Long Island Sound 2016 HABITATS

This feature class resides within the BIOLOGY Feature Data Set of the Long Island Sound - 2016 ESI Geodatabase. It contains vector polygons representing sensitive biological resource data for 161 plant species (habitat) in Long Island Sound. The study area includes Long Island Sound, tidal tributaries, freshwater streams, lakes, and land areas in New York and Connecticut. In this atlas, these species include both upland and emergent wetland plants. Plant species considered Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (SAV) are generally included in the BENTHIC layer, not in the HABITAT layer. Vector polygons in this data set represent habitat (plant) species distributions, concentration areas, areas of high ecological value or vulnerable occurrence. Several sources of data were used, and several subject matter experts were consulted to develop the information. Species-specific abundance, seasonality, status, life history, and source information are stored in associated data tables (described in Entity Attribute Overview below) designed to be used in conjunction with this spatial data layer. This data set is a portion of the ESI data for Long Island Sound. 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.

[
  "https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inportserve/waf/noaa/nos/orr/dmp/pdf/47222.pdf"
]