Historical and Modern Baylands 1998 (EcoAtlas Version 1.50b4)
The Bay Area EcoAtlas is a computer-based Geographic Information System (GIS) of past and present local ecology in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. It was designed to support local and regional environmental planning and management. The EcoAtlas represents the integration of many kinds of information from numerous sources, to compile a picture of the environmental past, the present, and change. It provided the most detailed regional views of past and present ecological conditions that were available at the time of creation. It is also a spatial template to view possible scenarios for environmental management in the future, and a geographic index for spatially-related environmental data and their sources. The EcoAtlas was envisioned to be the "base map" for local and regional environmental planning and protection.
Last Updated:
Thursday, January 1, 1998
Type of Data:
GIS vector dataset
Programs and Focus Areas:
Environmental Informatics Program
Geographic Information Systems
Resilient Landscapes Program
Historical Ecology
Related Projects, News, and Events:

A recent story in the LA Times by Ron Lin underscores the newly identified threat that earthquakes pose to the San Francisco Bay waterfront. Under certain circumstances, the sea wall that currently protects the Embarcadero and its surrounding infrastructure could be dramatically compromised during a strong enough seismic event. The results could be capastrophic to a key driver of San Francisco's economy. And the fix to the vulnerability would be expensive at $3 billion.