World Wildlife Fund Terrestrial Ecoregions represents global terrestrial ecoregions. Ecoregions are defined as relatively large areas of land or water in the world containing a characteristic set of natural communities that share a large majority of their species, dynamics, and environmental conditions. This data set contains all terrestrial ecoregions, which include those of the Global 200. Global 200 ecoregions are a collection of the Earth's most outstanding and diverse terrestrial, freshwater, and marine habitats where the Earth's biological wealth is most distinctive and rich, where its loss will be most severely felt, and we must protect if we are to preserve the web of life. For more information, contact http://www.worldwildlife.org.
World Wildlife Fund Terrestrial Ecoregions provides a global view of terrestrial ecoregions defined by the World Wildlife Fund Conservation Science Program, and can be used for geographic display and analysis at national and world levels.
Largest scale when displaying the data: 1:3,000,000.
publication date
The data are provided by multiple, third party data vendors under license to ESRI for inclusion on ESRI Data & Maps for use with ESRIr software. Each data vendor has its own data licensing policies and may grant varying redistribution rights to end users. Please consult the redistribution rights below for this data set provided on ESRI Data & Maps. As used herein, "Geodata" shall mean any digital data set consisting of geographic data coordinates and associated attributes. The redistribution rights for this data set: Internal Use Only. No redistribution rights are granted by the data vendor and the data is for the end user's own internal use only. Special notice from World Wildlife Fund for this data set: Any modification of the original map by users to ecoregion boundaries, units, names, or realm and biome classes must be noted. The terms and conditions below apply to all the data sets provided on ESRI Data & Maps. 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The shapefile is converted to SDC (Smart Data Compression) format using either ESRI SDC Data Development Kit Professional 2 (DDKP2) or tools in ArcGIS. The SDC data set is then loaded into ArcSDEr to verify and validate the geometry.
After processing, the data set is checked for drawing display and number of records and file sizes compared with source materials.
The geospatial part of this data set is based on the Digital Chart of the World (1:1,000,000 scale) that has been generalized. Generalizing reduces positional accuracy and the tolerance was not recorded so the positional accuracy is not known.
Attribute and geospatial data
The data set was updated for 2005. [2001] We began by accepting the biogeographic realms of Pielou (1979) and Udvardy (1975) and modifying the biome systems of Dinerstein et al. (1995) and Ricketts et al. (1999). We then consulted existing global maps of floristic or zoogeographic provinces, global and regional maps of units based on the distribution of selected groups of plants and animals, the world's biotic province maps, and global maps of broad vegetation types. These were useful for evaluating the extent of realms and biomes, the first two tiers in our hierarchical classification. We then identified published regional classification systems to be used as a baseline for ecoregion boundaries. Data and consultations from regional experts were also important for final ecoregion delineations.
The following steps were performed by ESRI: Downloaded the data set from World Wildlife Fund's FTP site. Removed attributes ECO_ID, ECO_CODE, ECO_SYM, G200_REGION, G200_BIOME, and G200_STAT. Renamed attribute GBL_STAT to STATUS. Adjusted the order and field widths of attributes. Added BIOME_DESC populating it with BIOME's descriptions. Added PRIORITY populating it with 'Yes' for every feature where G200_NUM is greater than zero. Deleted records where ECO_NAME = "". Made the features multi-part based on all attributes and reduced the record count from 14942 to 832.Created ArcGISr layer file (.lyr), projection file (.prj), and spatial indices.
Internal feature number.
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Feature geometry.
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The descriptive name for the ecoregion.
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The continental-scale biogeographic regions defined by differences in geologic and climatic history that contain distinct assemblages of plants and animals, particularly at higher taxonomic levels. The realms used are roughly based on Pielou's "biogeographic regions." (Pielou, E.C., 1979, Biogeography. Wiley, NY).
World Wildlife Fund
Broad kinds of ecoregions that: a) Experience comparable climatic regimes; b) Have similar vegetation structure; c) Display similar spatial patterns of biodiversity; and d) Contain flora and fauna with similar guild structures and life histories. e) Similar minimum requirements and thresholds for maintaining certain biodiversity features. f) Have similar sensitivities to human disturbance.
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Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests.
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Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests.
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Tropical & Subtropical Coniferous Forests.
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Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests.
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Temperate Conifer Forests.
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Boreal Forests/Taiga.
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Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands.
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Temperate Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands.
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Flooded Grasslands & Savannas.
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Montane Grasslands & Shrublands.
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Tundra.
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Mediterranean Forests, Woodlands & Scrub.
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Deserts & Xeric Shrublands.
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Mangroves.
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Lake.
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Rock and ice.
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The descriptions of the biomes.
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The number is a unique number for each ecoregion within each biome nested within each realm.
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Not an Ecoregion Number.
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Unique numbers for the features.
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The 30-year prediction of future conservation status given current conservation status and trajectories.
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The indicator that the ecoregion is a Global 200 ecoregion.
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The ecoregion is a Global 200 ecoregion.
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The ecoregion is not a Global 200 ecoregion.
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The unique number identifying Global 200 ecoregions.
World Wildlife Fund
Not a Global 200 Number.
ESRI
Unique numbers for the features.
World Wildlife Fund
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See use constraints.
The SDC file contains the geospatial and attribute data. The SDI file contains the spatial index. The PRJ file contains the coordinate system information (optional). The XML file (*.sdc.xml) contains the metadata describing the data set (optional).
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