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A Crosswalk of the 2015 World Terrestrial Ecosystems to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Global Ecosystem Typology Framework

Open-File Report 2025-1043
National Land Imaging Program
By: , , , , and 
https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20251043

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  • Document: Report (12.6 MB pdf) , HTML , XML
  • Appendixes:
    • Appendix (70.4 KB xlsx) - A Crosswalk of the U.S. Geological Survey/Esri/The Nature Conservancy World Terrestrial Ecosystems to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Global Ecosystem Typology (GET) Ecosystem Functional Groups
    • Appendix (215 KB csv) - A Crosswalk of the U.S. Geological Survey/Esri/The Nature Conservancy World Terrestrial Ecosystems to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Global Ecosystem Typology (GET) Ecosystem Functional Groups in a CSV file
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Abstract

To support ecosystem mapping and accounting applications, we aligned the 2015 U.S. Geological Survey/Esri/The Nature Conservancy-World Terrestrial Ecosystems (WTEs) with the International Union for Conservation of Nature Global Ecosystem Typology (GET) framework. This process, known as “crosswalking,” enabled the development of a global map of GET level 3 Ecosystem Functional Groups (EFGs) at a 250-meter spatial resolution. Crosswalking involved manually assigning 1,781 biogeographically stratified WTEs to their most probable EFG based on similarities in climate, terrain, vegetation, and geographic distribution. We compared attributes of the WTE dataset with summary characteristics of the EFGs. The resulting crosswalked global map of International Union for Conservation of Nature GET ecosystems is intended to be useful for standardizing ecosystem classification and reporting under frameworks such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting. We discuss key challenges in reconciling non-identical classifications, such as many-to-one relationships and variation in data quality.

Suggested Citation

Sides, K.B., Naji, N., Kremer, A., Burton, D., and Sayre, R., 2025, A crosswalk of the 2015 World Terrestrial Ecosystems to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Global Ecosystem Typology Framework: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2025–1043, 10 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20251043.

ISSN: 2331-1258 (online)

Table of Contents

  • Abstract
  • Introduction
  • Purpose and Scope
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Summary
  • Acknowledgments
  • References Cited
  • Appendix
Publication type Report
Publication Subtype USGS Numbered Series
Title A crosswalk of the 2015 World Terrestrial Ecosystems to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Global Ecosystem Typology Framework
Series title Open-File Report
Series number 2025-1043
DOI 10.3133/ofr20251043
Publication Date August 26, 2025
Year Published 2025
Language English
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Publisher location Reston, VA
Contributing office(s) National Land Imaging
Description Report: iv, 10 p.; 2 Appendixes
Online Only (Y/N) Y
Additional Online Files (Y/N) Y
Additional publication details