ArcView Shapefiles of the Regional Ecosystem Coverages

The files below were used to create the JPEG graphics that are being used to illustrate the ecosystems.  They have been edited from the initial coverages that were used for national review, and could be considered a final draft version.  There are still slivers that are apparent when the regional layers are put side by side; this is caused by the widely varying sources of the data.  All the major changes to the data have been made however.  Once the data layers have received a final editing to clean up the technical problems, the shapefiles below as well as Arc/Info coverages will be updated and posted, and complete FGDC compliant metadata associated with them for sharing on the Internet. 

Interim metadata:
All shapefiles are in the Albers projection, with the standard parameters:

Datum: NAD27  
Spheroid: Clark1866 
distance units: meters 
1st standard parallel: 29 30 0.000:
2nd standard parallel:45 30 0.000: 
Central meridian: -96 0 0.00 
Latitude of projections origin: 23 0 0.000 
False easting (meters): 0.00000 
False northing (meters): 0.00000 

Coverages were received from each region, and have been processed with both ArcView and Arc/Info. The versions being shared here should be considered no better than 1:100,000 scale, although some of the original coverages were more detailed than that. In order to get these coverages to a reasonable size for reviewing and sharing via the Internet, many smaller polygons have been eliminated, lines generalized in some cases, and database tables standardized. The original coverages have been kept, so the details will not be lost. All the DBF files will have the fields econum (integer, 2 wide) and ecosystem (alpha, 50 wide).