Weighted index of ecological integrity

The index of ecological integrity (IEI) is a measure of relative intactness and resiliency of ecosystems to environmental change. By intactness, we mean freedom from human modifications and human-induced disturbance. By resiliency, we mean ability to remain intact and high quality despite the impacts of human development, disturbances and climate change. It is a composite index based on 19 different measures of landscape intactness and resiliency.

Scale is important. For this project, IEI was rescaled to each ecological system, and by HUC6 watershed. In addition, certain terrestrial and ecological systems thought to be more vulnerable or in need of conservation were more highly weighted (e.g. wetlands, alpine systems, boreal upland forest). Consequently, this is a weighted and rescaled version of the IEI layer available at the regional scale.

View this product as a web map on Data Basin.

Access this data as a GIS download from the North Atlantic LCC website.

Read the Technical Abstract for this data layer (iei.tif).