Background

Development of the National Vegetation Classification

• 2025.  Release of Version 3.0 of the USNVC content following extensive review by regional working groups for all levels above Association.
• 2025.  Publication in Ecosphere of an article (Faber-Langendoen et al., 2025) describing revision of the EcoVeg approach and the USNVC to better align with the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology (Keith et al. 2020, 2022).
• 2024-2026. National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) undertook a major revision and upgrade of VegBank with funding from the California Fish and Wildlife Department and guidance from the ESA Vegetation Classification Panel.
• 2024.  Revision of the USNVC content for the forthcoming Version 3.0, including addition of maps and photos for Macrogroups.
• 2023.  Completion of a five-year Alliance review that improved USNVC Alliance concepts and state lists of Associations, Alliances, and Groups, and provided additional state information to USNVC descriptions.
• 2023.  The FGDC Vegetation Subcommittee Hierarchy Revisions Working Group agreed to revise the upper levels of the USNVC to better align with the Eco-Veg approach and Global Ecosystem Typology.
• 2022.  The IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology (GET) (Keith et al. 2020, 2022) was released.  This is a conceptually robust, scalable, and spatially explicit functional approach for all of earth’s ecosystems (terrestrial, freshwater, marine, subterranean), developed through global international collaboration.
• 2022.  Scientia published an article summarizing the USNVC for a broad audience: USNVC: The United States National Vegetation Classification: Creating a common language to classify the Nation’s Vegetation.
• 2021. The first best practices paper was published in the USNVC Proceedings. (Lee et al. 2021): Availability of plot data from the Carolinas and Virginias for documenting the US National Vegetation Classification.
• 2021. A major revision to the USNVC for Alaska was published in the USNVC Proceedings (Faber-Langendoen et al. 2021): The Alaska U.S. National Vegetation Classification: Synopsis of a workshop review of Macrogroups, Groups, and Alliances.
• 2021. LANDFIRE produced the first USNVC Group-level map for the conterminous U.S.
• 2020. LANDFIRE produced the first USNVC Group-level map for Alaska, Hawaii, and Insular Areas.
• 2019. Bureau of Land Management published Guide to Using the USNVC (Comer 2019)and a mobile application with keys to the Alliances and Associations in sagebrush systems.
• 2018. A revised MOU was established by the FGDC Vegetation Subcommittee, ESA, NatureServe, USGS, and USFS to support the implementation and maintenance of the USNVC Standard.
• 2018. The U.S. Forest Service assessed the status of regional vegetation map products in meeting the FGDC standard and their readiness for publication.
• 2018.  The FGDC subcommittee reviewed the Alliance and Association-level content of the USNVC for the Rocky Mountains, the Southwestern United States, and California.
• 2017.  NatureServe and the USFS FIA program developed a computerized algorithm (key) for assigning USNVC natural forest Macrogroups to FIA data (Menard et al. 2017).  A preliminary version was presented to the November 2016 Society of American Foresters meeting.
• 2017. The position of Editor-in-Chief for the USNVC was established, along with Regional and Associate Peer Review Boards.
• 2016. Version 2.0 of the USNVC for the Natural Vegetation of the Conterminous U.S. was released.  It includes the full initial content of the USNVC, comprehensive for the top 6 levels for the entire U.S., and for Alliances and Associations for the contiguous 48 states.
• 2014.  The first Proceedings of the USNVC article was published (Palmquist et al. 2014): Xeric Longleaf Pine Vegetation of the Atlantic and East Gulf Coast Coastal Plain: An Evaluation and Revision of Associations within the U.S. National Vegetation Classification.
• 2014. A revised MOU was signed by NatureServe, ESA, the USFS, and USGS that formalized their roles in support of the maintenance and development of the USNVC.
• 2014. The details of the development, population, continued revision, and maintenance of the content of the USNVC, referred to as the Eco-Veg approach, was fully articulated in an Ecological Monographs publication (Faber-Langendoen et al. 2014).
• 2012-2015. The FGDC Vegetation Subcommittee worked with ESA Vegetation Classification Panel and NatureServe to screen and review middle and lower levels of the USNVC. The more fully populated content of the USNVC was summarized in various publications such as Faber-Langendoen et al. 2012, 2014; Franklin et al. 2012.
• 2011.  LANDFIRE and the National Gap Analysis Program (GAP) collaborated to produce a crosswalk of the GAP/LANDFIRE terrestrial ecosystem map to the USNVC.
• 2010. Setting the stage for the new NVC Classification, the FGDC Vegetation Subcommittee – Hierarchy Revisions Working Group revised the upper levels (Formation Class, Formation Subclass, and Formation) of the USNVC (HRWG 2011).
• 2009.   NatureServe, working with the FGDC Hierarchy Revisions Working Group, federal agencies, and the ESA Vegetation Panel, launched revisions to the USNVC based on the new standard. The stated goal was to create “initial content” at all levels that would serve as the starting point for the ongoing development of the USNVC.
• 2009. ESA established the Vegetation Classification Panel as a Permanent Standing Committee (typically with support staff funded through the USFS as the lead agency for the FGDC Vegetation Subcommittee).
• 2009.  Jennings et al. (2009) presented standards and procedures for maintaining and advancing the dynamic vegetation content mandated in the 2008 revision of the FGDC Vegetation Standard with particular emphasis on the Association and Alliance levels.
• 2008.  Version 2 of the FGDC National Vegetation Classification Standard was formally adopted.  The new Standard was approved as the first FGDC dynamic content standard, allowing for efficient evolution of the content as the scientific body of knowledge continued to grow (FGDC 2008, Peet 2008).
• 2004.  The ESA Vegetation Panel released VegBank (http://vegbank.org) as a formal archive for vegetation plot data to support the USNVC (Jennings et al. 2009, Peet et al. 2012).
• 2003. In response to issues related to mapping the 1997 hierarchy, NatureServe published the Ecological Systems Classification.  Ecological Systems were defined as “…a group of plant community types (Associations) that tend to co-occur within landscapes with similar ecological processes, substrates, and/or environmental gradients.”
• 2002-2004. NSF funded full development and implementation of the VegBank system as an Information infrastructure for vegetation science.  In addition to completion of the core infrastructure and interfaces, numerous presentations were made to professional organizations and numerous training sessions were provided to introduce potential users to the system (Jennings et al. 2009, Peet et al. 2012, Franklin et al. 2012).
• 1999-2002.  A project was undertaken with significant support from NSF and NCEAS to design and build prototype components for “a perfectly-archived, continuously-updated database system for analysis of North American vegetation” product that became known as VegBank. Academics and conservation professionals from numerous institutions and countries participated in the planning events and evaluation of the products.
• 1999.  A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was formalized between the ESA, The Nature Conservancy/NatureServe, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) for the purpose of forming a partnership to develop, implement, and maintain the National Vegetation Classification (NVC) system.
• 1998. The Nature Conservancy published Terrestrial Vegetation of the United States, containing a list of over 4,000 Associations and 1500 Alliances (Grossman et al. 1998, Anderson et al. 1998).
• 1997. The first National Vegetation Classification Standard was adopted by the FGDC Subcommittee (FGDC 1997). That Standard created a 5-level hierarchy down to the Formation level. The existing types described at the Alliance and Association levels were not formally adopted as a part of that standard.
  
• 1995. The Ecological Society of America established the Vegetation Classification Panel to coordinate the development of a national vegetation classification.  The first meeting was held in conjunction with the 38^th Annual Meeting of the International Association for Vegetation Science at Rice University in Houston, Texas.  This meeting included both a special session on Vegetation Classification and an NSF-sponsored workshop on opportunities arising out of recent North American vegetation classification and mapping initiatives.
• 1994.  The Ecological Society of America appointed a Special Committee on Vegetation Classification to evaluate the possibility of establishment of a Panel on Vegetation Classification to coordinate development and maintenance of a national vegetation classification. The participants included academics from multiple institutions as well as representatives from BLM, NSF, TNC, USFS, GAP, and SCS.
• 1993.  The Ecological Society of America, The Nature Conservancy, The U.S. Geological Survey, and the FGDC Vegetation Subcommittee held a joint symposium and workshop at the ESA annual meeting to initiate discussions as to how to jointly develop a US National Vegetation Classification.  This led to a formal proposal that ESA establish a Vegetation Panel to coordinate such efforts.
  
• 1991.  The FGDC Vegetation Subcommittee was established to facilitate coordination of vegetation classification initiatives. At this time multiple agencies and organizations, including the US Forest Service, US National Park Service, USGS Gap Analysis Program, US Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy, and various state agencies maintained independent vegetation classification systems.

Literature Citations:

Anderson, M. et al. 1998.  International classification of ecological communities: terrestrial vegetation of the United States. Volume II. The National Vegetation Classification System: list of types. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Comer, P.J. D. Faber-Langendoen, P.J. McIntyre and M.S. Reid 2019. User Guide for the U.S. National Vegetation Classification,  Prepared for the Bureau of Land Management. NatureServe, Arlington VA. 

Faber-Langendoen, D. et al. 2012. Classification and description of world formation types. Part I (Introduction) and Part II (Description of formation types). Hierarchy Revisions Working Group, Federal Geographic Data Committee, FGDC Secretariat, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia, and NatureServe, Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Faber-Langendoen, D. et al. 2014. EcoVeg: a new approach to vegetation description and classification. Ecological Monographs 84: 533–61.

Faber-Langendoen, D. et al. 2021. The Alaska U.S. National Vegetation Classification: Synopsis of a workshop review of Macrogroups, Groups, and Alliances. Proceedings of the USNVC. Volume 1, Issue 4, Pages 1-127.

Faber-Langendoen, D. et al., 2025. Advancing the EcoVeg approach as a terrestrial ecosystem typology: From global biomes to local plant communities. Ecosphere 16(5) e70237.

FGDC (Federal Geographic Data Committee). 1997. Vegetation Classification Standard. FGDC-STD-005. Vegetation Subcommittee, Federal Geographic Data Committee, FGDC Secretariat, U.S. Geological Survey. Reston, VA. 58pp.

FGDC (Federal Geographic Data Committee). 2008. National Vegetation Classification Standard, Version 2. FGDCSTD- 005-2008. Vegetation Subcommittee, Federal Geographic Data Committee, FGDC Secretariat, U.S. Geological Survey. Reston, VA. 126pp

Franklin, S.D. et al. 2012. Building the United States National Vegetation Classification. Annali di Botanica 2: 1-9.

Grossman, D.H. et al. 1998. International classification of ecological communities: terrestrial vegetation of the United States. Volume I. The National Vegetation Classification System: development, status, and applications. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, Virginia, USA

HRWG (Hierarchy Revisions Working Group). 2011. Descriptions of global formation types. Contributing authors: Faber-Langendoen D., Josse C., Hoagland B., Navarro G., Keeler-Wolf T., Meidinger D., Helmer E., Fults G., Huber O., Ponomarenko S., Saucier J-P., Tart D., Weakley A. Federal Geographic Data Committee, FGDC Secretariat, U.S. Geological Survey. Reston, VA, and NatureServe, Arlington, VA.

Jennings, M.D. et al. 2009. Standards for associations and alliances of the U.S. National Vegetation Classification. Ecological Monographs 79: 173-199.

Keith, D.A., Ferrer-Paris, J.R., Nicholson, E. and Kingsford, R.T. (eds.). 2020. The IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology 2.0: Descriptive profiles for biomes and ecosystem functional groups. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.

Keith, D. A. et al. 2022. “A Function-Based Typology for Earth’s Ecosystems.” Nature 610(7932): 513–18.

Lee, M.T. et al. 2021. Availability of plot data from the Carolinas and Virginias for documenting the US National Vegetation Classification. Proceedings USNVC 1(4): 1-46

Menard, S.D. et al. 2017. Integrating the U.S. National Vegetation Classification in the U.S. Forest Service FIA Program. Report to USFS-FIA program. NatureServe, Arlington, VA. 104 pp.

Palmquist, K.A., R.K. Peet, and S.C. Carr. 2014. Xeric Longleaf Pine Vegetation of the Atlantic and East Gulf Coast Coastal Plain: An Evaluation and Revision of Associations within the U.S. National Vegetation Classification.  Proceedings USNVC 1(1)

Peet, R.K. 2008. A decade of effort by the ESA Vegetation Panel leads to a new federal standard. ESA Bulletin 89(3): 210-211.

Peet, R.K. et al. 2012. VegBank – a permanent, open-access archive for vegetation-plot data. Biodiversity and Ecology 4: 233–41.

Scientia. 2022. The United States National Vegetation Classification: Creating a common language to classify the Nation’s Vegetation.

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Photo Credits: ESA Vegetation Panel