Level III and IV Ecoregions of EPA Region 4 · 2016. 5. 7. · 45c 63h 65p 66i 66i 66i 66i 63c 65p...

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Charleston

Columbia

Frankfort

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Montgomery

Nashville

Raleigh

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Tallahassee

Aiken

Albany

Asheville

Athens

AtlantaAugusta

Birmingham

Boone

Bowling Green

Camden

Charleston

Charlotte

Chattanooga

Cincinnati

Clarksville

Crossville

Dothan

Durham

Fayetteville

Wilmington

Gainesville

Georgetown

Greensboro

Greenville

Greenville

Greenville

Hattiesburg

Hopkinsville

Huntsville

Jacksonville

Knoxville

Lancaster

Lawrenceburg

LexingtonLouisville

Macon

McMinnville

Memphis

Miami

Mobile

Orangeburg

Orlando

Rome

Saluda

Savannah

Spartanburg

Tampa

Tupelo

Tuscaloosa

West Point

Winston-Salem

Norfolk

G u l f o f M e x i c o

A t l a n t i c O c e a n

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SCALE 1:2 000 000

Albers Equal Area Projection

Level III BoundaryLevel IV Boundary State BoundaryCounty Boundary

45 Piedmont45a Southern Inner Piedmont45b Southern Outer Piedmont45c Carolina Slate Belt45d Talladega Upland45e Northern Inner Piedmont45f Northern Outer Piedmont45g Triassic Basins45h Pine Mountain Ridges45i Kings Mountain

63 Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain63b Chesapeake-Pamlico Lowlands and Tidal Marshes63c Swamps and Peatlands63d Virginian Barrier Islands and Coastal Marshes63e Mid-Atlantic Flatwoods63g Carolinian Barrier Islands and Coastal Marshes63h Carolina Flatwoods63n Mid-Atlantic Floodplains and Low Terraces

65 Southeastern Plains65a Blackland Prairie65b Flatwoods/Blackland Prairie Margins65c Sand Hills65d Southern Hilly Gulf Coastal Plain65e Northern Hilly Gulf Coastal Plain65f Southern Pine Plains and Hills65g Dougherty Plain65h Tifton Upland65i Fall Line Hills65j Transition Hills65k Coastal Plain Red Uplands65l Atlantic Southern Loam Plains65m Rolling Coastal Plain65o Tallahassee Hills/Valdosta Limesink65p Southeastern Floodplains and Low Terraces65q Buhrstone/Lime Hills65r Jackson Prairie

66 Blue Ridge66c New River Plateau66d Southern Crystalline Ridges and Mountains66e Southern Sedimentary Ridges66f Limestone Valleys and Coves66g Southern Metasedimentary Mountains66i High Mountains66j Broad Basins66k Amphibolite Mountains66l Eastern Blue Ridge Foothills66m Sauratown Mountains

67 Ridge and Valley67f Southern Limestone/Dolomite Valleys and Low Rolling Hills67g Southern Shale Valleys67h Southern Sandstone Ridges67i Southern Dissected Ridges and Knobs

68 Southwestern Appalachians68a Cumberland Plateau68b Sequatchie Valley68c Plateau Escarpment68d Southern Table Plateaus68e Dissected Plateau68f Shale Hills

69 Central Appalachians69d Dissected Appalachian Plateau69e Cumberland Mountain Thrust Block

70 Western Allegheny Plateau70b Monongahela Transition Zone70d Knobs-Lower Scioto Dissected Plateau70f Ohio/Kentucky Carboniferous Plateau70g Northern Forested Plateau Escarpment70h Carter Hills

71 Interior Plateau71a Crawford-Mammoth Cave Uplands71b Mitchell Plain71c Knobs-Norman Upland71d Outer Bluegrass71e Western Pennyroyal Karst Plain71f Western Highland Rim71g Eastern Highland Rim71h Outer Nashville Basin71i Inner Nashville Basin71j Little Mountain71k Hills of the Bluegrass71l Inner Bluegrass

72 Interior River Lowland72a Wabash-Ohio Bottomlands72c Green River-Southern Wabash Lowlands72h Caseyville Hills

73 Mississippi Alluvial Plain73a Northern Holocene Meander Belts73b Northern Pleistocene Valley Trains73d Northern Backswamps73k Southern Holocene Meander Belts73m Southern Backswamps

74 Mississippi Valley Loess Plains74a Bluff Hills74b Loess Plains74c Southern Rolling Plains

75 Southern Coastal Plain75a Gulf Coast Flatwoods75b Southwestern Florida Flatwoods75c Central Florida Ridges and Uplands75d Eastern Florida Flatwoods75e Okefenokee Plains75f Sea Island Flatwoods75g Okefenokee Swamps75h Bacon Terraces75i Floodplains and Low Terraces75j Sea Islands/Coastal Marsh75k Gulf Barrier Islands and Coastal Marshes75l Big Bend Coastal Marsh

76 Southern Florida Coastal Plain76a Everglades76b Big Cypress76c Miami Ridge/Atlantic Coastal Strip76d Southern Coast and Islands

Map Source: USEPA, 2002

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1 Coast Range 2 Puget Lowland 3 Willamette Valley 4 Cascades 5 Sierra Nevada 6 Southern and Central California Chaparral and Oak Woodlands 7 Central California Valley 8 Southern California Mountains 9 Eastern Cascades Slopes and Foothills10 Columbia Plateau11 Blue Mountains12 Snake River Plain13 Central Basin and Range14 Mojave Basin and Range15 Northern Rockies16 Idaho Batholith17 Middle Rockies18 Wyoming Basin19 Wasatch and Uinta Mountains20 Colorado Plateaus21 Southern Rockies22 Arizona/New Mexico Plateau23 Arizona/New Mexico Mountains24 Chihuahuan Deserts25 High Plains26 Southwestern Tablelands27 Central Great Plains28 Flint Hills

29 Central Oklahoma/Texas Plains30 Edwards Plateau31 Southern Texas Plains32 Texas Blackland Prairies33 East Central Texas Plains34 Western Gulf Coastal Plain35 South Central Plains36 Ouachita Mountains37 Arkansas Valley38 Boston Mountains39 Ozark Highlands40 Central Irregular Plains41 Canadian Rockies42 Northwestern Glaciated Plains43 Northwestern Great Plains44 Nebraska Sand Hills45 Piedmont46 Northern Glaciated Plains47 Western Corn Belt Plains48 Lake Agassiz Plain49 Northern Minnesota Wetlands50 Northern Lakes and Forests51 North Central Hardwood Forests52 Driftless Area53 Southeastern Wisconsin Till Plains54 Central Corn Belt Plains55 Eastern Corn Belt Plains56 Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains

57 Huron/Erie Lake Plains58 Northeastern Highlands59 Northeastern Coastal Zone60 Northern Appalachian Plateau and Uplands61 Erie Drift Plain62 North Central Appalachians63 Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain64 Northern Piedmont65 Southeastern Plains66 Blue Ridge67 Ridge and Valley68 Southwestern Appalachians69 Central Appalachians70 Western Allegheny Plateau71 Interior Plateau72 Interior River Valleys and Hills73 Mississippi Alluvial Plain74 Mississippi Valley Loess Plains75 Southern Coastal Plain76 Southern Florida Coastal Plain77 North Cascades78 Klamath Mountains79 Madrean Archipelago80 Northern Basin and Range81 Sonoran Basin and Range82 Laurentian Plains and Hills83 Eastern Great Lakes and Hudson Lowlands84 Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens

Level III Ecoregions of the Conterminous United States

Status of EcoregionRevision and Subdivision

Projects as of December 2004

CompleteDraftIn progressPlanned

LEVEL II

6.16.1

7.1

LEVEL I

ECOLOGICAL REGIONS OF NORTH AMERICA

6

6

2

The names and identification numbers for level I and II ecological regions are given in CEC 1997.

Ecoregions denote areas of general similarity in ecosystems and in the type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. They are designed to serve as a spatial framework for environmental resource management. Ecoregions are directly applicable to the immediate needs of state agencies, including the selection of regional stream reference sites, the development of biological criteria and water quality standards, and the establishment of management goals for nonpoint-source pollution. They are also relevant to integrated ecosystem management, an ultimate goal of many federal and state resource management agencies. This map depicts revisions and subdivisions of ecoregions, compiled originally at a relatively small scale (USEPA 2003, Omernik 1987). Compilation of this map, performed at the larger 1:250,000-scale, is part of several collaborative projects primarily between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL), the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), U.S. EPA Region IV, and state environmental resource agencies (Chapman et al. 2004, Griffith et al. 1994, 1998, 2001, 2002, Woods et al. 2002). Collaboration and consultation also occurred with other state and federal agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey, in an effort to obtain consensus regarding alignments of ecological regions.

The approach used to compile this map is based on the premise that ecological regions can be identified through the analysis of the patterns and the composition of biotic and abiotic phenomena that affect or reflect differences in ecosystem quality and integrity. These phenomena include geology, physiography, vegetation, climate, soils, land use, wildlife, and hydrology. The relative importance of each characteristic varies from one ecological region to another regardless of the hierarchical level. A Roman numeral hierarchical scheme has been adopted for different levels of ecological regions. Level I and Level II divide the North American continent into 15 and 52 regions, respectively (Commission for Environmental Cooperation 1997). At Level III, the continental United States contains 104 regions and the conterminous U.S. has 84 ecoregions (U.S. EPA 2003). Level IV is a further subdivision of the Level III ecoregions. Explanation of the methods used to define the ecoregions are given in Griffith et al. (1994, 1997, 2001), Omernik (1995, 2000), and Gallant et al. (1989).

Regional collaborative projects such as these state efforts, where the goal is to reach consensus among resource management agencies, comprise a step in the direction of reaching the objectives of the Memorandum of Understanding for developing a common framework of ecological regions (McMahon et al. 2001). A common spatial framework would allow integrated ecosystem-type resource management across agencies having different responsibilities and interests for the same geographic areas. Reaching that objective requires recognition of the differences in the conceptual approaches and mapping methodologies that have been used to develop the most commonly used existing ecoregion-type frameworks, including those developed by the U.S. Forest Service (Bailey and others 1994), the U.S. EPA (Omernik 1987, 1995), and the NRCS (U.S. Department of Agriculture - Soil Conservation Service

1981). As each of these frameworks is further developed, the differences between them are becoming less. Collaborative projects at the state and regional level, where some agreement has been reached among multiple resource management agencies, are a step toward attaining consensus and consistency in ecoregion frameworks for the entire nation.

The purpose of this map of Level III and IV Ecoregions of EPA Region 4 is to: 1) highlight the current status and progress of ecoregion projects in the Southeast; 2) illustrate the hierarchical nature of the ecoregions; and 3) promote discussion and debate about the location of boundaries, level of consistency from state to state, and areas in need of revision. Some states, such as Florida, that had ecoregions delineated many years ago, are in need of further revisions to be consistent with more recent state projects in Region 4 and other parts of the U.S. Comments and suggestions should be addressed to Glenn Griffith, Dynamac Inc., c/o U.S. EPA, 200 SW 35th Street, Corvallis, OR 97333, (541) 754-4465, email: griffith.glenn@epa.gov., or to James Omernik, USGS, c/o U.S. EPA - NHEERL, 200 SW 35th Street, Corvallis, OR 97333, (541) 754-4458, email: omernik.james@epa.gov.

Literature Cited:

Bailey, R.G., P.E. Avers, T. King, and W.H. McNab (eds.). 1994. Ecoregions and subregions of the United States (map) (supplementary table of map unit descriptions compiled and edited by W.H. McNab, and R.G. Bailey). U.S. Department of Agriculture-Forest Service, Washington, D.C., scale 1:7,500,000.

Chapman, S.S., G.E. Griffith, J.M. Omernik, J.A. Comstock, M.C. Beiser, and D. Johnson. 2004. Ecoregions of Mississippi. (2 sided color poster with map, descriptive text, summary tables, and photographs). U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA. Scale 1:1,000,000.

Commission for Environmental Cooperation. 1997. Ecological regions of North America: toward a common perspective. Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 71p.

Gallant, A.L., T.R. Whittier, D.P. Larsen, J.M. Omernik, and R.M. Hughes. 1989. Regionalization as a tool for managing environmental resources. EPA/600/3-89/060. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Research Laboratory, Corvallis, OR. 152p.

Griffith, G.E., J.M. Omernik, C.M. Rohm, and S.M. Pierson. 1994. Florida regionalization project. EPA/600/Q-95-002. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Research Laboratory, Corvallis, OR. 83p.

Griffith, G.E, J.M. Omernik, T.F. Wilton, and S.M. Pierson. 1994. Ecoregions and subregions of Iowa: A framework for water quality assessment and management. The Journal of the Iowa Academy of Sciences 101(1):5-13.

Griffith, G.E., J.M. Omernik, and S.H. Azevedo. 1997. Ecoregions of Tennessee. EPA/600/R-97/022. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, Corvallis, OR. 51p.

Griffith, G.E., J.M. Omernik, and S.H. Azevedo. 1998. Ecoregions of Tennessee. (2 sided color poster with map, descriptive text, summary tables, and photographs). U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA. Scale 1:940,000.

Griffith, G.E., J.M. Omernik, J.A. Comstock, and T. Foster. 2001. Ecoregions Georgia. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, Corvallis, OR. 48p.

Griffith, G.E., J.M. Omernik, J.A. Comstock, S. Lawrence, G. Martin, A. Goddard, V.J. Hulcher, and T. Foster. 2001. Ecoregions of Alabama and Georgia. (2 sided color poster with map, descriptive text, summary tables, and photographs). U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA. Scale 1:1,700,000.

Griffith, G.E., J.M. Omernik, J.A. Comstock, M.P. Shafale, W.H. McNab, D.R. Lenat, J.B. Glover, and V.B. Shelburne. 2002. Ecoregions of North Carolina and South Carolina. (2 sided color poster with map, descriptive text, summary tables, and photographs). U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA. Scale 1:1,500,000.

McMahon, G., S.M. Gregonis, S.W. Waltman, J.M. Omernik, T.D. Thorson, J.A. Freeouf, A.H. Rorick, and J.E. Keys. 2001. Developing a spatial framework of common ecological regions for the conterminous United States. Environmental Management 28(3):293-316.

Omernik, J.M. 1987. Ecoregions of the conterminous United States. Map Supplement (scale 1:7,500,000). Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77(1):118-125.

Omernik, J.M. 1995. Ecoregions: A spatial framework for environmental management. In: Biological Assessment and Criteria: Tools for Water Resource Planning and Decision Making. W.S. Davis and T.P. Simon (eds.). Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, FL. pp. 49-62.

Omernik, J.M., S.S. Chapman, R.A. Lillie, and R.T. Dumke. 2000. Ecoregions of Wisconsin. Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters 88(2000):77-103.

U.S. Department of Agriculture-Soil Conservation Service. 1981. Land resource regions and major land resource areas of the United States. Agriculture Handbook 296, 156 p.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2003. Level III Ecoregions of the Continental United States, Map M-1 (revision of Omernik, 1987). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, Corvallis, OR

Woods, A.J., J.M. Omernik, W.H. Martin, G.J. Pond, W.M. Andrews, S.M. Call, J.A. Comstock, and D.D. Taylor. 2002. Ecoregions of Kentucky. (2 sided color poster with map, descriptive text, summary tables, and photographs). U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA. Scale 1:1,000,000.

reg4_eco_ggDec04.ai 12/15/2004

Level III and IV Ecoregions of EPA Region 4