The forms for the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains were not working correctly for users with Word 2003.  I've updated the template documents to make them compatible with Word 2003 now.

Users who went to http://wetlandforms.com instead of http://www.wetlandforms.com were experiencing problems accessing some of the data services.  I've reconfigured the site so that anyone going to wetlandforms.com automatically gets redirected to www.wetlandforms.com.  

Looks like I've got the autocomplete working again in Firefox 4!

As always, if you notice any bugs with WetlandForms.com, please email me at admin@WetlandForms.com, and I'll fix it as soon as I can.

It seems that the vegetation autocomplete isn't working with Firefox 4.0.1.  I haven't figured out what the problem is yet, but watch this space for updates if that is your browser of choice.  In the meantime, you could use Internet Explorere, Google Chrome, or Opera.

The FAC-Neutral test has now been automated.  This shows up as indicator D5 in the hydrology section.  Previously, users had to manually mark the Fac-neutral as true/false. 

The methodology for the FAC-neutral test is as follows (taken directly from the Eastern Piedmonts and Montains Regional Supplement):

The FAC-neutral test is performed by compiling a list of dominant plant species across all strata in the community, and dropping from the list any species with a Facultative indicator status (i.e., FAC, FAC–, and FAC+). The FAC-neutral test is met if more than 50 percent of the remaining dominant species are rated FACW and/or OBL (Figure 63). This indicator may also be used in communities that contain no FAC dominants. If there are an equal number of dominants that are OBL and FACW versus FACU and UPL, or if all dominants are FAC, non-dominant species should be considered.

I've put up a map showing the USDA's Major Land Resource Areas (MLRA), Land Resource Regions (LRR) and the COE regions.  The map is accesible to all users and the general public at http://wetlandforms.com/MLRAMap.aspx. 

A technical note abou the map...

Originally I was trying to create this map using Microsoft's Bing Map API and using ArcMap and Arc2Earth to create a tiled overlay to display the regions.  This was working great, but in order to show the entire country at a reasonable zoom level, I would have had to load over 250,000 tiles into a single subfolder on the server.  This is pretty difficult to do over FTP apparently, as FTP just does one file at a time.  It took about 8 hours to load the first 70,000 tiles and then after that, I ran into some persistent connection problems with the FTP.  I suspect that was because there were too many files in that one directory (even though they were all tiny files).  My attempt with Bing Map is here: http://wetlandforms.com/PublicMap.aspx.  It's a nice map, but since I couldn't load all the tiles, the overlay disappears when you zoom past a certain level.  I'll be deleting that whole thing soon, so if the link is dead, that's the reason.

Then I heard about a new product from Google - Fusion Tables.  This is a cloud based database system that supports geographic data and has some nice integration with Google Map's latest API.  I loaded my MLRA shapefile with Shape Escape and tried it out.  Adding the fusion table overlay is just a few lines of code and the results were impressive.  I don't know the technical details of how Google does this, but it looks like the server is rendering my layer on the fly, but doing so very quickly (especially fast for a free service).  The response time is better than what I've been able to do with ArcGIS Server or GeoServer.  It's not as full featured as a dedicated server product like GeoServer.  For instance, I can't find a way to label my polygons - so my users will have to click on the map to figure out what region they're looking at.  Maybe Google will add that feature in the future.

So anyways, the map is up, enjoy.  And Google is my personal hero once again.

We have upgraded the site to use the latest dataforms for the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain region - version 2.0, dated November 2010.  Any existing project in this region has been automatically converted to use the new 5 strata dataform, since the interim dataform had 5 strata.  When creating a new project, you can choose to use the 5 strata or 4 strata dataform.

Here are the changes I noticed in the new dataforms:

• Choice of 4 or 5 vegetation strata
• Sphagnum moss added as a secondary hydrology indicator
• 50% and 20% of total cover added for each stratum
• Rapid Test for Hydrophytic Vegetation added to Hydrophytic Vegetation Indicators

The Corps has posted version 2.0 of the regional supplement for the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain region, dated November 2010, complete with all new dataforms.  This version has an option for 4 or 5 plant strata, just like the Eastern Mountains and Piedmont region.  WetlandForms.com is not yet using this updated version - we currently have the interim version loaded, dated October 2008.

Here is a direct link to the regional supplement: Regional Supplement to the Corps of Engineers Wetland Delineation Manual: Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain Region (Version 2.0).

I haven't looked closely at the new dataforms to see if they are significantly different from the interim version.  Based on my experience with the other regions, I would expect very little change.  So hopefully we will have these new dataforms up and running in the next few days.

Update:  New form is working - click here for details.

I am currently working on some mapping capabilities for the website. I have several maps I want to create:

• A public map that shows the COE regions and subregions and allows users to query the latitude/longitude of a point.  This would be available to any user whether they are logged in or not.
• A private map that shows a user or company's datapoints (based on latitude/longitude).  This would be available only to a logged in user. I'll also add some filtering capabilities, like showing only the datapoints for a specified project, and the ability to select a datapoint and go directly to the editing page.
• A popup control that allows a user to place their datapoint on a map during the datapoint creation/editing process - so that users don't need to manually enter the latitude/longitude.  There will also be an option here to automatically fill in the COE region and subregion when they place the point.

The public map with the COE regions will be the first one up, and will be online before the end of the year if all goes well. 

Welcome to the official blog of WetlandForms.com.  Here we will be discussing our roadmap for future development and posting updates and new features for the main site.

Currently, the WetlandForms.com main site is fully operational, with the following features:

• Dataforms for every COE region
• Full 1988 plant database with indicators from COE
• Ability to add plants missing from database
• Completed dataforms downloadable in Microsoft Word *.doc format
• Choice of 4 or 5 plant strata in the Eastern Mountains and Piedmont region
• All dominance/prevalance tests are working properly