{f9dbe1bc-8647-485f-8375-e3445361fbdf} eng; USA utf8 dataset EnviroAtlas Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development-Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program, EnviroAtlas Geospatial Data Owner (919) 541-3832 109 T.W. Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park NC 27709 EnviroAtlas@epa.gov https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas pointOfContact 2025-07-23 ISO 19115 Geographic Information - Metadata ISO 19115:2003/Cor.1:2006(E) EnviroAtlas - Frequency and Density of Candidate Areas for Ecological Restoration by 12-digit HUC for the Conterminous United States 2017-03-24 publication U.S. EPA Office of Research & Development (ORD) - National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) Research Triangle Park NC publisher US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) originator This EnviroAtlas dataset shows the number and density of candidate areas for ecological restoration in each 12-digit HUC. Ecological restoration may become a more prominent means of environmental conservation in the future, and landscape context and connectivity are important emerging principles in ecological restoration science. We used morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA) to identify candidate restoration areas based on their proximity to large vegetated regions. This dataset was produced by the US EPA to support research and online mapping activities related to EnviroAtlas. EnviroAtlas (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas) allows the user to interact with a web-based, easy-to-use, mapping application to view and analyze multiple ecosystem services for the contiguous United States. The dataset is available as downloadable data (https://edg.epa.gov/data/Public/ORD/EnviroAtlas) or as an EnviroAtlas map service. Additional descriptive information about each attribute in this dataset can be found in its associated EnviroAtlas Fact Sheet (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-fact-sheets). The candidate ecological restoration areas database can be used by interested land managers to identify sites for ecological restoration. Candidate ecological restoration areas relate to three EnviroAtlas benefit categories: 1) biodiversity conservation, 2) clean and plentiful water, and 3) recreation, culture and aesthetics. Restoration (e.g., revegetation) of candidate sites would create corridors connecting surrounding vegetated regions. Corridors have been shown to have positive benefits for biodiversity conservation. Because of the way in which we processed the land cover with the MSPA software, agriculture and urban are the predominant land uses in the candidate ecological restoration areas. Restoration of candidate sites with streams has the potential to promote clean and plentiful water because the potential natural streamside vegetation throughout the continental United States is forest, wetland, grassland and shrubland, not urban and agriculture. Creation of corridors connecting larger vegetated regions may also promote increased recreational use in some cases. The overall goal of EnviroAtlas is to employ and develop the best available science to map indicators of ecosystem services production, demand, and drivers for the nation. completed EnviroAtlas Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development-Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program, EnviroAtlas Geospatial Data Owner (919) 541-3832 109 T.W. Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park NC 27709 EnviroAtlas@epa.gov https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas pointOfContact asNeeded Ecosystem Environment theme EPA GIS Keyword Thesaurus 12-digit HUCs Ecosystem Services EnviroAtlas Environment Environmental Atlas Land Management Potential for Change - Ecosystem Services Remediation Sites Structure theme EnviroAtlas Alabama Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas United States Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington DC West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming place None https://edg.epa.gov/EPA_Data_License.html otherRestrictions Use Constraints: None. Please check sources, scale, accuracy, currency and other available information. Please confirm that you are using the most recent copy of both data and metadata. Acknowledgement of the EPA would be appreciated. otherRestrictions Access Constraints: None PUBLIC https://project-open-data.github.io/schema/#accessLevel Standard Technical Controls eng; USA environment -128.02839229 -65.20336449 22.7348894 51.6773602 2011-01-01 true Entity and Attribute Information Entity and Attribute Overview: This dataset shows the number of candidate areas for ecological restoration by 12-digit HUC, and the density of sites expressed as the number of candidate areas per square kilometer. We used land cover as input into morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA) to identify close but geographically disjunct vegetated regions. The close but geographically disjunct vegetated regions were used to identify candidate ecological restoration areas. We re-classed the NLCD 2011 land cover map into foreground and background for MSPA processing. NLCD 2011 classes forest, wetland, shrubland and grassland were re-coded as foreground, and water, urban, barren, and agriculture were re-coded as background. MSPA classifies foreground into core (interior), edge, bridge (corridor), loop, branch ("dead end" corridor), perforation (hole), and islet (patch), and was regionalized. The MSPA branch class was extracted, expanded by two pixels, and regionalized. The regionalized and expanded branches and regionalized MSPA were overlaid, and candidate restoration areas were identified as expanded and regionalized branches that overlaid at least 2 regionalized MSPA regions. The output was converted to vector format, and common GIS overlay routines were used to develop the attribute database A comprehensive list of metric creation steps is included in the Processing Steps. Entity and Attribute Detail Citation: https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-fact-sheets EnviroAtlas Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development-Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program, EnviroAtlas Geospatial Data Owner (919) 541-3832 109 T.W. Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park NC 27709 EnviroAtlas@epa.gov https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas distributor https://enviroatlas.epa.gov/download/CONUS_metrics_FGDB.zip download Download The URL providing direct access to the downloadable dataset. download https://enviroatlas.epa.gov/download/CONUS_metrics_CSV.zip ESRI:ArcGIS API The endpoint of a web service to access the dataset (REST endpoint, WMS GetCapabilities URL, or a SOAP WSDL endpoint). webMapService https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-data information Documentation URL for accessing related documents such as data dictionary, technical information about a dataset, developer documentation, etc. information https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas information Home Page Alternative landing page used to redirect user to a contextual, Agency-hosted "homepage" for the Dataset or API information dataset Horizontal Positional Accuracy Report Data were collected using methods that have unknown accuracy (EPA National Geospatial Data Policy [NGDP] Accuracy Tier 10). For more information, please see EPA's NGDP at https://www.epa.gov/geospatial/geospatial-policies-and-standards Features represented have not been tested for completeness Features represented have not been tested for completeness Tests for integrity have not been performed. This lineage was generated by the FGDC CSDGM to 19139 transformation 1) Re-class National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2011 land cover into foreground and background (foreground = forest, shrubland, grassland, wetland) (background = water, urban, agriculture, barren) 2016-04-26T00:00:00 2) Run MSPA (forest.jrc.ec.europa.eu) on NLCD map re-classed into foreground and background. MSPA edge-width = 1 (pixel), connectivity=8, transition=0, intext=0 2016-04-26T00:00:00 3) Extract MSPA branch class from MSPA output map 2016-04-26T00:00:00 4) Grow (expand) extracted MSPA branches by two pixels 2016-04-26T00:00:00 5) Regionalize (i.e., regiongroup) extracted and expanded MSPA branch map 2016-04-26T00:00:00 6) Re-class MSPA output map, setting all classes to 1 except islet; islet set to null 2016-04-26T00:00:00 7) Regionalize re-classed MSPA map 2016-04-26T00:00:00 8) Combine regionalized & re-classed MSPA map and regionalized and expanded MSPA branch map 2016-04-26T00:00:00 9) Run frequency analysis on output of combine using ID from regionalized and expanded MSPA branch map as frequency item 2016-04-26T00:00:00 10) Add item "frq" to regionalized and expanded MSPA branch map 2016-04-26T00:00:00 11) Relate frequency analysis table to output from combine and calc "frq" = "FREQUENCY 2016-04-26T00:00:00 12) Extract expanded and regiongrouped branches with "frq" >= 2 from step 8 output 2016-04-26T00:00:00 13) Convert output from step 12 to vector format 2016-04-26T00:00:00 14) Calculated density (candidate areas per square kilometer). Density = ( WSfrq / shape_area) * 1,000,000. 2017-03-07T00:00:00 Source Contribution: Land coverSource Type: online National Land Cover Database 2014-10-10 publication 2011 U.S. Geological Survey Sioux Falls SD publisher MultiResolution Land Characteristics Consortium originator mapDigital 2011-01-01 Source Contribution: Software used for morphological spatial pattern analysisSource Type: computer program Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis 2014-01-01 publication 2.4 Joint Research Commission Ispra Italy publisher Joint Research Commission originator 2014-01-01 unknown 2029-07-23 This metadata was automatically generated from the FGDC Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata standard (version FGDC-STD-001-1998) using the 2024-02-09T11:11:00 version of the FGDC CSDGM to ISO 19139 transform. EnviroAtlas Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development-Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program, EnviroAtlas Geospatial Data Owner (919) 541-3832 109 T.W. Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park NC 27709 EnviroAtlas@epa.gov https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas pointOfContact