Island Habitat (Southeast Blueprint Indicator) [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service · 2025 Full Details
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Full Details
- Title
- Island Habitat (Southeast Blueprint Indicator) [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]
- Description
- Reason for Selection Islands provide important habitat for many species, including birds, sea turtles, mammals, insects, and plants. Their relative isolation from disturbance and mainland predators can make them important breeding habitat for coastal birds and sea turtles (as represented by piping plover and loggerhead sea turtle). Their unique ecology and isolation can also make them important habitat for some mammals, plants and insects that are only found on islands (as represented by Cape Sable thoroughwort, Florida semaphore cactus, silver rice rat, and Bartram's hairstreak butterfly). As a barrier that can protect the mainland from major storms, they also help protect ecosystems and human communities from extreme weather events. The critical habitat included in this indicator refers to areas with specific physical or biological features that are essential to conserving a federally threatened or endangered species and may require special management or protection. Input Data Base Blueprint 2022 extent Southeast Blueprint 2023 extent Island boundaries from the Global Island Explorer provided by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Esri, accessed 5-13-2022 (note: USGS Global Islands data have been updated since this release; access the latest version ) Critical habitat provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Survey, accessed 6-23-2022 Mapping Steps Clip the Global Island Explorer data to the Base Blueprint 2022 extent and merge small and large islands. From the critical habitat data (CRITHAB_POLY.shp), select the following species based on ‘comname': piping plover, loggerhead sea turtle, Cape Sable thoroughwort, Florida semaphore cactus, silver rice rat, Bartram's hairstreak butterfly. Clip the critical habitat for the selected species to the merged islands layer. Convert the islands and selected species data to raster and clip to the spatial extent of Base Blueprint 2022. Add zero values to help users better understand the extent of this indicator and to make it perform better in online tools. Buffer the island shapefile by 40 km to make a continuous buffer along the coast, with no gaps. Use this to create a raster of zeros for that buffer. Combine rasters so parts of islands with selected species critical habitat get a value of 2, other island pixels get a value of 1, and all other areas in the buffer described above get a value of 0. As a final step, clip to the spatial extent of Southeast Blueprint 2023. Note: For more details on the mapping steps, code used to create this layer is available in the Southeast Blueprint Data Download under > 6_Code. Final indicator values Indicator values are assigned as follows: 2 = Island critical habitat for any of six threatened and endangered species (piping plover, loggerhead sea turtle, Cape Sable thoroughwort, Florida semaphore cactus, silver rice rat, or Bartram's hairstreak butterfly) 1 = Other island area 0 = Not a coastal island Known Issues This indicator underestimates piping plover critical habitat in parts of the Chandeleur Islands off the coast of Louisiana. Locations of barrier islands can be highly dynamic, and the island boundaries and critical habitat data did not agree on the locations of some parts of the islands. Disclaimer: Comparing with Older Indicator Versions There are numerous problems with using Southeast Blueprint indicators for change analysis. Please consult Blueprint staff if you would like to do this (email hilary_morris@fws.gov ). Literature Cited Sayre, R., S. Noble, S. Hamann, R. Smith, D. Wright, S. Breyer, K. Butler, K. Van Graafeiland, C. Frye, D. Karagulle, D. Hopkins, D. Stephens, K. Kelly, Z, basher, D. Burton, J. Cress, K. Atkins, D. van Sistine, B. Friesen, B. Allee, T. Allen, P. Aniello, I Asaad, M. Costello, K. Goodin, P. Harris, M. Kavanaugh, H. Lillis, E. Manca, F. Muller-Karger, B. Nyberg, R. Parsons, J. Saarinen, J. Steiner, and A. Reed. 2018. A new 30 meter resolution global shoreline vector and associated global islands database for the development of standardized global ecological coastal units. Journal of Operational Oceanography-A Special Blue Planet Edition. [ https://doi.org/10.1080/1755876X.2018.1529714 ]. U.S. Geological Survey and Esri. Global Island Explorer. Accessed May 13, 2022. [ https://rmgsc.cr.usgs.gov/gie/ ]. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Critical Habitat. Accessed June 23, 2022. [ https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/report/table/critical-habitat.html ].
- Creator
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
- Temporal Coverage
- Last Modified: 2025-08-22
- Date Issued
- 2023-09-25
- Rights
- The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data described and/or contained herein. While the Service makes every reasonable effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of data provided for distribution, it may not have the necessary accuracy or completeness required for every possible intended use. The Service recommends that data users consult the associated metadata record to understand the quality and possible limitations of the data. The Service creates metadata records in accordance with the standards endorsed by the Federal Geographic Data Committee. As a result of the above considerations, the Service gives no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of the data. It is the responsibility of the data user to use the data in a manner consistent with the limitations of geospatial data in general and these data in particular. Although these data have been processed successfully on a computer system at the Service, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made regarding the utility of the data on another system or for general or scientific purposes, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. This applies to the use of the data both alone and in aggregate with other data and information.
- Access Rights
- Public
- Format
- ArcGIS ImageMapLayer
- Language
- English
- Date Added
- August 10, 2025
- Provenance Statement
- The metadata for this resource was last retrieved from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Open Data on 2025-08-24.
Resource Class
Place
Local Collection
Cite and Reference
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Citation
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (2023). Island Habitat (Southeast Blueprint Indicator) [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]. . https://gis-fws.opendata.arcgis.com/content/fws::island-habitat-southeast-blueprint-indicator-2023 (web service) -
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