Habitat Maps for the Cache Creek Settling Basin, Yolo County, California

The geospatial data presented here as ArcGIS layers denote landcover/landuse classifications to support field sampling efforts that occurred within the Cache Creek Settling Basin (CCSB) from 2010-2017. Manual photointerpretation of a National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) dataset collected in 2012 was used to characterize landcover/landuse categories (hereafter habitat classes). Initially 9 categories were assigned based on vegetation structure (Vegtype1). These were then parsed into two levels of habitat classes that were chosen for their representativeness and use for statistical analyses of field sampling. At the coarsest level (Landcover 1), five habitat classes were assigned: Agriculture, Riparian, Floodplain, Open Water, and Road. At the more refined level (Landcover 2), ten habitat classes were nested within these five categories. Agriculture was not further refined within Landcover 2, as little consistency was expected between years as fields rotated between corn, pumpkin, tomatoes, and other row crops. Riparian habitat, marked by large canopy trees (such as Populus fremontii (cottonwood)) neighboring stream channels, also was not further refined. Floodplain habitat was separated into two categories: Mixed NonWoody (which included both Mowed and Barren habitats) and Mixed Woody. This separation of the floodplain habitat class (Landcover1) into Woody and NonWoody was performed with a 100 m2 moving window analysis in ArcGIS, where habitats were designated as either ≥50% shrub or tree cover (Woody) or <50%, and thus dominated by herbaceous vegetation cover (NonWoody). Open Water habitat was refined to consider both agricultural Canal (created) and Stream (natural) habitats. Road habitat was refined to separate Levee Roads (which included both the drivable portion and the apron on either side) and Interior roads, which were less managed.
The map was tested for errors of omission and commission on the initial 9 categories during November 2014. Random points (n=100) were predetermined, and a total of 80 were selected for field verification. Type 1 (false positive) and Type 2 (false negative) errors were assessed. The survey indicated several corrections necessary in the final version of the map.
1) We noted the presence of woody species in “NonWoody” habitats, especially Baccharus salicilifolia (mulefat). Habitats were thus classified as “Woody” only with ≥50% presence of canopy species (e.g. tamarisk, black willow)
2) Riparian sites were over-characterized, and thus constrained back to “near stream channels only”. Walnut (Juglans spp) and willow stands alongside fields and irrigation canals were changed to Mixed Woody Floodplain.
Fine tuning the final habitat distributions was thus based on field reconnaissance, scalar needs for classifying field data (sediment, water, bird, and fish collections), and validation of data categories using species observations from scientist field notes. Calibration was made using point data from the random survey and scientist field notes, to remove all sources of error and reach accuracy of 100%.
The coverage “CCSB_Habitat_2012” is provided as an ARCGIS shapefile based on a suite of 7 interconnected ARCGIS files coded with the suffixes: cpg, dbf, sbn, sbx, shp, shx, and prj. Each file provides a component of the coverage (such as database or projection) and all files are necessary to open the “CCSB_Habitat_2012.shp” file with full functionality.