What they show

The habitat maps show vegetative communities at each wetland. They are not intended to constitute wetland delineations or depictions of jurisdictional boundaries. Rather they were prepared as visual representations of the general location, extent and subhabitats within Southern California wetlands. To provide a sense of the current degree of continuity between wetland habitats and adjacent uplands, the maps also show vegetative communities of the surrounding uplands. The historic wetland boundary also appears on the map. A legend identifies the communities represented by each color on the map, with habitat nomenclature following that developed by Holland (1986).

About the sources

The maps were composed by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) using the most recent and highest resolution digital data available. Professional judgement and field knowledge of a given area informed selection of the most appropriate data for each site. In general, if more than one dataset, mapped at comparable levels of detail, were available, then the most recent was used. However, the situation was sometimes more complicated. For example, two sources of data might have been available for a given wetland in San Diego County, one being the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) from 1985 and the other, the 1993 Natural Communities Conservation Planning effort centered on coastal sage scrub habitat. Although less recent, the NWI data would have been preferred because it was generated by an effort explicitly designed to capture wetland data as opposed to an effort focused on upland habitats but which also included wetlands. The resulting map in this case would actually be a composite of the two datasets. Because of the way the two datasets were originally generated (using the same projection), they could be easily overlaid without creating cartographic discrepancies. By overlaying the data, both the detail of the NWI map and more recent alterations to the landscape, such as a new wetlands created since 1985, would be captured.

Data source(s) are indicated on each map. Dates and methods of data collection and interpretation vary among sites. Updates will be prepared by USFWS as additional data are made available.

Platform: Sun - UNIX workstation

Software: Arc/Info 7.0.3

Hardware: Sun Sparc 20, 80 MB RAM, 17 GB disk space, CD-ROM, 8mm and 1/4" tape drives

Sources:

Base map: Based on U.S. Geological Survey 7.5' Minute Topographic Series, scale 1:24,000

Infrastructure: Teale Data Center

Historic Boundary: California Coastal Commission, see About the Historic Maps

Habitat Data: Varies, refer to individual maps.