Merced County Important Farmland
Metadata also available as
Metadata:
- Identification_Information:
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- Citation:
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- Citation_Information:
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- Originator:
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California Department of Conservation, Division of Land Resource Protection, Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program
- Publication_Date: Even numbered years, starting in 1984.
- Title: Merced County Important Farmland
- Geospatial_Data_Presentation_Form: vector digital data
- Description:
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- Abstract:
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Established in 1982, Government Code Section 65570 mandates FMMP to biennially report on the conversion of farmland and grazing land, and to provide maps and data to local government and the public.
- Purpose:
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The Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program (FMMP) provides data to decision makers for use in planning for the present and future use of California's agricultural land resources. The data is a current inventory of agricultural resources. This data is for general planning purposes and has a minimum mapping unit of ten acres.
- Time_Period_of_Content:
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- Time_Period_Information:
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- Single_Date/Time:
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- Calendar_Date:
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Even numbered years, starting in 1984. The eastern half of Merced County has been mapped since 1984, and the western portion of the county was added in 1992 upon completion o the NRCS soil survey for that area (CA647).
- Currentness_Reference: ground condition
- Status:
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- Progress: In work
- Maintenance_and_Update_Frequency: Biennial
- Spatial_Domain:
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- Bounding_Coordinates:
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- West_Bounding_Coordinate: -121.256513
- East_Bounding_Coordinate: -120.051179
- North_Bounding_Coordinate: 37.634189
- South_Bounding_Coordinate: 36.737511
- Keywords:
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- Theme:
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- Theme_Keyword_Thesaurus: None
- Theme_Keyword: Farmland
- Theme_Keyword: California Farmland
- Theme_Keyword: Farmland Monitoring
- Theme_Keyword: Urbanization
- Theme_Keyword: Land Use
- Theme_Keyword: Agriculture
- Theme_Keyword: Conservation
- Theme_Keyword: Prime Farmland
- Theme_Keyword: FMMP
- Theme_Keyword: Important Farmland
- Theme_Keyword: Merced
- Place:
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- Place_Keyword: San Joaquin Valley
- Place_Keyword: Merced
- Access_Constraints: None
- Use_Constraints:
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This data does not reflect general plan or zoning designations, city limit lines, changing economic or market conditions, or other factors which may be taken into consideration when land use policies are determined. This data is not designed to be used for parcel specific planning purposes due to its scale and the size of the minimum mapping unit (10 acres). The Department of Conservation makes no warranties as to the suitability of this data for any particular purpose.
- Point_of_Contact:
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- Contact_Information:
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- Contact_Organization_Primary:
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- Contact_Organization:
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California Department of Conservation, Division of Land Resource Protection, Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program
- Contact_Position: Staff
- Contact_Address:
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- Address_Type: mailing and physical address
- Address: 801 K Street MS 14-15
- City: Sacramento
- State_or_Province: California
- Postal_Code: 95814-3528
- Country: USA
- Contact_Voice_Telephone: 916-324-0850
- Contact_Facsimile_Telephone: 916-327-3430
- Contact_Electronic_Mail_Address: fmmp@conservation.ca.gov
- Hours_of_Service: 8am to 5pm PST
- Data_Set_Credit:
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A citation for the Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program on any map products, graphic media, or data analyses based on the data is appreciated.
- Native_Data_Set_Environment:
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Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro; ESRI ArcCatalog 10.4.1
- Data_Quality_Information:
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- Logical_Consistency_Report:
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The Important Farmland survey area is based on Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) modern soil surveys covering most non-governmental lands in California; 49 counties are fully or partially surveyed at this time. Soil surveys specific to National Forests or other government land units are not surveyed. Beginning in 2002, SSURGO digital soil information was incorporated into the Merced County Important Farmland data and the 2016 data began to incorporate the new NRCS Gridded Soil Survey (gSSURGO). Data subsequent to 2002 may have acreage and soil line differences due to incorporation of newer NRCS-SSURGO or gSSURGO editions.
Prior to the availability of SSURGO or gSSURGO, soil information was hand-transferred from the paper soil surveys. Older versions of the data have not been modified. The land use minimum mapping unit of ten acres has not changed, but digital soil units of less than one acre occur in the gSSURGO-enhanced Important Farmland data. The data between 2002 and 2014 incorporates SSURGO and the interaction of land use and soil components resulted in units of less than ten acres for categories such as Other Land (or Nonagricultural and Natural Vegetation). The 2016 data incorporates gSSURGO and will no longer merge resulting polygons less than one acre for any map category. For more information on gSSURGO, contact the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service: <https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/survey/geo/?cid=nrcs142p2_053628>
County boundaries for the 2016 Important Farmland Series are from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's Fire and Resource Assesment Program (FRAP) 2009 version of California Counties GIS data. <http://frap.fire.ca.gov/data/frapgisdata-sw-counties_download>
Total Area Inventoried changed in 2008 due to a legal boundary change in which land was transferred from Fresno to Merced counties. This change, a net increase of 4,198 acres, was effective January 2008.
- Completeness_Report:
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CA647 (Western part of Merced County); CA648 (Merced area); CA653 (Western part of Fresno County)
- Lineage:
- Spatial_Data_Organization_Information:
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- Direct_Spatial_Reference_Method: Vector
- Point_and_Vector_Object_Information:
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- SDTS_Terms_Description:
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- SDTS_Point_and_Vector_Object_Type: G-polygon
- Point_and_Vector_Object_Count: Varies by Year
- Spatial_Reference_Information:
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- Horizontal_Coordinate_System_Definition:
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- Planar:
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- Map_Projection:
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- Map_Projection_Name: Albers Conical Equal Area
- Albers_Conical_Equal_Area:
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- Standard_Parallel: 34.000000
- Standard_Parallel: 40.500000
- Longitude_of_Central_Meridian: -120.000000
- Latitude_of_Projection_Origin: 0.000000
- False_Easting: 0.000000
- False_Northing: -4000000.000000
- Planar_Coordinate_Information:
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- Planar_Coordinate_Encoding_Method: coordinate pair
- Coordinate_Representation:
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- Abscissa_Resolution: 0.000256
- Ordinate_Resolution: 0.000256
- Planar_Distance_Units: meters
- Geodetic_Model:
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- Update years 1984 to 2012
- Horizontal_Datum_Name: North American Datum of 1927
- Ellipsoid_Name: Clarke 1866
- Semi-major_Axis: 6378206.400000
- Denominator_of_Flattening_Ratio: 294.978698
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- Update years 2014 and beyond
- Horizontal_Datum_Name: North American Datum of 1983
- Ellipsoid_Name: GRS 1980
- Semi-major_Axis: 6378137.000000
- Denominator_of_Flattening_Ratio:
298.257222