selecting suitable areas for specific land use activities, identifying areas in need of intensive investigations, for evaluating various land management alternatives, and for the prediction of the effects of a given activity on the resources health or condition.

The delineation of the Land Type Associations (1:63,360 scale) for the Manti is based on the most important element and foundation: the geomorphic expression of the structural bedrock features that have been subsequently modified by glacial and fluvial processes. These bedrock structural features control the microclimate, thus the formation of soils, surface hydrology, and vegetation distribution, which is dependent upon the nutrients from the bedrock and surficial geology, thus defining the ecosystem. Ten Land Type Association Groups and 30 Land Type Associations define the Manti-LaSal National Forest.

Current uses and application of ecosystem mapping includes, not limited to, Forest Plan Revisions, producing EISs and EAs, recreational planning, fire management, grazing allotment delineation, visual resource management, timber suitability, hydrologic relationships, geologic hazards, land stability, archeological modeling, climatic modeling, disturbed land assessment, and wildlife habitat modeling.