When you connect to the NBII Metadata Clearinghouse you will be able to search through metadata-based descriptions of biological data sets and information products from many different sources to identify those that meet your particular search criteria.
The NBII Metadata Clearinghouse: http://metadata.nbii.gov/
The NBII Home Page: http://www.nbii.gov/
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This data set comprises a portion of the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) data for Louisiana. ESI data characterize the marine and coastal environments and wildlife by their sensitivity to spilled oil. The ESI data include information for three main components: shoreline habitats, sensitive biological resources, and human-use resources. See also the BIRDS (Bird Polygons) data layer, part of the larger Louisiana ESI database, for additional bird information.
Besides the above warning, there are no use constraints on these data. Note that the ESI database should not be used to the exclusion of other pertinent data or information held by state or federal agencies or other organizations. Likewise, information contained in the database cannot be used in place of consultations with environmental, natural resource, and cultural resource agencies, or in place of field surveys. Recognize that the information contained in the ESI database represents known concentration areas or occurrences of natural, cultural, and human-use resources, but does not necessarily represent the full distribution or range of each species or resource. This is particularly important to recognize when considering potential impacts to protected resources, such as endangered species, wetlands, etc. Acknowledgment of the originators, publishers, contributors, and sources listed would be appreciated in products derived from these data.
The Spatial_Data_Organization_Information section refers only to the source files in the ARC export format. The following files are included in that data set: birds.e00, esi.e00, fish.e00, habitats.e00, hydro.e00, index.e00, invert.e00, lg_index.e00, mgt.e00, parish.e00, nests.e00, reptiles.e00, roads.e00, sm_index.e00, socecon.e00, t_mammal.e00. Associated relational and desktop data tables provided in Arc export and text format are bio_lut, biores, biofile, breed, breed_dt, seasonal, soc_dat, soc_lut, sources, species, and status.
After the data are delivered to NOAA, they are again subjected to a number of quality and consistency checks. In the process of checking for topological and database consistencies, new ID's and RARNUM's or HUNUM's are also generated. The new ID's are a combination of atlas number, element number, and record number. In addition, the value used to represent the element is modified to reflect the type of feature being mapped. In the case of an element normally represented by a point or polygon is mapped by a linear feature, a value of 20 is added to the standard element value. In the case where an element usually mapped as a polygon is represented by a point, a value of 30 is added to the regular element value. The RARNUM's are also modified to include the atlas number, so multiple atlases can be combined and RARNUM's remain unique. RARNUM's are redefined on an element basis, so "resource at risk" groupings will contain only a single element. HUNUM's are also modified to include the atlas number.
Three sources of data were used to derive waterbird nesting colony abundances for this data layer: (1) the 1990-1999 Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) Colonial Waterbird data set; (2) the 1997 Louisiana State University (LSU) Center for Coastal, Energy, and Environmental Resources (CCEER) Seabird Colonies data set; and (3) selected waterbird colony records from the 2001 Louisiana Natural Heritage Program (LNHP) Element Occurrence Record (EOR) Database. The 1990-1999 LDWF data set was used as the primary source.
The CONC field may contain mean counts from 1990-1999 ("90-99AV"), or raw counts from the last recorded survey year ("9XCOUNT"; for example, "97COUNT") if a mean was not available. In some cases, a mean value of zero is specified. This indicates that the mean count was below 0.5 and was rounded down to zero. In some cases, a count of zero ("0-IND-(9XCOUNT)") from a survey year may be specified. This indicates that, although that species was recently present at that colony, the latest survey data recorded no individuals or nests for that species. Since colonies may be active in some years but not others, this does not imply that a colony site is no longer active or no longer present, or that the colony is small or unimportant. In some cases, the presence of a particular species may have been recorded in a particular survey year, but no quantitative count was made. In this case, the species will be recorded as present ("PRESENT-(9XCOUNT)") in a particular year.
Due to the complexity of the relational database model, the data items are also post-processed into a flat file format. This table, called BIOFILE, may be used in place of the relational files described below to ease simple data queries. The items in the flat file are ELEMENT, SUBELEMENT, NAME, GEN_SPEC, S_F, T_E, NHP, DATE_PUB, CONC, JAN, FEB, MAR, APR, MAY, JUN, JUL, AUG, SEP, OCT, NOV, DEC, BREED1, BREED2, BREED3, BREED4, BREED5, RARNUM, G_SOURCE, S_SOURCE, and BREED. All of these items are the same as their counterparts in the individual data tables described below, except the BREED1-BREED5 and BREED items. BREED is a newly generated variable used to link to the BREED_DT data table, a modified, more compact version of the relational BREED data table. BREED1-BREED5 gives a text summary of when each life stage occurs within the associated map object. The life stages referred to are the same as those listed in the Detailed_Description of the BREED data table. The link to the BIOFILE may be made through the BIO_LUT, using ID to link to RARNUM, or BIOFILE may be linked directly to the RARNUM in each of the geographic layer's attribute data tables. As mentioned, BREED_DT is an auxiliary support data table to the flat file structure, which allows the user to do searches based on month for seasonal breeding activities. The link from the flat file to BREED_DT is the BREED item.
A second supporting data table is SOURCES. This is the same as the source file described above, and the link from the flat file is both G_SOURCE and S_SOURCE. It should be noted that although the flat file eases data query, it is not a normalized database structure, and actual updates performed by the states and other responsible agencies should be done using the relational data tables. The entity-relationship diagram, describing relationships between attribute tables in the ESI data structure, does NOT include the BIOFILE data table, and this data table is NOT described in detail below.