Brush Photointerpretation Keys

Anderson et al. (1976):
The eastern brushlands are typically former croplands or pasture lands (cleared from original forest land) which now have grown up in brush in transition back to forest land to the extent that they are no longer identifiable as cropland or pasture from remote sensor imagery. Many of these brushlands are grazed in an extensive manner by livestock and provide wildlife habitat. These areas usually remain as part of the farm enterprise, even though not being used at their former levels of intensity. After sufficient forest growth has occurred, they should be classified as either Deciduous, Evergreen, or Mixed Forest Land.

Brush is typically green to olive in color in the NAIP imagery. The VMP orthos display brush in a range of light to dark grays. Both the NAIP and VMP orthos display a varied texture from smooth to coarse that can be randomly dispersed or uniform across the area. The presence of grasses and small vegetation or transitional growth from logging to forest can be indicators of brush. These are often vegetated transitional lands that are not yet forests. These areas are similar to scrub-shrub wetlands and should be cross referenced with ancillary wetland datasets to avoid misinterpretation.

Shrubberies (32)