An Integrated Habitat Classification and Map of the Lake Erie Basin

Lake Erie Habitat Zones

Habitat can be defined as combination of a range of physical and energy characteristics that meet the needs of a species and/or biological community for a given life stage and can be delineated geographically. Physical and energy characteristics are a function of the landscape surface (geomorphology), the materials that make up the landscape (geology and hydrology), and the physical, chemical, and biological processes that act on the landscape. Areas with similar physical and energy characteristics can be grouped into distinct natural habitat zones.

Habitat Zone Concept – Landscape characteristics and the dominant physical processes acting on those landscapes can be grouped into areas with similar environmental characteristics. These areas with similar environmental characteristics are called habitat zones.

For Lake Erie, six natural habitat zones were defined based on landscape features and dominant physical processes. The six natural habitat zones are:

These maps and associated meta-data are all available from the data catalog (link)

Integrated Habitat Zone Map

(Click on images for larger versions)

Lake-ward Habitat Zones

Coastal Margin

Coastal Margin and Nearshore

Coastal Margin, Nearshore and Open-lake

Land-ward Habitat Zones

Terrestrial Watersheds

Inland Tributaries (with Shreve Stream Order- Link number)

Inland Tributaries (with Strahler Stream Order)

Stream order & Link Number - The watershed delineation effort also delineated stream reaches and stream order. Both Strahler stream order and Shreve stream order or link number were calculated.