Dataset

California Natural Diversity Database (CNDDB)

Commons Hosting
Climate Commons Hosting Status: 
Not applicable
Basic Information

The California Natural Diversity Database (CNDDB) is a program that inventories the status and locations of rare plants and animals in California . CNDDB staff work with partners to maintain current lists of rare species as well as maintain an ever-growing database of GIS-mapped locations for these species. The CNDDB is a "natural heritage program" and is part of a nationwide network of similar programs overseen by NatureServe (formerly part of The Nature Conservancy). All natural heritage programs provide location and natural history information on special status plants, animals, and natural communities to the public, other agencies, and conservation organizations. The data help drive conservation decisions, aid in the environmental review of projects and land use changes, and provide baseline data helpful in recovering endangered species and for research projects. The goal of the CNDDB is to provide the most current information available on the state's most imperiled elements of natural diversity and to provide tools to analyze these data.The CNDDB concentrates its work on areas with active NCCP/HCPs, and high priority areas identified by CDFW and other biologists.

Disclaimer: 
CNDDB is a positive detection database. Records in the database exist only where species were detected. This means there is a bias in the database towards locations that have had more development pressures, and thus more survey work. Places that are empty or have limited information in the database often signify that little survey work has been done there. One cannot imply that there is less diversity in these places due to lack of information. CNDDB is not a public dataset, and should not be included on maps that will be made public in reports or other documents.
Creator: 
California Department of Fish and Wildlife
Publisher: 
California Department of Fish and Wildlife
Subjects:
Collection:
Data Type:
URL: 
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/biogeodata/cnddb/