Virginia Ecosystems

ecoregion boundaries are used in analysis of Land Use Land Cover (LULC) trends
Source: US Geological Survey, Land Cover Trends Project

As defined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Virginia is part of the Eastern Temperate Forest. Unless the land is disturbed, the climate and soils allow a dense forest to form with 100' tall broadleaf deciduous trees and needle-leafed conifers.¹

Virginia's ecoregions, as defined in the Commission for Environmental Cooperation's North American Terrestrial Ecoregions (2021)
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

In Bailey's definition of ecoregions, Virginia includes the Outer Coastal Plain Mixed Province, Southern Mixed Forest Province, and the Central Appalachian Broadleaf Forest-Coniferous Forest-Meadow Province.²

Virginia includes three provinces within the ecoregions defined by Robert Bailey in 1995
Source: US Forest Service, Description of the Ecoregions of the United States

Links

• Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative
• Commission for Environmental Cooperation
• Ecological Regions of North America
• North American Environmental Atlas
• Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment
  • State of the Nation's Ecosystems
• National Park Service Cooperative Ecosystem Study Units
• Chesapeake Bay
• North Atlantic
• Southern Appalachian Mountains
• Natural Ecological Communities of Northern Virginia
• The Nature Conservancy
• Saving the Last Great Places in Virginia
• US Forest Service
  • Ecoregions
  • The Southern Appalachians: A History of the Landscape (US Forest Service)
• United States Geological Survey (USGS)
  • Endangered Ecosystems of the United States: A Preliminary Assessment of Loss and Degradation
• Virginia General Assembly: Report of the Commission Studying The Future of Virginia's Environment

Virginia ecoregions, as classified by the Environmental Protection Agency (Omernik)
Source: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), EnviroAtlas

References