Significant Natural Heritage Areas

Title: Significant Natural Heritage Areas
Abstract:: The North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Division of Parks and Recreation, Natural Heritage Program in cooperation with the NC Center for Geographic Information & Analysis, developed the Significant Natural Heritage Areas digital data to determine the areas containing ecologically significant natural communities or rare species. NOTE: Due to its dynamic nature, this data becomes outdated very quickly.
Supplemental_Information:: An extensive tabular database is maintained by the Natural Heritage Program. Other data that can be accessed include natural area identification code. Supplemental materials are also available that indicate the state, national and global status of the rare plants and animals of North Carolina. These publications are available from the NHP and are helpful in understanding each natural heritage site record. (See Cross References) NATURAL HERITAGE PROGRAM DATA The Natural Heritage Program is the state's most comprehensive source of information on rare and endangered animals and plants, and exemplary natural communities, known collectively as "elements of natural diversity." Since 1976, the program has systematically gathered information on the occurrence and the status of the state's ecological resources. The inventory consists of information compiled from a broad range of sources including herbarium and museum collections, published and unpublished literature, and field surveys by volunteers, contracted workers, and staff. Information from and interpretation of this database for specific sites is available from the Natural Heritage Program. This is generally the preferred method of getting information on elements of natural diversity. The geographic content of the Natural Heritage Program element occurrence database has also been incorporated into the NC OneMap database where it can be combined with other geographic data for planning and analysis. Users of the data must, however, be aware of the nature and limitations of the data. LIMITATIONS OF POLYGON DATA The polygon locations contained in the data represent the approximate boundaries of ecologically significant natural areas. The natural areas database contains data from a variety of sources, which vary in the quality of their locational information. Because of uncertainty about the precision and accuracy of source data, polygons anywhere within several miles of a site of interest should be regarded as indicating the need for more information. Probability of effects by a project depends on the actual location and extent of the natural area, on the nature of the species or community it contains, and on the nature of the action being considered. Interpretation of potential effects should be done only by ecologists familiar with the natural area, with the best locational information available. LIMITATIONS OF ABSENCE OF DATA Although the Natural Heritage Program has conducted numerous biological inventories and has assembled as much of the secondary source data as possible, the large majority of the state has never been systematically surveyed for significant natural areas. In addition, negative surveys are seldom reported to the Natural Heritage Program and are not recorded. The database reflects only locations where a significant natural area was once known to occur. It does not distinguish between areas known to have no elements and those that have not been checked. The absence of natural areas cannot be taken as an indication of absence of elements or of ecological concerns. Natural Heritage Program biologists are often able to give indications of the potential for concern in unsurveyed areas, and the NC OneMap database is not a substitute for this kind of interpretation. DATA CURRENCY The Natural Heritage Program databases are continually updated as new information is acquired. The NC OneMap dataset is updated as needed for applications. Users should determine the date of the last update and, if necessary, see that an update is done prior to their application being run. All printed maps from the GIS should be dated. Depending on activity in a given area, a map may quickly become outdated, or may remain current for several years. It is not possible to set a specific expiration date on maps; however, data more than six months old should not be depended on without checking with the Natural Heritage Program. Only a small portion of the natural areas are monitored on a regular basis. Information in the Natural Heritage Program database represents the occurrence at the last time it was observed. The date of last observation is given in the Natural Heritage Program database but is not included in the NC OneMap database. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Additional information about significant natural heritage areas, and user services are available from the Natural Heritage Program. The basic data are "public records" and are available for inspection on request for reasonable purposes.
Revisions and updates to this layer include: 22.) Dada updated June 6, 2008. 21.) Data updated February 1, 2008. 20.) Data updated November 28, 2007. 19.) Data updated February 27, 2007. 18.) Data updated August 16, 2006. 17.) Data updated December 2005. 16.) Data updated September 7, 2005. 15.) Data updated January 13, 2004. 14.) Data updated October 28, 2003. 13.) Data updated January 28, 2002. 12.) Data updated October 29, 2001. THIS VERSION NOT RELEASED, JUST ARCHIVED. 11.) Data updated January 17, 2001. 1,897 polygons. Arc attributes were dropped since they were only default values. 10.) Data updated July 20, 2000. 1,838 polygons. 9.) Data updated March 6, 2000. 1,881 polygons. 8.) Data updated November 1, 1999. 1,994 polygons. 7.) Data Updated May 21, 1999. Data set contains 1,992 polygons. 6.) Data updated Feb. 26, 1999. File contains 2,012 polygons. 5.) Data updated August 3, 1998 update. The August 1998 update to this layer consisted of projecting the data from NAD27 datum, State Plane projection, units of measure feet TO: NAD83 DATUM, State Plane PROJECTION, UNITS OF MEASURE METERS. This was done to comply with the NC Geographic Information Coordinating Council's "Statement of Direction for North Carolina Corporate Geographic Database Horizontal Reference, Datum and Unit of Measure". This reprojecting was done in various ways depending on the data type and content. Vector data was projected using the 'project' command in ESRI's Arc software and topology was cleaned and built based on coverage needs. Raster data was projected using ESRI's Grid module and various steps as applicable. 4.) Data updated February 26, 1998. Item PRIORITY changed to SIG in .pat. Item ACRES added to .pat. Item MACROCD changed to MCSITECODE. Arc attribute table (.aat) was dropped. This layer was previously named Natural Areas, nanhp. 3.) Data updated October 21, 1996. Areas may have been added, deleted or attributes corrected. 2.) Data updated May 20, 1996 release of Natural Areas for statewide North Carolina. This incorporated the previous data, edits, edition and expansion of the coverage area. 1.) Data released July 1993. Natural Areas for the APES region. The July 1993 file is the original version of this data and covers only the APES area minus Tyrrell and Dare counties.

Value	Definition
BUFFER	Section is of lesser quality than PRIMARY or SECONDARY
PRIMARY	Section is of high quality
SECONDARY	Section is of lesser quality than PRIMARY
UNDIFFERENTIATED	Section may be of PRIMARY or SECONDARY quality
<BLANK>	Entire site is either of uniformly high quality or primary/secondary boundaries have not been differentiated

Value

Definition

BUFFER

Section is of lesser quality than PRIMARY or SECONDARY

PRIMARY

Section is of high quality

SECONDARY

Section is of lesser quality than PRIMARY

UNDIFFERENTIATED

Section may be of PRIMARY or SECONDARY quality

<BLANK>

Entire site is either of uniformly high quality or primary/secondary boundaries have not been differentiated

Value	Definition
A	Areas that are of national significance
B	Areas that are of state significance
C	Areas that are of regional significance
D	Areas that are of local significance
<BLANK>	Areas that are not ecologically significant

Value

Definition

Areas that are of national significance

Areas that are of state significance

Areas that are of regional significance

Areas that are of local significance

<BLANK>

Areas that are not ecologically significant

Data format:	ESRI shapefile (*.shp)
Network links:	NC OneMap

Data format:

ESRI shapefile (*.shp)

Network links:

NC OneMap

Significant Natural Heritage Areas

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