Puget Sound Intertidal Habitat Inventory 1995 for the Whatcom County / Bellingham Bay area of Washington State

---

June 30, 1997

• INTRODUCTION
• CONTACT INFORMATION
• DOCUMENTATION
• DATA CONTENT AND ORGANIZATION
• DATA
• GRAPHICS
• DATA USE
• DATA LICENSE AGREEMENT TERMS & CONDITIONS

Puget Sound's intertidal areas provide habitat for species of commercial, recreational, biotic, and aesthetic value. Habitat is a critical ecosystem component -- it provides living space for permanent and transitory species, and supports primary production, food webs, and other ecosystem functions. Accurate information on the quality and quantity of intertidal habitats is important to monitoring and sustaining the health of Puget Sound.

This CDROM contains Intertidal Habitat Inventory information collected in 1995 by The Nearshore Habitat Program in the Washington State Department of Natural Resources' (DNR) Aquatic Resources Division. The program is part of an ongoing project to monitor the Puget Sound nearshore environment through the Puget Sound Ambient Monitoring Program (PSAMP). During the summer of 1995, 110 miles of shoreline were surveyed in Whatcom County, from Point Whitehorn southward to the Skagit County border.

Intertidal habitats are characterized by interacting physical, chemical, and biological factors. The Intertidal Habitat Inventory describe these complex environments by depicting two types of information: 1) intertidal and canopy-forming vegetation; and 2) shoreline characteristics, such as substrate size and wave energy, that strongly affect the distribution of plants and animals.

The CDROM contains the following spatial data and information in a variety of formats for use in understanding Puget Sound intertidal habitats in the Whatcom County area:

• Intertidal Vegetation Inventory

intertidal and canopy-forming vegetation in marine and estuarine environments

(files named: iveg1995.* and iveg95vc.*)

• Intertidal Shoreline Characteristics Inventory

factors that strongly affect the distribution of plants and animals such as substrate and wave energy

(files named: shor1995.* and shor95??.*)

• Grayscale Raster Image of the Study Area

a backdrop for viewing the inventory

(files named: band2_8.*)

• Study Area Location

geographic location of study area boundaries

(files: stdyarea.*)

• Metadata

documentation about the digital data that is provided

(files named: *.htm or *.txt with the same base name as the data file)

• Methods Documentation

a description of how data were collected, processed and accuracy assessed

(files named: methods.* - HTML designed for Netscape 3.0)

• Map Graphics Files

graphics files for an Intertidal Habitat Inventory map series in standard digital formats for submitting directly to a plotter

(files named: *.hpg and *.rtl)

• ArcView Project File

pre-defined project file for viewing most of the data

(file named: habitat.apr)

Nearshore Habitat Program

Aquatic Resources Division

WA Dept of Natural Resources

PO Box 47027

Olympia, WA 98504-7027

voice - 360-902-1100

fax - 360-902-1786

email - tom.mumford@wadnr.gov

The top level directory of this CDROM contains documents (and associated graphic files) with metadata-- documentation for the data provided. Most of the documentation is available in both plain text and HTML format (web browser). Exceptions to the dual format rule are the graphic image of the Department of Natural Resources' logo and the project methods documentation, which is provided in WordPerfect v.6.1 format and HTML.

This disk has two main subdirectories: DATA and GRAPHICS. Each has a readme.txt file that duplicates the relevant following portions of this document.

DATA:

Contains generic file formats of the spatial and tabular data.

• Raster data is stored in
• 1) native .IMG format from Imagine software
• 2) Band Interleaved by Line (BIL) (with an associated "header" file [.HDR] for use in georeferencing the image
• 3) uncompressed Tagged Image File Format (.TIF) (with an associated "world" file [.TFW] for use in georeferencing the image).
• Vector data are stored in 1) ARC/INFO EXPORT format (.E00) without compression, and ARC/INFO shapefiles (.SHP & .SHX).
• Tabular data are stored in DBaseIV format (.DBF).
• ArcView pre-defined project file for viewing most data themes (*.APR).

GRAPHICS:

Contains graphics files for an Intertidal Habitat Inventory map series tiled by 7.5 minute quadrangles. The maps display intertidal shoreline characteristics and generalized intertidal vegetation information. There are a total of eight map sheets at a 1:24,000 scale. Each graphic file plots out a 32" x 27" map, in full color. Graphics files have been provided in HPGL2 (*.HPG) (Hewlett Packard Graphics Language v. 2) and in RTL (*.RTL) (Raster Translation Language) file formats for submitting directly to a plotter.

---

DATA USE - TERMS & CONDITIONS

This CDROM and the data contained on it are subject to the terms and conditions established by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for licensed digital data. Key points include:

• Users should not resell or re-distribute this data.
• While care was used in compiling this information, it is not perfect. It is not suitable for all possible uses. Therefore, no warranties accompany this data.
• Please give appropriate credit when displaying or publishing further work or analyses derived from, or utilizing this data.