Priority agricultural lands from a Land Evaluation and Site Assessment (LESA) process adapted for Columbia County by the County Agricultural and Farmland Protection Board (AFPB)and mapped by Don Meltz Planning and GIS. The original LESA process was created by Natural Resources Conservation Service. Assessment criteria include soil type, commitment to farming, long-term viability, development pressure, and open space (including scenic, historic, and natural resource) value.As a component of the 2013 Agriculture and Farmland Protection Plan (AFPP), the AFPB developed a working LESA model that can be used by the County in conjunction with local decision-making boards to identify agricultural lands eligible for one or more conservation tools, strategies or resources. Many of the county's municipalities, through the comprehensive planning process, have already designating areas suitable for growth and for conservation, as well as for agriculture. The LESA system can help the County and municipalities work together to prioritize those lands and protect from conversion, especially where resources and benefits are limited.The LESA Map can serve several purposes. For example, farmland preservation projects seeking State funding (if and when funding becomes available) can use the map for justification purposes and potential additional “scoring” points if the project is identified on the map. Columbia County municipalities are encouraged to use the data in their land use planning activities such as Comprehensive Plan updates, zoning changes, and their own farmland protection plans.As the County proceeds to implement the Plan, the LESA model should be tested with respect to the programs or tools with which it will be used. The criteria and scoring system can then be modified if necessary. Score thresholds that define the final ranges and priority levels need to be determined in order to interpret the raw LESA score and apply it in decision-making about eligibility for programs or benefits.See the Columbia County AFPP, chapter 4 and appendix F for more information on this dataset, how it was developed and its usefulness for planing purposes.

NYRWA Surficial Geologic Materials: Surficial geologic materials of selected towns in Columbia County, New York. This data set is of surficial geologic materials mapped by the New York Rural Water Association and found in the following towns: Ancram, Austerlitz, Chatham, Claverack, Copake, Germantown, Ghent, Hillsdale, Stuyvesant, and Taghkanic.

Columbia County Boundary derived from tax parcel data provided by Columbia County Real Property Tax Service. This dataset more accurately depicts the county boundary than the NYS Civil Boundaries data set maintained by the NYS GIS Program Office. The most recent update is based on the 2021 tax parcels.

Town and city boundaries in Columbia County, NY, derived from tax parcel data provided by Columbia County Real Property Tax Service. This dataset more accurately depicts the municipal boundaries than the NYS Civil Boundaries data set maintained by the NYS GIS Program Office. The most recent update is based on the 2021 tax parcels.

Updated building footprint data for Columbia County NY.The New York State building footprints service contains building footprints with address information. The footprints have address point information folded in from the Streets and Address Matching (SAM - https://gis.ny.gov/streets/) address point file. The building footprints have a field called “Address Range”, this field shows (where available) either a single address or an address range, depending on the address points that fall within the footprint. Ex: 3860 Atlantic Avenue or Ex: 32 - 34 Wheatfield Circle.Building footprints in New York State are from four different sources: Microsoft, Open Data, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), and Geospatial Services. The majority of the footprints are from NYSERDA, except in NYC where the primary source was Open Data. Microsoft footprints were added where the other 2 sources were missing polygons.Field Descriptions:NYSGeo Source: tells the end user if the source is NYSERDA, Microsoft, NYC Open Data, and could expand from here in the future.Address Point Count: the number of address points that fall within that building footprint.Address Range : If an address point falls within a footprint it lists the range of those address points. Ex: if a building is on a corner of South Pearl and Beaver Street, 40 points fall on the building, and 35 are South Pearl Street it would give the range of addresses for South Pearl. We also removed sub addresses from this range, primarily apartment related. For example, in above example, it would not list 30 South Pearl, Apartment 5A, it would list 30 South Pearl.Most Common Street: the street name of the largest number of address points. In the above example, it would list “South Pearl” as the most common street since the majority of address points list it as the street.Other Streets: the list of other streets that fall within the building footprint, if any. In the above example, “Beaver Street” would be listed since address points for Beaver Street fall on the footprint but are not in the majority.County Name: County name populated from CIESINs. If not populated from CIESINs, identified by the GS.Municipality Name: Municipality name populated from CIESINs. If not populated from CIESINs, identified by the GS.Source: Source where the data came from. If NYSGeo Source = NYSERDA, the data would typically list orthoimagery, LIDAR, county data, etc.Source ID: if NYSGeo Source = NYSERDA, Source ID would typically list an orthoimage or LIDAR tile.Source Date: Date the footprint was created. If the source image was from 2016 orthoimagery, 2016 would be the Source Date.Description of each footprint source: NYSERDA Building footprints that were created as part of the New York State Flood Impact Decision Support Systems https://fidss.ciesin.columbia.edu/home Footprints vary in age from county to county. Microsoft Building Footprints released 6/28/2018 - vintage unknown/varies.More info on this dataset can be found at https://blogs.bing.com/maps/2018-06/microsoft-releases-125-million-building-footprints-in-the-us-as-open-data.NYC Open Data - Building Footprints of New York City as a polygon feature class. Last updated 7/30/2018, downloaded on 8/6/2018.Feature Class of footprint outlines of buildings in New York City.Please see the following link for additional documentation- https://github.com/CityOfNewYork/nyc-geo-metadata/blob/master/Metadata/Metadata_BuildingFootprints.md

Village boundaries in Columbia County, NY, derived from tax parcel data. More accurate than the county boundary included in the NYS Civil Boundaries data set maintained by the NYS GIS Program Office. The most recent update is based on the 2021 tax parcels.

Point locations for hamlets and other unincorporated places. Unlike incorporated municipalities (Towns, Cities, Villages), Hamlets do not have officially designated boundaries. Hamlets are small human settlements, usually smaller than a village. They may be historic in nature, where an incorporated village has been dissolved, or new, as in a subdivision containing a cluster of homes and possibly some commercial or local government uses. The dataset began as an extract from the NYS Places point file. It has been modified with additional fields that record the type and source of each feature, the incorporated municipality(s) it lies within, and the date of any modification.

This data set provides the water quality classifications of New York State's lakes, rivers, streams and ponds, collectively referred to as water bodies. All water bodies in the state are provided a water quality classification based on existing, or expected best usage, of each water body or water body segment. Under New York State's Environmental Conservation Law (ECL), Title 5 of Article 15, certain waters of the state are protected on the basis of their classification. Streams and small water bodies located in the course of a stream that are designated as C (T) or higher (i.e., C (TS), B, or A) are collectively referred to as "protected streams."

This layer was produced by the Columbia County Planning Department under the direct supervision of the Columbia County Board of Elections (BOE). All decisions on where the boundaries should be drawn were authorized by the BOE commissioners.The online version of this layer was last updated on February 18, 2022.Any questions regarding these election districts should be addressed to:Columbia County Board of Elections401 State Street, Hudson, NY 12534Phone: (518) 828-3115 / Fax: (518) 828-2624Email: elections@columbiacountyny.comhttps://sites.google.com/a/columbiacountyny.com/elections/contact-us

Natural Community Important Areas (IA) for NY Natural Heritage Program Element Occurences in the Hudson River Valley: Important Areas are lands and waters that support the continued presence and quality of known populations of rare animals and rare plants, or of documented examples of rare or high-quality ecological communities. Important Areas include the specific locations where the animals, plants, and/or ecological communities have been observed, but go beyond these to also include additional habitat for the rare animal and plant populations, including areas which may be used by rare animals for breeding, nesting, feeding, roosting, or over-wintering; and to include areas that support the natural ecological processes critical to maintaining the habitats of these rare animal and plant populations, or critical to maintaining these significant communities. IAs are generated using GIS Important Area spatial models (IA models) applied to occurrences of rare plants and animals and significant natural communities in the New York Natural Heritage database, or applied to observation locations of other species obtained from other sources. IA models are specific to a species or species group, and are based on the life histories and habitats of that species or species group; for communities, models are based on the community type’s size and natural ecological processes.

Orthoimagery from Spring 2021. The service provides a Natural Color view at approximately 12 inch resolution. The source orthoimagery is 4-band at resolutions of 12 or 6 inches. For more information see http://gis.ny.gov/gateway/mg/index.html

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) Hudson River Estuary Program worked with the New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Cornell University and the NY Natural Heritage Program to develop Significant Biodiversity Areas (SBAs) for the Hudson River estuary region of New York State. SBAs are landscape areas with a high concentration of biological diversity or value for regional biodiversity. As a set, the 22 areas account for much of the range in biodiversity found in the region, but should not be interpreted as the only important areas within the region. The SBAs were first described and published in Penhollow et al. (2006) (available online: http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/5096.html). SBAs are defined by unique topography, geology, hydrology, and biology that distinguish them from neighboring areas. Biologists analyzed existing data provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS 1997), New York Natural Heritage Program (Finton et al. 1999, Finton et al. 2000, Howard et al. 2002), the National Audubon Society (Wells 1998), and the New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit (Smith et al. 2001) to determine the general locations of significant ecological features. The areas were then further inventoried and the boundaries refined following two years of field survey by the NY Natural Heritage Program (Howard et al. 2002).

NYS Geological Survey Map & Chart Series Number 40. Digitized at a scale of 1:250,000, UTM Zone 18, NAD27. The state is tiled into five regions. Each region corresponds with the original map sheet. The scale of these datasets is 1:250,000. Using this data at a larger scale will NOT provide greater accuracy. In fact, it is a misuse of the datasets.

The NYS Hillshade was created by the New York State GIS Program Office (NYSGPO) and is generated using all available Bare Earth DEMs with the Statewide USGS 10 Meter DEM to fill in gaps where higher resolution models currently do not exist. The 10 Meter hillshade is visible at all levels and high resolution hillshades turn on under 1:500,000. Metadata for the NYS data can be found by individual project here: http://gis.ny.gov/elevation/metadata.htm

This data set is a digital soil survey and generally is the most detailed level of soil geographic data developed by the National Cooperative Soil Survey. The information was prepared by digitizing maps, by compiling information onto a planimetric correct base and digitizing, or by revising digitized maps using remotely sensed and other information. This data set consists of georeferenced digital map data and computerized attribute data. The map data are in a soil survey area extent format and include a detailed, field verified inventory of soils and miscellaneous areas that normally occur in a repeatable pattern on the landscape and that can be cartographically shown at the scale mapped. A special soil features layer (point and line features) is optional. This layer displays the location of features too small to delineate at the mapping scale, but they are large enough and contrasting enough to significantly influence use and management. The soil map units are linked to attributes in the National Soil Information System relational database, which gives the proportionate extent of the component soils and their properties.The Columbia County Planning Department has included a limited number of attributes with this dataset in order to make a more manageable layer.

Orthoimagery from Spring 2010. Color view from 4-band source orthoimagery at resolutions of 12 or 6 inches.

The Waterbody Inventory/Priority Waterbodies List (WI/PWL) dataset is an inventory of the state's surface water quality. The layer consists of four feature classes of shorelines, streams, estuaries, and lakes in New York State, with two related tables DOW_PWL_POL_2017 and DOW_PWL_SOURCES_2017 that provide data on pollutants and pollution sources for the waterbody features.(Note: There are no "shoreline" features in Columbia County)

This data set is a digital soil survey and generally is the most detailed level of soil geographic data developed by the National Cooperative Soil Survey. The information was prepared by digitizing maps, by compiling information onto a planimetric correct base and digitizing, or by revising digitized maps using remotely sensed and other information. This data set consists of georeferenced digital map data and computerized attribute data. The map data are in a soil survey area extent format and include a detailed, field verified inventory of soils and miscellaneous areas that normally occur in a repeatable pattern on the landscape and that can be cartographically shown at the scale mapped. A special soil features layer (point and line features) is optional. This layer displays the location of features too small to delineate at the mapping scale, but they are large enough and contrasting enough to significantly influence use and management. The soil map units are linked to attributes in the National Soil Information System relational database, which gives the proportionate extent of the component soils and their properties.The Columbia County Planning Department has included a limited number of attributes with this dataset in order to make a more manageable layer.

The Matrix Forest Blocks provided here were developed in partnership between the New York Natural Heritage Program and The Nature Conservancy. The Linkages and Linkage zones were developed by the New York Natural Heritage program. Please see the metadata for each individual layer for more information.These matrix occurrences represent the viable matrix forest occurrences in the TNC eastern region as of 6/23/2006. Tier 1 occurrences are the portfolio matrix occurrences. They represent the best examples of viable matrix forest and encompass at least 1 representative of each matrix Ecological Land Unit (ELU) group. Tier 2 occurrences are also viable matrix occurrences, but are not needed to meet representation goals for the portfolio. Tier 2 occurrences represent the alternate portfolio. Matrix occurrences are bounded by fragmenting features such as roads, railroads, major utility lines, and major shorelines. The bounding block feature types were chosen due to their ecological impact on biodiversity in terms of fragmentation, dispersion, edge-effects, and invasion of alien species.

This layer delineates both ancient and recently reforested non-tidal, non-swamp floodplain forests of Columbia County, NY.The features identified as ancient include all the areas that were forests in the 1940s (according to B&W aerial photographs available as paper copies at the Columbia County Soil and Water Conservation District, digitized and geo-referrenced by the Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program) as well as in 2004 (according to the ortho-photo), located on non-tidal alluvial soils (classified as Ln, Lo, Om, Ce and Fn by the Columbia County Soil Survey of 1989), and did not clearly carry the signature of swamp forest on the aerial photos.The features identified as recently reforested include all the areas that were forested on the 2004 ortophotos, located on non-tidal alluvial soils (classified as Ln, Om, Ce, and Fn by the Columbia County Soil Survey, 1989), did not clearly carry the signature of swamp forest in the aerial photos, and were not forested in the 1940s (according to B&W aerial photos available as paper copies at the Columbia County Soil and Water Conservation District, digitized and geo-referrenced by the Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program).https://www.hvfarmscape.org