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Title: MassGIS 2003 Massachusetts Priority Natural Vegetation Communities : Coastal Natural Community Systems (April 2003)

Contributors:

Dates

  • Issued: May 19, 2003
  • Coverage: 2003

Publishers

  • Office of Geographic and Environmental Information (MassGIS)

Summary

This datalayer contains polygons representing Massachusetts Priority Natural Vegetation Communities : Coastal Natural Community Systems. These systems extend from the ocean to the inland limits of tidal influence and salt spray. Community types include dunes, beaches, salt marshes, tidal flats, undeveloped barrier beaches, interdunal swales, maritime rock and erosional cliffs, rocky shores, maritime forest and shrubland, coastal forest, brackish marshes and shrublands, and coastal salt ponds. Brackish marshes and swamps located along a river system were included in the Riverine community system and not here. Users should add subtidal eelgrass beds from the statewide DEP Eelgrass data layer. 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).

Subjects

  • Oceans
  • Environment
  • Massachusetts
  • Coastal ecology
  • Plant communities
  • Biodiversity conservation
  • biota
  • Datasets

Geospatial coordinates

  • Bounding Box: BBOX (-71.330803, -70.476732, 42.873968, 41.475637)
  • Geometry: BBOX (-71.330803, -70.476732, 42.873968, 41.475637)

Provider

Harvard

Rights

  • Access rights: Public

Citation

MassGIS (Office : Mass.), Massachusetts. Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program. MassGIS 2003 Massachusetts Priority Natural Vegetation Communities : Coastal Natural Community Systems (April 2003). Office of Geographic and Environmental Information (MassGIS). Polygon data. https://hgl.harvard.edu/catalog/harvard-mgisvccstp

Format

Shapefile