National Ecosystems Mapping of the Continuous United States

Ecosystem management is a strategy for the integrated management of land, water, and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way. And ecosystems themselves are recognized as fundamental components of biodiversity that need to be conserved and, in some cases, restored. However, the U.S. lacks a standardized ecosystem footprint map at an appropriate scale for local, on-the-ground management of ecosystems. In an effort to address this need, the RMGSC has embarked on the classification and delineation of ecosystem footprints for the conterminous 48 states at a scale that is appropriate for ecosystems management.

The components used to define and map these footprints are landforms, surfacial geology, bioclimate, and land cover. RMGSC scientists have researched various methodologies for generating these core components and then compiled each as national data layers as a key prerequisite to producing the national footprints at a detailed spatial resolution. All of these core layers will be made available to scientists and resource land managers responsible for developing science-based conservation plans. This effort will also contribute to one of the major tasks of the intergovernmental GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems) process - the development of a robust, standardized global ecosystems classification and map.