For State Wildlife Action Plans


Terrestrial and Aquatic Habitat Maps



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Terrestrial and Aquatic Habitat Maps


The Regional Habitat Map (Ferree and Anderson 2012) is a raster GIS database of upland and wetland wildlife habitat in the Northeast classified using the NETWHCS (Gawler 2008). This effort provides a common framework and language for conservation planning and wildlife management across jurisdictional borders. Specifically, the map provides a standardized and consistent habitat and ecosystem classification at multiple scales across states; facilitates interstate communication about habitats; offers managers a tool for understanding regional biodiversity patterns; and allows for more effective and efficient habitat conservation across the region, including the prioritization of habitat conservation activities. A Fall 2014 update has improvements in the mapping of floodplains, Allegheny wetlands, grass balds, and other systems but also an improved and simplified attribute table with page numbers that link directly to the habitat guides.  This allows users to link the map information with the guides to find out about each habitat, understand its regional protection level, see a list of associated species, and find a crosswalk to the state names. All of these resources can be found at  https://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationByGeography/NorthAmerica/UnitedStates/edc/reportsdata/terrestrial/habitatmap/Pages/default.aspx
Similarly, The Aquatic Map (Olivero and Anderson 2008) includes a GIS database of all stream and river reaches in the Northeast classified using the NEAHCS. It can be implemented across regional scales using GIS modeled variables that shape aquatic habitats such as stream size, slope, elevation, climate, and geology It can be downloaded for different scales, from the entire region to an individual state.
Recent revisions to this project have updated the 2008 NEAHCS to add a tidal component to the classification of streams and rivers. This update highlights that tidal streams and rivers of the Northeast support a unique assemblage of aquatic biological communities and are utilized as nursery areas, refuges, and important food sources for a variety of coastal, marine, and diadromous species. Additional data including diadromous fish distributions, tidal and brackish wetland occurrences, and estuary chemistry information were collected and analyzed to map the landward extent of tidal stream and river habitats.
A new classification of lakes and ponds has also been completed. The system is based on temperature, trophic level, alkalinity (buffering capacity), and depth. Water body data contributed by the states and a random forest model were used to characterize all the water bodies based on these factors. The study investigated different ways of combining the factors with up to 68 different classes possible with all four factors. Results can be browsed on the webmap at:  http://tnc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=5ef31a70fa4e40d19980beaf4766e448The full report is posted on the TNC Gateway at: http://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationByGeography/NorthAmerica/UnitedStates/edc/reportsdata/freshwater/Pages/Northeast-Lakes.aspx
A lake dataset with multiple lake morphometry measurements and classification attributes will be developed including the 2011 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data, National Hydrography Dataset (NHD), and the National Lake Assessment water chemistry data. Lake depth was also included because it is a critical variable related to lake stratification and the presence of permanent cold water habitats (Hollister et al. 2011). These additions were integrated into the GIS dataset and habitat guides. These reports and products can be accessed at (Terrestrial Map, Aquatic Classification System), by contacting TNC’s Eastern Conservation Science office or http://www.northatlanticlcc.org/projects/aquatic-classification-revisions/revisions-to-the-northeastern-aquatic-habitat-classification.

Map Updates and Extensions in the Northeast

The Northeast Terrestrial Habitat Map was recently updated by remapping the Virginia coastal plain and Piedmont. This methodology, updating the southeastern GAP data, is now fully consistent across the 13 state Northeast region (Maine to Virginia and West Virginia). For more information about the project, please visit: http://www.northatlanticlcc.org/projects/habitat-map-for-virginia-piedmont-and-coastal-plain/habitat-map-for-virginia-piedmont-and-coastal-plain. The link to the revised regional map is https://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationByGeography/NorthAmerica/UnitedStates/edc/reportsdata/terrestrial/habitatmap/Pages/default.aspx.


The NALCC is extending the Northeast Terrestrial Habitat Map to Atlantic Canada and southern Quebec. This project will develop a comprehensive terrestrial habitat map for the region, extending the Northeast Terrestrial Habitat Map to Atlantic Canada. This GIS map will 1) provide a foundation upon which further research, such as species vulnerability analyses, can advance, 2) allow each relevant state and province to identify terrestrial habitats consistently across borders, 3) allow for analysis of regional connectivity, and 4) facilitate an understanding of terrestrial animal and plant populations in relation to climate change. The final map will be a composite of the individual models. http://www.northatlanticlcc.org/projects/extending-the-northeast-terrestrial-habitat-map-to-atlantic-canada
The NALCC also conducted a Rapid Update to the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) for selected areas of intertidal wetlands in the Northeast. This included wetland mapping in 153 coastal areas (1:24,000 topographic quadrangles in ME, MD, MA, NY, PA, and VA) that were last updated prior to 2000. The updates were incorporated into the NWI and serve many applications in conservation analysis and coastal planning http://www.northatlanticlcc.org/projects/rapid-update-to-coastal-nwi/coastal-update-to-the-national-wetlands-inventory.

Coastal and Marine Maps


The need for a regional standard for habitat classification extends to the marine environment. The NALCC applied the national Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS) version 4.0 to classify estuarine and marine environments in the Northwest Atlantic region (Maine to Virginia). This classification effort was informed by the habitat mapping approach that TNC developed for the Northwest Atlantic. Ensuring CMECS and the TNC classifications are compatible avoids redundancy and brings appropriate specificity to the application of CMECS to the region. Existing state marine classification systems were be identified and crosswalked to CMECS. For more information about the project, please visit: http://www.northatlanticlcc.org/projects/reports-for-application-of-the-coastal-and-marine-ecological-classification-standards-cmecs-to-the-northeast-1.

The classification to TNC’s Benthic Habitat Model from the 2010 Northwest Atlantic Marine Assessment will be applied at the regional scale (1:5,000,000). An intermediate-scale classification (1:250,000) will utilize datasets assembled for marine spatial planning efforts in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and adjacent federal waters. Estuary-specific, high-resolution benthic information for Boston Harbor (1:5,000 scale) will also be developed. These will be available on the NALCC website in late 2014. For more information about the project, please visit: http://www.fws.gov/northeast/science/nalcc.html.




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