Metadata for the 3-Zone, Average Annual Salinity Digital Geography

last updated: 19 March 1999

The digital geography is in geographic coordinates, datum = NAD83, spheroid = GRS1980

Extent of the 3-Zone, Average Annual Salinity Digital Geography
Geography provides digital data 132 estuaries within contiguous US.
The unprojected (geographic coordinates) 3-Zone, Average Annual Salinity Digital Geography for the coterminous United States.

Polygon attributes found in the 3-Zone, Average Annual Salinity Digital Geography
EDA_SZNAME | A unique polygon name created by concatenating watershed (EDASUBEDA) code and Salinity Zone (SZ_NAME).
REGION | Region of the United States.
| N | Polygons of the North Atlantic region.
| M | Polygons of the Middle Atlantic region.
| S | Polygons of the South Atlantic region.
| G | Polygons of the Gulf of Mexico region.
| P | Polygons of the Pacific region.
| L | Polygons of the Great Lakes region.
| U | Polygons within the US border, but not a part of the CAF.
| X | Polygons outside US boundaries.
EDASUBEDA | A code assigned to each derived spatial area (e.g., an EDA or CDA). Concatenated from the EDACDA attribute and SUBEDA attribute from NOAA's Coastal Assessment Framework.
SZ_NAME | A text description of each salinity zone
| Mixing Zone | 5 - 25 parts per thousand salinity.
| Seawater Zone | 25 parts per thousand or greater salinity
| Tidal Fresh Zone | 0 - 5 parts per thousand salinity
AREA_MI2 | Area of salinity zone in square statute miles (calculated from geographies in Albers equal-area conic projection; minor distortion above and below standard parallels).