Management of transportation networks is affected by, and has effects on, natural and cultural resources through direct and indirect interactions. Until recently, the availability of such spatially explicit information has been limited; however, the data released here to the public will prove valuable for comparing existing networks and planning options with respect to potential impact to, or from, environmental factors across broad areas, for example, States and Agency Planning Regions. Integrated network and resource analyses can provide insights into potential construction and maintenance costs as well as safety risks and environmental impacts during project planning and assessment.
A cooperative project was created by an agreement between Federal Lands and Highways (FLH) and USGS Fort Collins Science Center (FORT) to facilitate development of the spatially-explicit information necessary for transportation planning, and an associated internet-based query and reporting tool, to provide more comprehensive natural and cultural resource information for transportation planning. As such, this agreement facilitated provision of services to support Federal Lands Highway’s (FLH) nationwide initiatives on Transportation Planning and Asset Management. This effort is expected to support multiple federal partners including the National Park Service (NPS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in their planning processes.
These data represent: species diversity, critical habitats, rare and protected ecosystems, conservation and management designations, historic landmarks, substrate limitations, earthquake potential, karst potential, landslide potential, ponding frequency and wetland potential, chemical and environmental risks, fire frequency, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) flood hazards, water quality, and topographic and terrain indices. The derived data provided here encompass the contiguous United States (CONUS) to provide consistent information across regional, state and other socio-political planning boundaries. However, local data, such as species inventories or habitat maps, may provide important details for planning and implementation; differences in content and resolution of information precluded using local data in this project. When available, finer resolution data and local knowledge may be combined with the distributions and indices provided here to improve representation and understanding of potential interactions between land-use and important species and resources.
A general overview for each dataset can be found in the READ_ME PDF.
