Estuarine Inventory of New Jersey

This data was created to visualize the relative distribution of hard clams, other commercially and recreationally important bivalve species, and submerged aquatic vegetation collected during the Estuarine Inventory. This data serves to help the reader determine if regulatory procedures outlined in the Coastal Zone Management Rule on Shellfish Habitat at N.J.A.C. 7:7-9.2 or the shellfish leasing rules (Leasing of Atlantic Coast Bottom for Aquaculture) found at N.J.A.C. 7:25-24 are applicable to a proposed project or activity. This data is also useful in shellfish enhancement, aquaculture development planning, and design of coastal and waterfront development projects. These data also serve to help the reader determine if the Coastal Zone Management Rule on Submerged Vegetation Habitat at N.J.A.C. 7:7-9.6 is applicable to a proposed waterfront development project. If the proposed project falls within a 1,000ft buffer, and no other data is available to help determine the history of SAV colonization, applicants should contact the DLRP/MRA for further guidance on conducting an SAV survey. In areas with two or more years of SAV data history, the entire data history should be used to understand potential impacts to habitat. This instruction also applies to polygons in data rich estuaries but that which do not have a strong history for that particular location. This data is also useful in shellfish enhancement planning and aquaculture leasing decisions. This spatial and temporal distribution chart documents where resources were observed, thereby indicating suitable habitat for natural recruitment. This does not exclude the possibility of finding resources in additional locations at another point in time, nor of finding changes in species composition or resource abundance in the same location at different times. The absence of an observed resource at one point in time does not necessarily indicate that habitat is unsuitable. In areas labeled “no data,” please contact the Marine Resources Administration (MRA) as they may have information on the area that was collected during different surveys or is not yet published. Since the sampling gear is designed to target hard clams, ancillary data is not designed to estimate the standing stock of the other bivalve species. Standing stock information for other species may be available in separate data sets or in the future.