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Terrestrial Ecosystems of the Conterminous United States

Metadata Updated: October 26, 2023

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) modeled the distribution of terrestrial ecosystems for the contiguous United States using a standardized, deductive approach to associate unique physical environments with ecological systems characterized in NatureServe's Ecological Systems of the United States classification (Comer et al., 2003). This approach was first developed for South America (Sayre et al., 2008) and is now being implemented globally (Sayre et al., 2007).

Unique physical environments were delineated from a massive biophysical stratification of the nation into the major structural components of ecosystems: biogeographic regions (Cress et al., 2008c), land surface forms (Cress et al., 2008a), surficial lithology (Cress et al., 2008d), and topographic moisture potential (Cress et al., 2008b). Each of these structural components was mapped for the contiguous United States and then spatially combined to produce ecosystem structural footprints which represented unique abiotic (physical) environments. Among 49,168 unique structural footprint classes, 13,482 classes which met a minimum pixel count threshold (20,000 pixels) were aggregated into 419 NatureServe ecosystems through semi-automated labeling process using rule set formulations for attribution of each ecosystem.

UPDATE: A newer terrestrial ecosystems datalayer, "World Terrestrial Ecosystems (WTE) 2020", is now available at: https://doi.org/10.5066/P9DO61LP. This datalayer is a global raster dataset at a 250 m spatial resolution where 431 ecosystem types are identified and mapped. Each ecosystem type is a unique combination of vegetation/land cover, climate region, and landform.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date October 26, 2023

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date October 26, 2023
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/dcd1f3b222bf2bea2de85d9ae8c5a116
Identifier USGS:94fd91d2-5197-4950-b14a-2381c0f66ff1
Data Last Modified 20221017
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id fbcf1c08-3fdd-405d-b42d-b7759e0f064b
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -128.0067,22.6967,-65.2303,51.6709
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 38922a040cf8390df29ec3eede0d3fc7ae78832129504670def1b96b8518f61d
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -128.0067, 22.6967, -128.0067, 51.6709, -65.2303, 51.6709, -65.2303, 22.6967, -128.0067, 22.6967}

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