Geospatial data about Caswell County, North Carolina Parcels. Export to CAD, GIS, PDF, CSV and access via API.

Reason for Selection Native grasslands and savannas are important for many endemic species, provide critical habitat and food for pollinators, and are often hotspots for biodiversity. Once a predominant ecosystem type, grasslands and savannas have significantly declined from their historical extent. In part because of the regular disturbance (e.g., mowing, fire) typically required to maintain high-quality grasslands, they are difficult to detect through remote sensing and are not well-captured by other indicators. In addition, grassland and savanna birds are experiencing significant declines and are currently off-track for meeting the SECAS 10% goal, so it is important that the Blueprint capture known and potential habitat. Input Data

Texas Ecological Mapping Systems: statewide raster, accessed 12-2023
Oklahoma Ecological Systems Map: download the raster, accessed 12-2023
Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US): PAD-US 3.0 national geodatabase - Combined Proclamation Marine Fee Designation Easement; PAD-US 4.0 national geodatabase - Combined Proclamation Marine Fee Designation Easement
National Land Cover Database (NLCD): 2021 Land Cover, 2021 U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Tree Canopy Cover, 2013 Land Cover, and 2013 USFS Tree Canopy Cover
2020 LANDFIRE Biophysical Settings (BPS) [LF 2.2.0]
Southeast Blueprint 2024 landscape condition indicator
Southeast Blueprint 2024 extent

Known grasslands

Known grassland prairies dataset for the Middle Southeast subregion, provided by Toby Gray with Mississippi State University in Oct 2020 (available on request by emailing rua_mordecai@fws.gov); this is an improved version of the Known Prairie Patches in the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks (GCPO) layer
Known Piedmont prairie locations in the South Atlantic subregion: We identified known prairie locations by requesting spatial data on known prairies from the 74 members of the Piedmont Prairie Partnership mailing list and other prairie managers (Wake County Open Space program and Prairie Ridge Ecostation in NC). We combined that information with known locations in Virginia aggregated by the Virginia Natural Heritage Program (available on request by emailing rua_mordecai@fws.gov).
Grassland polygons from the Catawba Indian Nation, provided by Aaron Baumgardner, Natural Resources Director, in July 2023 (for more information email rua_mordecai@fws.gov)
Grassland polygons from two iNaturalist projects in Texas: erwin-park-prairie-restoration-area, stella-rowan-prairie
Southeastern Grasslands Institute polygons from selected iNaturalist projects. We used only projects with polygons digitized at a fine resolution and did not include projects with more coarse polygons covering a large area. Specific projects used were: 
    allegheny-mountains-riverscour-barrens, big-south-fork-riverscour-barrens-1, big-south-fork-riverscour-barrens-2, big-south-fork-riverscour-barrens-4-us, big-south-fork-riverscour-barrens-6, biodiversity-of-piedmont-granite-glades-outcrops, bluff-mountain-fen, caney-fork-sandstone-riverscour-barrens-and-glades, clear-creek-sandstone-riverscour-barrens, clear-fork-river-riverscour-barrens, craggy-mountains-mafic-outcrops-and-barrens, cumberland-plateau-escarpment-limestone-barrens, cumberland-river-limestone-riverscour-glades, daddy-s-creek-riverscour-barrens, dunbar-cave-prairie-restoration, eastern-highland-rim-limestone-riverscour-glade, emory-river-sandstone-riverscour-barrens, falls-of-the-ohio-river-limestone-riverscour-glade, flat-rock-cedar-glades-and-barrens-state-natural-area, grasshopper-hollow-fen, gunstocker-glade, hiwassee-river-phyllite-riverscour-glade, ketona-dolomite-barrens, laurel-river-riverscour-barrens-and-glades, lime-hills-limestone-barrens, limestone-barrens-of-the-western-valley-of-the-tennessee-river, little-mountains-limestone-barrens, little-river-canyon-riverscour-barrens-and-glades, moulton-valley-limestone-glades, mulberry-fork-of-black-warrior-river-riverscour-barrens-and-glades, muldraugh-s-hill-limestone-barrens, nashville- basin-limestone-glades, new-river-riverscour-barrens, obed-river-sandstone-riverscour-barrens, outer-bluegrass-dolomite-barrens, ridge-and-valley-sandstone-outcrops, rock-creek-sandstone-riverscour-barrens, rockcastle-river-sandstone-riverscour-barrens, shawnee-hills-sandstone-glades-and-outcrops, southern-blue-ridge-mountains-grass-balds, southern-blue-ridge-mountains-serpentine-barrens, southern-blue-ridge-phyllite-outcrops, southern-ridge-and-valley-limestone-glades, southern-ridge-and-valley-shale-barrens, southern-ridge-and-valley-siltstone-barrens, tennessee-ridge-and-valley-dolomite-barrens-and-woodlands-tn-us, the-farm-prairie-and-oak-savanna, tin-top-road-savanna, western-allegheny-escarpment-limestone-barrens, western-highland-rim-limestone-glade-and-barrens, western-valley-limestone-barrens-decatur-co-north-us, western-valley-limestone-barrens-hardin-wayne-cos, western-valley-limestone-barrens-perry-co, western-valley-silurian-limestone-barrens, white-s-creek-sandstone-riverscour-barrens-and-glades, folder-six-glades

Mapping Steps

Combine all known grasslands polygons and convert to raster, assigning them a value of 7.
From the 2021 and 2013 NLCD landcover, create rasters that only include classes likely to have grasslands and savannas. The classes included are based on NLCD classes that overlap known grassland and savanna polygons. Any class that covered >1% of known grasslands and savannas is included: 31 Barren Land, 41 Deciduous Forest, 42 Evergreen Forest, 43 Mixed Forest, 52 Scrub/Shrub, 71 Grassland/Herbaceous, 81 Pasture/Hay.
For those 2021 and 2013 selected landcover rasters, remove forest with ≥ 60% canopy cover using NLCD USFS Tree Canopy Cover for the corresponding year. This results in potential grassland and savanna rasters for 2021 and 2013.
Make a single potential grassland and savanna raster that only includes pixels that are potential grasslands and savannas in both 2013 and 2021. This removes temporary grasslands and savannas that result from clearcuts.
From the Texas and Oklahoma ecological systems maps, extract classes that predict areas invaded by mesquite, a non-native tree that spreads aggressively in the grasslands and savannas of the Southwest and disrupts natural ecosystems through its heavy water consumption. For Oklahoma, this is VegName = 'Ruderal Mesquite Shrubland'. For Texas, this is CommonName = 'Native Invasive: Mesquite Shrubland'. Combine these and use them to remove areas that are no longer grassland and savanna due to mesquite invasion. The resulting layer represents potential grasslands.
To identify potential grasslands and savannas in natural landscapes, use values 5 and 6 from the landscape condition indicator. Assign a value of 3 to any potential grassland pixel that receives a landscape condition score of 5 or 6. Assign all other potential grassland pixels a value of 2.
To identify likely grasslands and savannas, overlay the potential grasslands and savannas raster with select polygons from PAD-US 4.0. To pull out types of protected lands that commonly manage grasslands and savannas, we used GAP status, designation type, manager name, and easement holder. We also identified a number of protected areas directly by name that had important areas of grassland and savanna but weren’t captured by the other rules.
    GAP status (GAP_sts) 1 or 2: Gap status 1 and 2 refer to areas managed for biodiversity that are not subject to extractive uses like logging and mining. GAP status 2 is technically intended to encompass areas where disturbance events are suppressed, but in practice, most protected areas in the Southeast that are actively managing grasslands and savannas are classified as GAP status 2.
    Designation type (Des_Tp) of ‘NWR’, ‘MIL’, ‘NF’, or ‘NG’ (i.e. National Wildlife Refuge, military installation, National Forest, or National Grassland)
    Manager name (Mang_Name) of ‘RWD’ (i.e. Regional Water District)
    Local manager name (Loc_Mang) of 'Ducks Unlimited (Wetlands America Trust)'
    Easement holder (EsmtHldr) of 'Tall Timbers Research Station & Land Conservancy'
    Unit name (Unit_Nm) of ‘Point Washington State Forest’, ‘Pine Log State Forest’, ‘M. C. Davis - Seven Runs Creek Conservation Easement’, ‘Nokuse Plantation Conservation Easements’, ‘Tate's Hell State Forest’, ‘Box-R Wildlife Management Area’, ‘Aucilla Wildlife Management Area’, ‘Snipe Island Unit’, ‘Big Bend Wildlife Management Area’, ‘Goethe State Forest’, ‘Amelia Wildlife Management Area’, ‘Powhatan Wildlife Management Area’, ‘Cumberland State Forest’, ‘Appomattox-Buckingham State Forest’, ‘Haw River State Park’, ‘R. Wayne Bailey - Caswell Game Land’, ‘Medoc Mountain State Park’, ‘Embro Game Land’, ‘Dupont State Forest’, ‘Hanging Rock State Park’, ‘Bladen Lakes State Forest’, ‘Whitehall Plantation Game Land’, ‘Suggs Mill Pond Game Land’, ‘Bushy Lake State Natural Area’, ‘Pondberry Bay Plant Conservation Preserve’, ‘Green Swamp Game Land’, ‘Holly Shelter Game Land’, ‘Chowan Swamp Game Land’, ‘Brookgreen Gardens’, ‘Cary State Forest’, ‘Suwannee Ridge Mitigation Park Wildlife and Environmental Area’, ‘Adams-Alapha Ag & Conservation Easement’, ‘Twin Rivers State Forest’, ‘Chattahoochee Fall Line Wildlife Management Area’, ‘Enon Plantation’, or ‘Georgia-Alabama Land Trust Easement #214’, ‘Covington Wildlife Management Area’, ’ Magnolia Branch Wildlife Reserve’, ‘Little River State Forest’, or ‘Susan Turner Plantation’, or have the local name (Loc_Nm) 'Sandhills Game Land', 'Blackwater River State Forest', 'Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area', 'Herky Huffman/Bull Creek Wildlife Management