Data Management Plan (Deprecated)

This data set contains sensitive biological resource data for federally and/or state endangered and threatened plants, rare state plants, and sensitive ecological communities in the New York/New Jersey Metro Area, Hudson River, and South Long Island region. Vector polygons in this data set represent federally and/or state endangered and threatened plant, rare state plant, and sensitive ecological community occurrences. Species-specific abundance, seasonality, status, life history, and source information are stored in associated data tables (described below) designed to be used in conjunction with this spatial data layer. This data set is a portion of the ESI data for the the NY/NJ Metro Area, Hudson River, and South Long Island region. As a whole, the ESI data characterize the marine and coastal environments and wildlife by their sensitivity to spilled oil, and include information for three main components: shoreline habitats, sensitive biological resources, and human-use resources.

Process Steps:

• 2015-11-01 00:00:00 - Threatened, endangered, and rare plants and rare plant communities were mapped primarily with data from the New York Natural Heritage Program (NY NHP) and the New Jersey Natural Heritage Program (NJ NHP). NJ NHP grid map contains cells that vary from 358-372 acres in size with a table of rare plant species and ecological communities that occur within each cell. Maritime holly forest, a globally rare forest type, was mapped on Fire Island and Sandy Hook using vegetation data provided by Fire Island National Seashore and Gateway National Recreation Area (GATE), respectively. The distribution of seabeach amaranth (NJ endangered, NY state and federally threatened) on Sandy Hook was mapped using information provided by GATE. Non-federally listed, state protected plant names were generalized to .Endangered Plant., .Threatened Plant., and .Rare Plant.. Although they do not have a listing status in NY, rare mosses were included as .Rare Plant. locations since they occur in wetlands and are vulnerable to oil spills. Small polygons (less than 123 m^2) representing plant locations in the NY NHP database were converted to points so that they would be visible on the ESI atlas maps. Critically imperiled, imperiled, and vulnerable wetland and upland plant community types were generalized as .Rare Upland Community. or .Rare Wetland Community. except for the maritime holly forest, vernal pool, and coastal dune woodland community types. There was a high degree of overlap of certain wetland community types in the NY NHP Communities data with ESI wetland polygons (see shoreline habitat section). NY NHP wetland types that were already represented in the ESI wetland polygon data were not included in the habitat feature class. Rocky summit, cliff, and talus upland community types were not mapped due to their low vulnerability to oil spills. Vernal pools provide important amphibian breeding habitat and these were mapped with NY NHP Communities data, NJ DEP Vernal Habitat data, and Scenic Hudson.s Vernal Pools data. The above digital sources were compiled by the project biologist to create the HABITATS data layer. Depending on the type of source data, two general approaches are used for compiling the data layer: 1) digital data layers are evaluated and used "as is" or integrated with the ESI base map features (ESIP, HYDROP, ESIL) 2) information gathered during initial interviews and from hardcopy sources are compiled and digitized using ESI base map features. See the Lineage section for additional information on the type of source data for this data layer. The ESI, biology, and human-use data are compiled into the standard ESI digital data format. A second set of interviews with participating resource experts are conducted to review the compiled data. If necessary, edits to the HABITATS data layer are made based on the recommendations of the resource experts and digital data are created.

Data can be accessed by downloading the zipped ArcGIS geodatabase from the Download URL (see Distribution Information). Questions can be directed to the ESI Program Manager (Point Of Contact).