Sandplain Natural Community Systems

Description

Sandplain Systems are complex mosaics of native grassland and heathland found on dry sandy soils, usually near the coast. Most of this data in the southeast is a subset of grassland and heathland types from the UMass Plymouth pitch pine data, with some polygons removed, added or changed based on review of the 1999/2000 aerial photos and field information. In areas outside of the UMass project area, polygons were interpreted and digitized from the aerial photos. Non-sandplain grasslands that might still have habitat value are included as GR, CGR, or G2. The Sandplain data layer is named VCSANDPLAIN_POLY in ArcSDE. This layer is part of the MassGIS Priority Natural Vegetation Communities dataset, which depicts the distribution of the eight natural community systems identified by the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (NHESP) as most critical to the conservation of the Commonwealth’s biological diversity (Barbour et al., 1998).

Subject(s)

Priority Natural Vegetation Communities Sandplain Natural Community Systems

Year

2003-01-01T01:01:01Z

Held by

MassGIS