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Classification of Wetlands and Deepwater Habitats of the United States
Index page
Document number
FGDC-STD-004
Maintenance authority
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
OBJECTIVES
The purpose of the standard is to provide a system that allows communication about wetlands and their features in a National context. Doing so enhances the ability of all agencies and individuals to interpolate and extrapolate wetland resource data, wetland loss and gain data, and restoration efforts in the same semantic and ecological context. The classification system was developed by wetland ecologists with the assistance of many private individuals and organizations and local, State, and Federal agencies.
Specific objectives of this standard are to:
b. describe ecological units that have certain homogeneous natural attributes;
c. arrange those units in a system that will aid decisions about resource management;
d. furnish units for inventory and mapping;
e. ensure that data from widely differing regions of the country are collected and can be interpreted similarly; and,
f. move toward a system that allows communication about wetlands and their features in a National context. Doing so enhances the ability of all agencies and individuals to interpolate and extrapolate wetland resource data, wetland loss and gain data, and restoration efforts in the same semantic and ecological context.
SCOPE
This standard provides specific ecological and hydrological information for the identification, classification, and mapping of wetlands in the United States and its territories. Adoption of the standard will not change the current status of National Wetlands Inventory maps produced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Application of the standard is not regulatory. As the disclaimer on each NWI map states, "Federal, State, and local regulatory agencies with jurisdiction over wetlands may define and describe wetlands in a different manner than that used in this inventory. There is no attempt, in either the design or products of this inventory, to define the limits of proprietary jurisdiction of any Federal, State, or local government or to establish the geographical scope of the regulatory programs of government agencies."
Sponsored by
FGDC Subcommittee on Wetlands Data
Project history
| Document | Version |
Date | Custodian |
|---|---|---|---|
|
FGDC-endorsed standard |
1996 |
In 2010, the FGDC began sponsoring a project to update the Wetlands Classification Standard.
Other information
The Wetlands Subcommittee of the Federal Geographic Data Committee reviewed the publication and then recommended that the "Cowardin system" be selected as the standard for wetlands mapping and inventory. The public was informed of this recommendation in a Federal Register notice published July 6, 1995 (60 FR 35217). Comments received from the public did not provide substantial new information that altered the original intent of the Subcommittee. This was published in the Federal Register on July 29, 1996 (61 FR 39465).
For more information, see FGDC announcement
