Ecoregional Shapefiles (Terrestrial and Marine Ecoregions)To share the spatial data for the ecoregional boundaries and ecoregional assessment boundaries (and associated information) for The Nature Conservancy.
- List of TNC's ecoregions (terrestrial, marine, and freshwater), 9/26/07
- This Excel workbook has a list of all of TNC's ecoregions, with the new unique ecoregional id, old Eco_code, ecoregion name, realm, and MHT (and province for marine). The first worksheet is a list of TNC's terrestrial ecoregions. The second worksheet is a list of TNC's marine ecoregions, and the third is a DRAFT layer of freshwater ecoregions.
- Marine Ecoregions of the World (MEOW) shapefile 9/26/07
- The digital ecoregions layer is available for download as an ArcGIS Shapefile. It has been compressed using WinZip (www.winzip.com). This spatial data layer is available for use for valid scientific, conservation, and educational purposes. We ask that you refer to the metadata for further details, and that you cite and credit the Marine Ecoregions data as follows:
Spalding MD, Fox HE, Allen GR, Davidson N, Ferdaña ZA, Finlayson M, Halpern BS, Jorge MA, Lombana A, Lourie SA, Martin KD, McManus E, Molnar J, Recchia CA, Robertson J (2007) Marine Ecoregions of the World: a bioregionalization of coast and shelf areas. BioScience 57: 573-583
Any modification of the original map to ecoregion boundaries, units, names, or realm and province classes must be noted and explained alongside the original citation.
Further details about the MEOW system and PDFs of the BioScience paper the comprehensive listing of sources are available from:
www.worldwildlife.org/MEOW/
www.nature.org/MEOW
Users please note – shapefile does NOT accurately represent outer MEOW boundaries: As specified in the original publications, the boundaries in this shapefile have been extended out some 200 nautical miles from land (and this buffer is extended to include any additional marine areas less than 200metres in depth which lie beyond this distance). This outer boundary buffer is primarily drawn here to ease visibility of ecoregions in global and regional scale maps. Similarly the inland boundaries of the ecoregions extend far inland – a convention to ensure inclusion of any coastline and estuarine/lagoonal systems which may be derived from different map sources. As specified, the ecoregional classification relates primarily to coast and shelf biotas for which a 200m depth contour is a more accurate indicative boundary. It is therefore not an appropriate use of the data to calculate total ecoregion areas or generate other area or volumetric dependent statistics using these boundaries alone. A version of the shapefile cut to shelf areas will be released on this site by December 2007.
TNC users please note: TNC has adopted the Marine Ecoregions of the World as our marine ecoregional boundaries, but in some cases around North America we are using older and slightly different boundaries for ecoregional planning. These other boundaries can be found in the marine ecoregional assessment layer directly below on this page. - Marine Ecoregional Assessment shapefile (TNC) 6/24/08
- This is the most currently available spatial data for TNC's marine ecoregional assessments. It reflects where we have or are currectly conducting our planning efforts. The boundaries are based on marine biogeography, alignment with terrestrial ecoregions, and modifications for planning purposes (e.g., in some cases following state boundaries on land). These data are continually updated so check this site frequently.
Please note that this layer is NOT the same as the boundaries for the marine ecoregions of the world (MEOW), which also available from this page (directly above). As of July 2007, this layer has been updated to include references to MEOW ecoregions and realms. - Terrestrial Ecoregional Boundaries and Assessments Geodatabase (TNC), 6/20/08
- This geodatabase contains the master spatial data layers for TNC's terrestrial ecoregions and ecoregional assessments (ERAs). As of June 2008 there are separate layers for ecoregions and ERAs. Note that the ecoregions layer includes Mangroves, Inland Water, and Rock and Ice MHTs, although they are not being handled by terrestrial assessments. This version has undergone substantial updates, and has had several new fields added. This is a zip file including a geodatabase and word document that indicates changes that have been made to the data since September 2005. As of 3/1/07, this layer is being kept periodically updated by the information in the ecoregional assessment status tool (http://east.tnc.org, currently available to TNC staff only). This is a GEODATABASE version of the data with a topology.
- Terrestrial Ecoregional Boundaries Shapefile (TNC), 6/20/08
- This is the master spatial data layer for TNC's terrestrial ecoregions of the world, exported from the geodatabase listed above. Note that it includes Mangroves, Inland Water, and Rock and Ice MHTs, although they are not being handled by terrestrial assessments. This version has undergone substantial updates, and was split from the ecoregional assessment layer in June 2008. This is a zip file including the shapefile and word document that indicates changes that have been made to the data since September 2005. This is a SHAPEFILE version of the data, which is identical to the geodatabase layer.
- Terrestrial Ecoregional Assessments Shapefile (TNC), 6/20/08
- This is the master spatial data layer for TNC's terrestrial ecoregional assessments, exported from the geodatabase listed above. Note that it includes Mangroves, Inland Water, and Rock and Ice MHTs, although they are not being handled by terrestrial assessments. This version has undergone substantial updates, and was split from the ecoregional layer in June 2008. This is a zip file including the shapefile and word document that indicates changes that have been made to the data since September 2005. As of 3/1/07, this layer is being kept periodically updated by the ecoregional assessment status tool (http://east.tnc.org, currently available to TNC staff only). This is a SHAPEFILE version of the data, which is identical to the geodatabase version.
| Keywords Associated with Ecoregional Shapefiles (Terrestrial and Marine Ecoregions) Workspace |
|---|
| assessment (3) |
| ecoregion (6) |
| freshwater (1) |
| geodatabase (1) |
| marine (3) |
| MEOW (1) |
| shapefile (4) |
| terrestrial (4) |
| TNC (4) |
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