San Francisco Bay Estuarine-Upland Transition Zone(s)

There are four layers:

This "ranked restoration" layer represents the distribution of potential tidal marsh-upland transitional zone habitats (aka ecotones) within South and Central San Francisco Bay and ranks their restoration potential for assisting with tidal marsh ecosystem conservation. This layer contains transition zone habitat polygons (for south SF bay) with an attribute for each metric and total rank. Current transition zone habitats are ranked according to habitat "quality" as defined by a range of metrics of habitat function (Thomson 2013). The dataset is designed to assist land managers in prioritizing transitional geography (i.e. land surfaces with the proper elevation) based on their potential value to the protection and restoration of the San Francisco Bay Estuary. 

The SLR datasets were developed to assist users to account for the landward migration of transitional habitats in response to projected sea level rise.Transition zone distributions are based on modeled tidal elevations. We mapped the distributions for current, and the two sea level rise scenarios (61cm and 167cm - high NRC 2050 and 2100),

The dataset is a component of a larger Decision Support System (DSS), which includes a GIS dataset of (current) transition zone polygons  ranked according to their restoration potential as well as a technical document providing a functional definition for transition zones which was used to identify the metrics of habitat function used for ranking restoration potential. More information at the DSS can be found at: