North Temperate Lakes LTER Yahara Lakes District Wildland Urban Interface

The Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) is the area where houses meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland vegetation. This makes the WUI a focal area for human-environment conflicts such as wildland fires, habitat fragmentation, invasive species, and biodiversity decline. Using geographic information systems (GIS), we integrated U.S. Census and USGS National Land Cover Data, to map the Federal Register definition of WUI (Federal Register 66:751, 2001). These data are useful within a GIS for mapping and analysis at national, state, and local levels.