FINAL REPORT

Map of the Ecosystems of Central America, Volume I 1,220 KB 

Mapa de los Ecosistemas de América Central, Volúmeno I

Map of the Ecosystems of Central America, Volume II, English

Map of the Ecosystems of Central America, Volume II, Spanish

The map report should be cited as: Vreugdenhil, D., J. Meerman, A. Meyrat, L. Diego Gómez, and D. J. Graham. 2002. Map of the Ecosystems of Central America: Final Report. World Bank, Washington, D.C.

Fishes are good indicators for aquatic ecosystems, so we made a distribution table for fresh water and estuarine fishes of Central America.

NATIONAL REPORTS

No digital reports are available for Costa Rica and Panama

GIS FILES

The regional geographical information system may be cited as: World Bank and CCAD. 2000. "Ecosystems of Central America (Arcview map files at 1:250,000)." World Bank, Comisión Centroamerica de Ambiente y Desarrollo (CCAD), World Institute for Conservation and Environment (WICE), and the Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CIAT), Washington, D.C. (http://www.worldbank.org/ca-env).

PRINTABLE MAP SHEETS

The region is divided into 26X36 inch map sheets that can be downloaded for printing from a 36 inch plotter, or in small parts from a regular printer. To reproduce the set of 1:250,000 maps sheets, use Micrososft Powerpoint (also possible in Corel Presentations).

1. Open a blank project, with a blank page.
2. In Files | Configure page, define the page size as 36 inches wide by 26 inches high.
3. Import the .wmf image as a file
4. Stretch the .wmf image corners to the corners of the defined page.
5. Print to a plotter with a 36 inch paper width.

La región está dividida en hojas de mapas escala 1:250,000 para impresión con un plotter de 36 pulgadas. El uso de una impresora de papel de escritorio también es posible pero requiere que pegue las hojas. Use Microsoft Powerpoint (También posible en Corel Presentations)

1. Abre un proyecto blanco con una pagina blanca.
2. En Archivos / Configurar pagina, defina la pagina en 36 pulgadas de ancho y 26 de altura.
3. Importe el archivo tipo .wmf 
4. Extienda el imagen hacia las esquinas de la pagina definida
5. Imprima con una impresora de 36 pulgadas.

We provide two maps with hyperlinks to each individual map sheet. The first map links to previews of each map sheet.  These are specially prepared efficient images that upload quickly, even on a telephone internet connection. We also provide a preview for the entire region. This specially treated page allows you to see a clear map of the entire region with a clearly readable text, uploaded from a regular phone line. The Mesoamerican Biological Corridor Map Server (Ecosystem maps,
potential biological corridors, elevation, PAs, roads, etc.) shows a somewhat simplified version of the map on-line on the web. It allows searches and recombination with other mapping themes.

In the second map, a click on the desired map sheet will download the zipped file.  The file sizes vary from 150 - 450 KB and should be downloadable from a telephone connection. 

Following the linked maps we provide zip file with a set of maps for each country.  At the end of that list is a link to the file that prints an overview of the entire map at a scale of approximately 1:2,800,000.. Those files are considerably bigger and it may be problematic to download those from a phone connection.

By clicking on the desired map sheet, this map allows you to download the zipped map sheets printable at 1:250,000.

PRINTABLE MAPS BY COUNTRY SETS:

METADATA FILES

A set of metadata files has been prepare under the courteous guidance of Eric Van Praag of the USGS EROS Data Center to meet the standards of the USGS.

To download the metadata click down below. For reach country there is a zipped set in several formats. The regional map contains a set for all the countries as well as for the region in one zip file.

Metadata Regional map in htm

IMAGE MOSAICS

The database facilitates efficient characterisation of any ecosystem type, terrestrial or aquatic anywhere on earth.  Further, the database has been designed to store data relevant for monitoring the state of conservation of management areas as well as general environmental monitoring purposes, while the design allows expansion for almost any data set as required by the user. Although the objective was to link field observations to the Central America Ecosystems Map, it has been designed to function with ecosystem maps anywhere on earth. To this purpose, experienced biologists from a variety of regions of the world has been consulted. This way from the onset the database has been designed so that other countries can benefit from this invaluable experience in Central America. The use of the database and accompanying documentation are independent of the method applied.  It works well with the Braun-Blanquet system (Braun Blaquet 1921[4]), the UNESCO system, the USNVC (Grossman et al. 1998[5]) system the FAO/UNEP (di Gregorio and Jansen, 2000[6]) Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) and quantitative data registration methods of other ecological schools of thought. Additional parameters can be added according to the needs of individual user.

Ecosystems and Protected Areas Monitoring Database, English

Ecosystems and Protected Areas Monitoring Database, Spanish

Manual

The documentation is provided in different formants to serve you best, both in English and in Spanish. For printing we recommend that you use .pdf files, which are stable for any printer. If you like to customize documents with your own comments and formatting, you need to download the .doc files.

The objective of the manual is to provide ecological principles and methods for systematic data collection in the field in such a way that they can be stored in the Ecosystems Protected Areas Monitoring Database, and serve as a manual on the use of the database. For thorough understanding of the monitoring concepts, we recommand that you also download and read Comprehensive Protected Areas System Composition and Monitoring, which elaborates important considerations on why and how to monitor what.

Field Forms

The database contains a number of printable thematic field forms designed to match the database. No forms are needed for forms VIII - XI in the database.

The forms have been designed in such a way that they can be made at the two faces of a pages. We did this to avoid multiple pages, which particularly under field conditions can easily be mixes up. Such accident may make thausands of dollars worth of field work costs useless.

In addition to distinction in .pdf and .doc formats the field forms may be downloaded in a collective zip files or individually.

The pdf files are for stable printing and the .doc files for custom editing to your needs. By eliminating data that you don't need, you will have more space for taking notes.

We also made a a file with all the forms together, so that you can print them all at once.

For European users, the English files have also been prepared for A4 printing. 

.pdf format, letter size, English

.doc format, letter size, English

.doc format, A4, English

.doc format, A4, English

.pdf format, letter size, Spanish

.doc format, letter size, Spanish

Glosario de Términos de Biodiversidad

Kappelle, M. 2004. Diccionario de la Biodiversidad. Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio) & Cooperación Española (AECI). Including 5,739 terms. INBio Press, Santo Domingo de Heredia. Available at: www.inbio.ac.cr/biodiccionario/ Es un dictionario de casi 6000 términos en línea escrito por Dr. Maarten Kappelle (2004) con financiamiento de la Cooperación Español y publicado en línea por INBio de Costa Rica. (Spanish only). Hicímos un archivo en formato xls para uso off-line: Glosario de términos 

Forestry measurements by Cris Brack of the Australian National University. Updates are available from: http://sres-associated.anu.edu.au/mensuration/index.htm