This data set shows the municipal boundaries for incorporated cities in Whatcom County, Washington. The boundaries are maintained by Whatcom County, includes current annexations, and are aligned with county parcel boundaries.

The GIS data contains Whatcom County, Washington Agricultural land cover analysis and land cover shapes.

This resource is a subset of the LNWB Ch05 Land Cover Collection Resource.

Abstract: Dataset consists of a polygon coverage repesenting eight intertidal vegetation types, classified according to Nearshore Habitat Program's vegetation mapping procedures. Dataset was generalized from a more detailed raster dataset. Includes information on vegetation type, location and areal extent. Purpose: To provide resource managers, planners and other decision-makers with information about intertidal vegetation. The data were collected as part of the Nearshore Habitat Program's mandate to map the abundance and distribution of nearshore habitats in the Puget Sound for the Puget Sound Ambient Monitoring Program (PSAMP). Supplemental_Information: (1) Washington State is divided into two State Plane zones, north and south. The data set's coordinate values are reported in Washington State Plane south. (2) Imagery was acquired during periods of maximum intertidal exposure (0 -- mean lower low water or below in most areas), and times when sun angle would reduce sun glint. (3) This dataset was generalized from the raster Intertidal Vegetation Inventory 1995. The purpose of generalization was to provide a vector-based version of the dataset with a manageable file size. (4) For overview of source dataset see metadata for Intertidal Vegetation Inventory 1995, Whatcom County Area, Washington. (5) Detailed documentation of methods used to create the nearshore vegetation data set can be found in Berry & Ritter (1997). Revisions 1.0.0 References_Cited Berry, H.D. and R.A. Ritter. 1997. Puget Sound Intertidal Habitat Inventory 1995: Vegetation and Shoreline Characteristics Classification Methods. Washington State Department of Natural Resources, Aquatic Resources Division. Borstad, G. (1996). The Nearshore Habitat Inventory Project Task 7: Project Summary Memorandum. Unpublished report prepared by Borstad Associates Ltd. for Washington State Department of Natural Resources, Aquatic Resources Division, Olympia, WA-USA. The Intertidal Vegetation Inventory attribute codes can be related to classification categories using the separate IVEG_CD table (available from the distributer of this data in dbf format). The following fields are included: IVEG_NAME: description of vegetation type VALUE: numeric code identifying vegetation type classification GRID-CODE: numeric code field created by ARC/INFO identifying vegetation type classification (same as VALUE attribute) IVEG_CD: three letter code identifying vegetation type classification.

This layer is sourced from maritimeboundaries.noaa.gov.

The ENC_Coastal map service displays ENC data within the scale range of 1:150,001 and 1:600,000. The ENC data will be updated weekly. This map service is not intended for navigation purpose.

Overview: Land cover mapping represents the coverage of vegetation, bare, wet and built surfaces (developed and natural surfaces) at a given point in time. The existing land cover map was developed by Whatcom County Planning and Development Services (PDS) during spring of 2012 for the Lower Nooksack Water Budget. The dataset represents ground conditions between 2006 and 2010. The project team created the existing condition land cover dataset by combining local and regional datasets to get the most accurate and current data for the U.S. and Canadian portions of WRIA 1. The development of the existing land cover map includes 14 land cover categories; each has a unique impact on the water balance. The agricultural land cover class was further classified into crop types.

Land cover and crop types influence evapotranspiration and infiltration, playing an important role in determining the watershed’s water balance. Land cover data provides information used to parameterize the water movement through the vegetation canopy and water demand of plant evapotranspiration in the estimation of the water budget by the hydrology model.

Land cover changes over time, as exemplified by comparing the existing and historic land cover data in WRIA 1, displayed in Figure 1 and Figure 2. Historic land cover mapping developed by Utah State University (Winkelaar, 2004) as part of the WRIA 1 Watershed Management Project was used to represent land cover/land use for the undepleted flow simulations. This work was done using a suite of studies and ancillary datasets, including turn of the century GLO maps and NRCS soils data. Methods and sources more thoroughly described in Mapping Methodology and Data Sources for Historic Conditions Landuse/ Landcover Within Water Resource Inventory Area 1 (WRIA1) Washington, U.S.A. The historic land cover map includes 10 land cover classes.

Purpose: Within the Topnet-WM hydrologic model used to estimate the Lower Nooksack Water Budget, the local land cover type is used to parameterize the water movement through the vegetation canopy and water demand for plant evapotranspiration, as described in detail in Chapter 2: Water Budget Model. Water input to the canopy comes from rainfall, snowmelt, and irrigation. The process of some water retention by the canopy is known as interception. Potential evapotranspiration is first satisfied from the canopy interception storage. Water that passes through the canopy to the soil becomes input to the vadose zone soil storage. The vadose zone is the unsaturated soil region above the water table. Potential evapotranspiration not satisfied from the interception storage becomes potential evapotranspiration from the vadose zone soil storage. The model calculates crop evapotranspiration using the Penman-Monteith method. Irrigation requirements are calculated using potential crop evapotranspiration and irrigation efficiency. Land cover mapping also identifies impervious surfaces where water directly runs off, as well as lakes and wetlands where water is stored and evaporates.

This resource is a subset of the Lower Nooksack Water Budget (LNWB) Collection Resource.

We assessed habitat suitability for salmonids across selected tributaries upstream from three hydroelectric dams on the upper Skagit River in Whatcom County, northern Washington. We used NetMap, a commercial toolset within the ArcMap geographic information system (GIS), to analyze stream attributes based upon a synthetic stream channel network derived from digital elevation models. The GIS-derived stream attributes—including gradient, bankfull width, valley width index, elevation, and stream flow—allowed us to examine the spatial distribution and relative quality of spawning and rearing habitat for salmonids based on existing intrinsic potential (IP) models. As a first step, we created maps of potential anadromous fish distribution by identifying potential migration barriers within the synthetic stream network. Next, we applied a suite of existing IP models for steelhead, Coho, and Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus mykiss, O. kisutch, and O. tshawytscha, respectively) to estimate low, ...