US Ecological Land Units - Caspian Cover

This layer is a component of Global Ecological Land Units.

This map service contains the global ecological land unit (ELUs) data, produced from a partnership between USGS and Esri to represent an ecophysiographic classification of the Earth’s surface based on the geographic coincidence of climate, landforms, geology, and land cover. The input data (bioclimate region, landform type, surficial lithology, and land cover) were combined into a single 250 meter raster layer, called the Ecological Facets (EFs), which resulted in 106,959 unique combinations. These EFs represent the finest spatial resolution, globally comprehensive biophysical stratification yet attempted, and a detailed geospatial delineation of unique physical environments and their associated land cover. But although very rich in detail, the large number of EFs precluded meaningful cartographic display, therefore a separate generalized product termed Ecological Land Units was aggregated from the EFs by generalizing the number of input attribute classes down to 3,639 global ELUs. Additional information and access to this data is available at rmgsc.cr.usgs.gov/ecosystems/.

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