Internal feature number.

ESRI

Feature geometry.

ESRI

Year or span of years eelgrass observed in area.

State of Connecticut, Department of Environmental Protection

A brief description of the eelgrass bed's location; may include notation of sample station.  In most cases the location description is similar to the description given in the original literature, and indicative of the level of detail given by the source listed.  

State of Connecticut, Department of Environmental Protection

Refers to source of information (see bibliography in Source 2 Citation Information) for a particular location.  In cases where a personal communication is noted, generally that person communicated with R. Rozsa or C. Yarish for the puspose of their respective reports, not for the purpose of this digital compilation.

State of Connecticut, Department of Environmental Protection

Existence of eelgrass and/or type of transplant.

State of Connecticut, Department of Environmental Protection

Mapped points are those whose location was digitized or interpreted from a published map.  General points are those who location was determined by text description only, and my have been placed centrally within the waterbody described (if the description was simple such as "Mumford Cove") and not necessarily where eelgrass would be likely to have grown.

State of Connecticut, Department of Environmental Protection

Indicates whether an eelgrass polygon feature exists for that point in the Historic Eelgrass Beds layer.  

State of Connecticut, Department of Environmental Protection

The label points from this source comprise a portion of the Historic Eelgrass Points layer.  

The label points from the Historic Eelgrass Beds polygon layer provided some of the data for the Historic Eelgrass Points layer.  

ground condition

Various written communication as noted in the Source attribute of the data table.  

Consists of maps, reports, written memoranda, and historic literature that reference the approximate locations of eelgrass existing at a particular point in time.  The literature reference for each point is described in the Source attribute in the data table.  These sources are listed below.  

Bibliography

Abate, 1994, personal communication to R. Rozsa.

Addy,C.E., and Johnson,R.H., 1947, Status of eelgrass along the Atlantic
coast during 1947. Proc. N.E. Game Conference. 73-78.

Barrett,J.M., 1991, Untitled compilation of eelgrass beds prepared by
the Nature Conservancy for the Natural Resources Center, DEP.

Barske,P., 1993, personal communication to R. Rozsa, excerps from his
personal diary.

Beckley,B., 1982, Transcript record from a DEP public hearing.

Brown,L.K., 1996, personal communication to M. DiGiacomo-Cohen,
description of New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
observations of eelgrass populations around Fishers Island, NY.

Conard,H.S., 1935, The Plant Associations of Central Long Island: A
study in descriptive plant sociology. The American Midland Naturalist.
16(4).

Cottam,C., 1945, Eelgrass conditions along the Atlantic seaboard of
North America. Plant Dis. Reptr. 29:302-310.

Cottam,C., and Addy,C.E.,1947, Present eelgrass condition and problems
on the Atlantic coast of North America. Trans. N. Amer. Wild. Conf.
12:387-398.

Cottam,C., and Munro,D.A., 1954, Eelgrass Status and Environmental
Relations. J. of Wildlife Management. 18(4):449-460.

Crawford,H., 1989, Scientific literature review: An investigation of
sediment conditions of Quiambog and Wilcox COves in Stonington, CT, in
Crawford, H.M., Aftab, K.M., Historical and environmental survey of
Quiambog and Wilcox COves in Stonington , CT, a report in two parts
submitted to the Board of Selectmen, Town of Stonington, Stonington
Shellfish Commission.

Department of Environmental Protection Marine Fisheries, 1994, personal
communication to R. Rozsa.

Johnson,D.S., and York,H.H., 1915, The relation of plants to
tide-levels. A study of factors affecting the distribution of marine
plants. Carnegie Institution of Washington No. 206, 143 p.

Knapp,P., 1995, personal communication to C. Yarish.

Knight,J.L., and Lawton,R.B., 1974, Report on the possible influence of
thermal additions on the growth of eelgrass (Zostera marina) in Jordan
Cove, Waterford, Connecticut. Report to Northeast Utilities Service
Company.

Lewis,R.S., 1995, personal communication to C. Yarish.

Lynch,J.W., and Cottam,C., 1937, Status of eelgrass (Zostera marina) on
the North Atlantic coast, January, 1937. Wildlife Research and
Management. BS-94:1-15.

Nichols,G.E., 1920, The vegetation of Connecticut. VII. The associations
of depositing areas along the seacoast. Bulletin Torrey Botanical Club.
47:511-548.

Northeast Utilities Environmental Laboratory, 1990, Monitoring the
Marine Environment of Long Island Sound at Millstone Nuclear Power
STation, Waterford, Connecticut. Annual Report 1989.

Renn,C.E., 1937, The eel-grass situation along the middle Atlantic
coast. Ecology. 18:323-325.

Rozsa,R., 1994. Long term decline of Zostera marina in Long Island and
Fishers Island Sounds. unpublished report.

St. John,H., 1920, Additions to the flora of Fishers Island. Journal
Rhodia.

Tolderlund,D.S., 1975, Ecological Study of the Thames River Estuary
(Conn.) in the Vicinity of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Report No.
RDCGA 575.

Transeau,E.N., 1913, The vegetation of Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island.
I. The littoral successions. Plant World. 16:189-209.

Tucker,G., and Horning,E.H., 1996, personal communication to S.
Mickolyzck, description of New York State Museum collection trip in
1990.

Uhler,F.M., 1932, unpublished report: Report on the examination of
certain waterfowl feeding and breeding grounds in Connecticut, Aug. 2 to
5, 1932. 33 p.

U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1892, Milford to Bridgeport, Conn., no.
1567, scale 1:10,000.

U.S. Dept. of Commerce, 1918, North shore of Long Island Sound, Guilford
Harbor to East Haven River, no. 217, scale 1:20,000.

U.S. Dept. of Commerce, 1925, North shore of Long Island Sound, Goshen
Point to Hatchett Point including Niantic Bay, no. 214, scale 1:20,000.

U.S. Dept. of Commerce, 1933, Thames River, Harbor of New London and
approaches, no. 359, scale 1:20,000.

U.S. Dept. of Commerce, 1958, Fishers Island Sound, no. 358, scale
1:20,000.

U.S. Dept. of Commerce, 1965, Fishers Island Sound, no. 358, scale
1:20,000.

Welsh,B.L., 1980, A study of Jordan Cove: its hydraulic character,
sediment and macrophyte distributions as related to shoaling. Final
draft report submitted to Commissioner of Environmental Protection,
Department of Environmental Protection, State of Connecticut, 80 p.

Welsh,B.L., Bohlen,W.F., and Buck,J.D., 1985, An Investigation of
Impacts Produced by Settling Basin Discharges on the Copps
Brook/Quiambog Cove System, Preliminary Report. Submitted to The
Connecticut American Water Company.

Welsh,B.L., and Stewart,L., 1984, The Effects of Energy-related
Transport Activities on Benthic Marine Plants, Fish, Shellfish, and
Lobsters in the Thames River Estuary. Final report to the Office of
Policy and Management, State of Connecticut.

ground condition

The result of the compilation of label points from Sources 1 through 3.  

publication date

This source represents the final form of Historic Eelgrass Points and was produced from an ArcInfo coverage.

Feature digitizing and attribution (feature selection method) - Using ESRI ArcInfo software, the label points in the Source layer were copied to the Historic Eelgrass Points layer.  These features were then assigned a value of "1" in the P_FLAG attribute field to denote their migration from the Historic Eelgrass Beds coverage.  No accuracy checks were performed since the features were electronically copied from one layer to another.

Points represent some previously described distributions of Zostera marina (eelgrass).  Most points were digitized on screen using a 1:24,000 scale hydrography base, with the exception of points transferred from the eelgrass historic beds coverage (P_Flag = 1) which were digitized off 1:24,000 scale USGS topographic quadrangle maps.  Because most points were entered based on a general description or were "fitted" from maps of various scales (see bibliography in Source 1 citation information), this coverage should be considered to have limited spatial accuracy and is appropriate for general uses only.  This digital compilation is based for the most part on a literature review by Ron Rozsa (CT DEP) and Ruth Linden / Charles Yarish (UCONN Stamford), and Mary DiGiacomo-Cohen (LISRC) and is not presumed to be a comprehensive representation of the pre-1993 distribution of Zostera marina.

Feature digitizing and attribution (heads up digitizing method) - Using ESRI ArcInfo software, features from Source 2 - Literature Research, were manually digitized on the screen (heads-up digitizing) at a 1:24,000 scale onto a hydrography based background map.  These features were then assigned a value of "0" in the P_FLAG attribute field to denote that their original source was not the Historic Eelgrass Beds polygon layer.  Accuracy checks were applied only insofar as verifying the point location from Source 2.  Note that the locations of these points are considered approximate due to the ambiguity of the locational references in the source data.  

Datum conversion - Using ESRI ArcInfo software, the Historic Eelgrass Beds layer was converted from the Connecticut State Plane Coordinate System of 1927 (NAD27) to the Connecticut State Plane Coordinate System of 1983 (NAD83). The NADCON (North American Datum CONversion) data transformation was used.

Using ArcView 3, the Historic Eelgrass Points Coverage was converted to a Shapefile format.