Significant Biodiversity Areas

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) Hudson River Estuary Program worked with the New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Cornell University and the NY Natural Heritage Program to develop Significant Biodiversity Areas (SBAs) for the Hudson River estuary region of New York State. SBAs are landscape areas with a high concentration of biological diversity or value for regional biodiversity. As a set, the 22 areas account for much of the range in biodiversity found in the region, but should not be interpreted as the only important areas within the region. The SBAs were first described and published in Penhollow et al. (2006) (available online: http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/5096.html). SBAs are defined by unique topography, geology, hydrology, and biology that distinguish them from neighboring areas. Biologists analyzed existing data provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS 1997), New York Natural Heritage Program (Finton et al. 1999, Finton et al. 2000, Howard et al. 2002), the National Audubon Society (Wells 1998), and the New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit (Smith et al. 2001) to determine the general locations of significant ecological features. The areas were then further inventoried and the boundaries refined following two years of field survey by the NY Natural Heritage Program (Howard et al. 2002).