Maps & GIS Data

Use this page to reference GIS and map data available for the Central Sierra Field Research Stations (CSFRS). Listed data that is not linked can be obtained from the Station.

Obnoxiously, data links are constantly changing. If one of our links is dead and you find a data source to replace it, please let us know!

Sagehen’s data is the result of a significant investment of resources over many decades. The station makes its data available free of charge with the provision that users will help us stay in business by:

• complying with station use requirements— including proper publication credit to the station & to the data owners;
• complying with our “Fair-Use” policy (see below);
• notifying the station in advance of download;
• submitting a reserve use application.

“Fair-Use” Policy for Sagehen data:

Kindly inform the appropriate Principal Investigators of how you are using site data and of any publication plans. If the Principal Investigators feel that they should be acknowledged or offered participation as authors, they will let you know and we assume that an agreement on such matters will be reached prior to publishing and/or use of the data for publication. If your work directly competes with the Principal Investigator’s analysis they may ask that they have the opportunity to submit a manuscript before you submit the one that uses their data. In addition, when publishing, please acknowledge the agency(s) that supported the research.

Printable maps

Just need a quick field map of the basin?

• Color shaded relief map (1.17M).
• High-resolution topo from 2004 LiDAR – 2m contour lines from 1m resolution data (36M)

Geodatabase and shapefiles for the Central Sierra Field Research Stations

• CSFRS station boundaries (Zip file – 24K)
• Sagehen Experimental Forest administrative boundary (Zip file – 11K)
• Tahoe National Forest GIS layers for the Sagehen basin (Zip file – 7.5M)
  • Includes: soil, fire history, marten habitat, Sagehen Forest Project treatment areas, wildlife PACs, sighting data, etc.

Sagehen Basin Digital Orthoquads (DOQ’s) and other aerial imagery

We recommend starting your quest for remote sensing imagery on the USGS Earth Explorer. You can use their map to create a bounding box for your area of interest, or use these coordinates to search for the data sets shown in the image at left:

You can also use NDOP for aerial orthophotos, or download imagery, veg layers and quads at California Geoportal.

LiDAR

2004 LiDAR remote sensing resource shared with the Sagehen research community by the UC Berkeley Center for Forestry. Please abide by Sagehen’s Fair Use policy. Data reprocessing done by the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM). Data acquisition by Sanborn.

Principle Investigators: John Battles, Scott Stephens

• For processed DEMs & unprocessed raw data files, contact Station Manager.
• Sample J-PEG images:
  • Bare earth, 4906 x 3791 pixels [3.3MB]
  • Bare earth-grayscale, 4906 x 3791 pixels [2.3MB]
  • 2-m contours, gray, 7612 x 7612 pixels [36.4MB]
  • 2-m contours, red, 7612 x 7612 pixels [46MB]
  • Canopy, 7612 x 7612 pixels: .JPG [35.9MB] | request .TIF [136MB]
• NCALM .KML file of distributable data.

2005 LiDAR data is available for Sagehen basin, Independence basin, and North Fork of the American River.

2013 & 2104 LiDAR scans of the Sagehen basin and North Fork American River

North Fork of the American River

LiDAR dataset includes Onion Creek Experimental Forest, Chickering Reserve, North Fork Association Lands & surrounding National Forest. Dataset is now available on the NCALM data distribution center.

It includes the filtered and unfiltered ArcGIS DEMs, and the lidar point cloud (LAS) all split in 2×2 sq.km tiles.

Digital Elevation Models (D.E.M.s)

Use USGS’ The National Map (TNM), National Elevation Dataset (NED), or 3D Elevation Program. (3DEP). These are the quads you need:

• Sagehen Creek Experimental Forest…
  • “Hobart Mills”
  • “Independence Lake”
• North Fork of the American River Conservation & Research Area: includes Chickering American River Reserve, North Fork Association Lands, Onion Creek Experimental Forest…
  • “Granite Chief”
  • “Norden”
  • “Royal Gorge”
  • “Soda Springs”

Vegetation data

• US Forest Service data.
• CALVEG info.
• Weislander Vegetation Surveys: the Wieslander Vegetation Type Map (VTM) collection is a dataset compiled in the 1920s and 30s, consisting of photos, species inventories, plot maps, and vegetation maps covering most of California.

Geologic Map of the northern Lake Tahoe-Donner Pass Region, northern Sierra Nevada, California

• Large image
• Small image
• GIS files
• PDFs
• More info, request digital files
• Photos of 2006 field work in the N. Fork of the American River.
• Photos of 2007 field work in Sagehen & Independence Basins.

Principle Investigator: Art Sylvester

Google Earth Coordinates

Use our Google Map to find us, and/or locate data collection points.

View Larger Map