FGDL Documentation

FLORIDA GEOGRAPHIC DATA LIBRARY DOCUMENTATION

TITLE: INTERGRATED WILDLIFE HABITAT RANKING SYSTEM (IWHRS) FOR FLORIDA - 2008

Geodataset Name:       IWHRS_2008
Geodataset Type:       RASTER

GENERAL DESCRIPTION:

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is responsible for performing environmental reviews of major land developments in Florida that impact fish and wildlife resources and their habitat. In an effort to improve the efficiency and accuracy of these assessments, and to improve the coordination between agencies, the FWC developed a Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based rapid assessment tool that incorporates a wide variety of land cover and wildlife species data. The Integrated Wildlife Habitat Ranking System (IWHRS) ranks the Florida landscape based upon the needs of wildlife as a way to identify ecologically significant lands in the state, and to assess the potential impacts of land development projects. The IWHRS was originally created in 2001 (original IWHRS) and was revised in 2007 and again in 2008. This dataset is the result of the final calculation of the 10 data layers that comprise the IWHRS 2008. This dataset is an update to the 2001 FGDL grid layer IWHRS.

DATA SOURCE(S):                    Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission-Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
SCALE OF ORIGINAL SOURCE MAPS:     UNKNOWN
GEODATASET EXTENT:                 State of Florida

PUBLICATION DATE:                  2008
TIME PERIOD OF CONTENT:            Begin Date: 2001    End Date: 2008
DOWNLOAD LINK:                     http://www.fgdl.org/metadataexplorer/explorer.jsp

FEATURE ATTRIBUTE TABLES:

Datafile Name: IWHRS_2008.VAT

ITEM NAME	WIDTH	TYPE
Rowid	4	OID
VALUE	4	Integer
COUNT	4	Integer
DESCRIPT	2	SmallInteger
FGDLAQDATE	8	Date

FEATURE ATTRIBUTE TABLES CODES AND VALUES:

Item
Item Description

Rowid Internal feature number.

VALUE The resulting value (range 1-10) assigned to a pixel. The resulting value assigned to each pixel indicates its importance to wildlife (e.g. the higher the value of a pixel the more important it is to wildlife).

COUNT Grid Cell Count

DESCRIPT Based on field VALUE.

FGDLAQDATE The date FGDL acquired the data from the Source.

USER NOTES:

Logically consistent. All attribute values fall within defined values

Visually inspected for completeness to ensure all values fell within speciified ranges and all pixel cells were classified.

GeoPlan relied on the integrity of the attribute information within the original data.

TheIWHRS2008identifiestheimportanceofmanylandscurrentlymanagedfor conservationinFlorida,anditindicatestherelativeecologicalvaluesofmany unprotectedareas.Ofthe5.92millionhectaresoflandswithavalueof6or greater,2.45millionofthesehectaresarenotmanagedunderanytypeofformal conservationprotection.

The IWHRS is provided as part of the FWC's continuing technical assistance to various local, regional, and state agencies and entities interested in wildlife needs and conservation in order to: (1) determine ways to avoid or minimize project impacts by evaluating alternative placements, alignments, and transportation corridors during early planning stages, (2) assess direct, secondary, and cumulative impacts to habitat and wildlife resources, and (3) identify appropriate parcels for public land acquisition for wetland and upland habitat mitigation purposes. Predictions suggest that the size of new managed lands and their proximity to existing managed areas can be critical to the maintenance of their species diversity and persistence.

This data is provided 'as is' and its horizontal positional accuracy has not been verified by GeoPlan

This data is provided 'as is' and its vertical positional accuracy has not been verified by GeoPlan

Acknowledgement of the FWC-FWRI (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission- Fish and Wildlife Research Institute) as the data source would be appreciated in any products developed from these data, and such acknowledgment as is standard for citation and legal practices for data source is expected by users of this data. Please cite the original metadata when using portions of the record to create a similar record of slightly altered data, such as reprojection. If any data are modified or adjusted, please share the edited information with FWC. Users should be aware that comparison with other data sets for the same area from other time periods may be inaccurate due to inconsistencies resulting from changes in mapping conventions, data collection, and computer processes over time. FWC shall not be liable for improper or incorrect use of this data. These data are not legal documents and are not to be used as such.

The Florida Geographic Data Library is a collection of Geospatial Data compiled by the University of Florida GeoPlan Center with support from the Florida Department of Transportation. GIS data available in FGDL is collected from various state, federal, and other agencies (data sources) who are data stewards, producers, or publishers. The data available in FGDL may not be the most current version of the data offered by the data source. University of Florida GeoPlan Center makes no guarantees about the currentness of the data and suggests that data users check with the data source to see if more recent versions of the data exist. Furthermore, the GIS data available in the FGDL are provided 'as is'. The University of Florida GeoPlan Center makes no warranties, guaranties or representations as to the truth, accuracy or completeness of the data provided by the data sources. The University of Florida GeoPlan Center makes no representations or warranties about the quality or suitability of the materials, either expressly or implied, including but not limited to any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. The University of Florida GeoPlan Center shall not be liable for any damages suffered as a result of using, modifying, contributing or distributing the materials. A note about data scale: Scale is an important factor in data usage. Certain scale datasets are not suitable for some project, analysis, or modeling purposes. Please be sure you are using the best available data. 1:24000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the county level. 1:24000 data should NOT be used for high accuracy base mapping such as property parcel boundaries. 1:100000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the multi-county or regional level. 1:125000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the regional or state level or larger. Vector datasets with no defined scale or accuracy should be considered suspect. Make sure you are familiar with your data before using it for projects or analysis. Every effort has been made to supply the user with data documentation. For additional information, see the References section and the Data Source Contact section of this documentation. For more information regarding scale and accuracy, see our webpage at: http://geoplan.ufl.edu/education.html

REFERENCES:

The Integrated Wildlife Habitat Ranking System 2008 The Integrated Wildlife Habitat Ranking System (IWHRS) ranks the Florida landscape based upon the habitat needs of wildlife as a way to identify ecologically significant lands in the state. http://research.myfwc.com/features/view_article.asp?id=29713 IWHRS 2008 Report.pdf http://ocean.floridamarine.org/iwhrs/IWHRS%202008%20report.pdf

DATA LINEAGE SUMMARY:

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. For Process Steps Please Download the IWHRS 2008 Report in PDF format (~1.3MB). This file is a detailed report of the data and methodologies used to create the IWHRS 2008 including a discussion of the results. http://ocean.floridamarine.org/iwhrs/IWHRS%202008%20report.pdf Process Date: 2008
GeoPlan obtained the grid dataset via a CDROM from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The dataset can be downloaded through the following website: http://research.myfwc.com/features/view_article.asp?id=29713 Suggested Readings Include: http://ocean.floridamarine.org/iwhrs/IWHRS%202008%20report.pdf Zipped Dataset: http://ocean.floridamarine.org/iwhrs/data/iwhrs2008.zip - FGDL Added and Populated the Following Fields: DESCRIPT FGDLAQDATE Process Date: 20091222

MAP PROJECTION PARAMETERS:

Projection                          ALBERS
Datum                               HPGN
Units                               METERS
Spheroid                            GRS1980
1st Standard Parallel               24  0  0.000
2nd Standard Parallel               31 30  0.000
Central Meridian                   -84 00  0.000
Latitude of Projection's Origin     24  0  0.000
False Easting (meters)              400000.00000
False Northing (meters)             0.00000

DATA SOURCE CONTACT (S):

Name:
Abbr. Name:
Address:


Phone:

Web site:
E-mail:
Contact Person:
         Phone:
        E-mail:

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
FFWCC
2574 Seagate Drive, Suite 250
Tallahassee, Florida
32301
850-488-6661


http://ocean.floridamarine.org/iwhrs/data/iwhrs2008.zip
gisrequests@myfwc.com
Records Technician

FGDL CONTACT:

Name:                   FLORIDA GEOGRAPHIC DATA LIBRARY
Abbr. Name:             FGDL
Address:                Florida Geographic Data Library
                        431 Architecture Building
                        PO Box 115706
                        Gainesville, FL  32611-5706
Web site:               http://www.fgdl.org

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