| OCR Text |
Show Land-use map of Vernal area completed by USGS A land-use and land-cover map that includes Daggett County and most of Uintah County in northeastern Utah has been compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey as part of a program to complete similar maps for the entire nation by 1982. The map is aimed mainly at helping in land, water, energy, mineral, environmental en-vironmental and other resource planning. The l:250,000-scale (1 inch represents about 4 miles) map delineates different categories of land use such as commercial, industrial, residential and agricultural, and different dif-ferent kinds of land cover such as forests and water. The area depicted by the map, identified as the Vernal quadrangle, covers about 7,280 square miles, with a little more than half of it in Colorado and the rest in Utah. (The map depicts the area between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 108 and 110 degrees west . longitude. This is the same area covered by the Vernal quadrangle in the series of standard USGS 1:250,000-scale 1:250,000-scale topographic maps.) Dr. James R. Anderson, USGS chief geographer at the Survey's National Center, Reston.Va., said the map will be useful to government and private planners and administrators on such projects as environmental studies, analyses of urban and rural growth, developing water and mineral resources, protecting wildlife, selecting utility rights of way, choosing sites for power plants and other facilities, and in highway and traffic studies. The USGS has completed land-use and land-cover maps for . 14 states (Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, West Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Rhode Island) and the District of Columbia, plus parts of other states. The Vernal quadrangle is the first map that included part of Utah. A land-use and land-cover classification system adopted by the USGS in 1976 was used in compiling the Vernal map. This system divides land use and land cover into nine basic "Level I" categories: urban or built-up land, agricultural land, rangeland, . forest land, water, wetland, barren land, tundra and perennial snow or ice. |
