Description: The Bunched Arrowhead Potential Habitat dataset is a polygon layer depicting high and low potential habitat locations for Bunched Arrowhead in NC counties that have a USFWS "current" status listing. This model identifies all year-round potential suitable habitat for the species. Bunched arrowhead (BA) (Sagittaria fasciculata), endemic to the southern Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina and upper Piedmont of South Carolina, is rooted in shallow water seepage areas of bogs, wooded swamps, and deciduous woodlands. This early-successional perennial herb occurs in Swamp Forest-Bog Complex (Typic Subtype) and Southern Appalachian Bog (Southern Subtype) natural communities. A known occurrence also occurs in a maintained power line right-of-way along the headwaters of a river. The plant requires a slight but continuous and steady flow of cool, clean water that saturates or floods but does not stagnate. The species typically occurs in sandy loam soils found underneath a 10-24 inch layer of muck, sand, and silt. Undisturbed occurrences are usually located just below the origin of the seep on gently sloping terrain at the, bluff-floodplain ecotone. While shaded areas contain the most vigorous plants, it will also grow in either full sun or partial shade beneath red maple, black gum, and alder at the base of steep slopes.Occupied habitat consists of muck-filled seep areas on alluvial floodplains with a few exceptions on small sand bars in streams. Many North Carolina populations typically occur in highly degraded habitats representing ditched and channelized remnants of former wetland/stream systems.Eight element occurrences (EO’s) (7 current and 1 historic) are listed in North Carolina per Natural Heritage (July 2018). Landcover communities associated with these populations include forested/shrub bogs and field/pastures.County Information-FWS current listed counties: Henderson (Buncombe is historic)For more information please click here https://xfer.services.ncdot.gov/gisdot/Metadata/Atlas/TechDocs/Datasets developed under Project ATLAS do not replace any NRTR work for future projects and may not be used as a replacement for site visits / field surveys by qualified professionals and hence should be used only as a supporting platform for decision making. Use of this dataset for project scoping or screening is merely pre-decisional.
Copyright Text: The Environmental Analysis Unit (EAU) Mitigation and Modeling Unit within NCDOT was tasked to create this dataset. This dataset supports the production of the Natural Resources Technical Report (NRTR). Annual maintenance of this dataset is handled by the EAU.
Support and maintenance of the enterprise spatial database where this data resides is handled by NCDIT's Transportation GIS Unit.