1.2.2 Ecosystems, Land

Definition: An area on the Earth's land surface, extending to high-tide mark, with a characteristic physical environment and biological community.

Definition Source: Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary

Ecosystems, Land Categories:

1.2.2.1 Agricultural Land: All ecosystems modified or created by man specifically to grow or raise biological products for human consumption or use. This includes cropland, pasture, orchards, groves, vineyards, nurseries, ornamental horticultural areas, and confined feeding areas.

------1.2.2.1.1 Confined Feeding Operations

------1.2.2.1.2 Cropland and Pasture

------1.2.2.1.3 Orchards and Vinyards

------1.2.2.1.4 Other Agricultural Land

1.2.2.2 Barren Land: Those ecosystems in which less than one third of the area has vegetation or other cover. In general, Barren Land has thin soil, sand, or rocks. Barren lands include deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, exposed rock, strip mines, quaries, and gravel pits.

------1.2.2.2.1 Bare Exposed Rock

------1.2.2.2.2 Beaches

------1.2.2.2.3 Dry Salt Flats

------1.2.2.2.4 Mixed Barren Land

------1.2.2.2.5 Sandy Areas Other Than Beaches

------1.2.2.2.6 Strip Mines, Quaries, and Gravel Pits

------1.2.2.2.7 Transitional Areas

1.2.2.3 Forest Land: Those ecosystems that have a tree crown density (crown closure percentage) of 10% or more and are stocked with trees capable of producing timber or other wood products. This includes land from which trees have been removed to less than 10%, but which have not been developed for other uses.

------1.2.2.3.1 Deciduous Forest Land

------1.2.2.3.2 Evergreen Forest Land

------1.2.2.3.3 Mixed Forest Land

1.2.2.4 Perenial Snow or Ice: Those ecosystems dominated by a perennial cover of either snow or ice. Adjacent lands are almost always water Systems, Wetland, Barren land, or Tundra.

------1.2.2.4.1 Glaciers

------1.2.2.4.2 Perenial Snowfields

1.2.2.5 Rangeland: Those ecosystems dominated by grasses, grasslike plants, forbs, or shrubs and dominated by herbavors. Most of the rangelands in the United States are to the west of an irregular North/South line that cuts through the Dakotas, Nebraska, Knasas, Oklahoma, and Texas.

------1.2.2.5.1 Herbaceous Rangeland

------1.2.2.5.2 Mixed Rangeland

------1.2.2.5.3 Shrub and Brush Rangeland

1.2.2.6 Tundra: Treeless ecosystems beyond the limit of boreal forest and above the altitude limit of trees in high mountain ranges. The tundra vegetation consists primarily of grasses, sedges, small flowering herbs, low shrubs, lichen, and mosses. Permafrost occurs almost everywhere beneath the vegetative cover.

------1.2.2.6.1 Bare Ground Tundra

------1.2.2.6.2 Herbaceous Tundra

------1.2.2.6.3 Mixed Tundra

------1.2.2.6.4 Shrub and Brush Tundra

------1.2.2.6.5 Wet Tundra

1.2.2.7 Urban: Those ecosystems dominated by man-made structures. Included in this category are cities, towns, villages, strip developments along highways, transportation, power, and communications facilities, and areas such as those occupied by mills, shopping centers, industrial and commercial complexes, and institutions that may, in some instances, be isolated from urban areas.

------1.2.2.7.1 Commercial and Services Land

------1.2.2.7.2 Communication and Utility Land

------1.2.2.7.3 Industrial and Commercial Complexes

------1.2.2.7.4 Industrial Land

------1.2.2.7.5 Mixed Urban or Built-up Land

------1.2.2.7.6 Other Urban or Built-up Land

------1.2.2.7.7 Residential Land

------1.2.2.7.8 Transportation Land

1.2.2.8 Water Systems: Those ecosystems persistantly covered by water. This includes streams, creeks, rivers, canals and other linear bodies of water. This also includes lakes (both fresh and salt water) and reserviors.

------1.2.2.8.1 Lakes

------1.2.2.8.2 Reserviors

------1.2.2.8.3 Streams and Canals

1.2.2.9 Wetland: Those ecosystems where the water table is at, near, or above the land surface for a significant part of most years and dominated by hydrophytic vegitation and biota. Wetlands include marshes, mudflats, swamps, wet meadows, and perched bogs. Wetlands also include seasonally flooded basins, playas, or potholes with no surface water outflow. Wetlands do not include shallow water areas with submerged aquatic vegitation falls (see Water Systems and Ocean Ecosystems). This does not include tidal, estuarian wetlands (see Estuarian Ecosystems).

------1.2.2.9.1 Forested Wetland

------1.2.2.9.2 Nonforested Wetland