This dataset is a component of a complete package of products from the Connect the Connecticut project. Connect the Connecticut is a collaborative effort to identify shared priorities for conserving the Connecticut River Watershed for future generations, considering the value of fish and wildlife species and the natural ecosystems they inhabit. Click here to download the full data package, including all documentation.

This dataset represents the weighted index of ecological integrity (IEI), which is a measure of relative intactness (i.e., freedom from human modifications and disturbance) and resiliency to environmental change (e.g., as caused by disturbance and climate change). Raw IEI is a composite index derived from 19 different landscape metrics that measure different aspects of intactness and resiliency. For the derivation of this layer, raw IEI is (quantile) scaled by ecological system and HUC6 watershed so that the poorest cell of each ecological system gets a 0 and the best gets a 1 within each watershed. In the layer provided here, scaled IEI has been modified to reflect weights assigned to each ecological system by the planning team, such that the final index gives more emphasis to certain terrestrial and wetland ecological systems deemed more vulnerable or in greater need of conservation (e.g., wetlands, alpine, boreal upland forest). Note that weights were not applied to aquatic systems. Thus, Aquatic Index of Ecological Integrity, which is provided for convenience in displaying the results of the aquatic conservation design but is otherwise equivalent to IEI except that it only has values for aquatic cells (all non-aquatic cells are set to nodata), is technically unweighted IEI. Weighted IEI is a major component of the terrestrial and aquatic core area selection indices and thus the terrestrial and aquatic network of core areas.