General information

Provisional. A provisional ecological site description has undergone quality control and quality assurance review. It contains a working state and transition model and enough information to identify the ecological site.

MLRA notes

Major Land Resource Area (MLRA): 133A–Southern Coastal Plain

This MLRA (shown in orange in the figure above) is in Alabama (26 percent), Mississippi (24 percent), Georgia (21 percent), Florida (8 percent), North Carolina (7 percent), Virginia (5 percent), South Carolina (4 percent), Tennessee (4 percent), and Louisiana (1 percent). It makes up about 106,485 square miles (275,930 square kilometers). It is the largest MLRA in the U.S. The city of Alexandria, Virginia, is at the northernmost tip of the area. The MLRA also includes Fredericksburg, Richmond, and Petersburg, Virginia; Rocky Mount, Goldsboro, Fayetteville, and Lumberton, North Carolina; Florence, Sumter, and Orangeburg, South Carolina; Albany and Tifton, Georgia; Tallahassee, Florida; Tuskegee, Eufaula, Selma, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Savannah, Tennessee; Corinth, Starkville, Grenada, Meridian, Hattiesburg, and McComb, Mississippi; and Bogalusa, Louisiana. Interstates 95, 64, 85, 40, 20, 20/59, 26, 16, 75, 10, 65, 59, and 55 cross this area from north to south. This area extends from Virginia to Louisiana and Mississippi, but it is almost entirely within three sections of the Coastal Plain Province of the Atlantic Plain. The northern part is in the Embayed Section, the middle part is in the Sea Island Section, and the southern part is in the East Gulf Coastal Plain Section. This MLRA is strongly dissected into nearly level and gently undulating valleys and gently sloping to steep uplands. Stream valleys generally are narrow in their upper reaches but become broad and have widely meandering stream channels as they approach the coast. Elevation ranges from 80 to 655 feet (25 to 200 meters), increasing gradually from the lower Coastal Plain northward. Local relief is mainly 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 meters), but it is 80 to 165 feet (25 to 50 meters) in some of the more deeply dissected areas.

Classification relationships

ATTENTION: This ecological site meets the requirements for PROVISIONAL. A provisional ecological site is established after ecological site concepts are developed and an initial state-and-transition model is drafted. A provisional ecological site typically will include literature reviews, land use history information, legacy data, and must include some soils data, ocular estimates for canopy and/or species composition by weight, and some line-point intercept information. A provisional ecological site provides the conceptual framework of soil-site correlation for the development of the ESD. For more information about this ecological site, please contact your local NRCS office.

Ecological site concept

This upland system of the Atlantic Coastal Plain ranges from southern New Jersey south to Georgia in a variety of moist
but non-wetland sites that are naturally sheltered from frequent fire. Such sites include lower slopes and bluffs along streams and
rivers in dissected terrain, mesic flats between drier pine-dominated uplands and floodplains, and local topographic high areas within
bottomland terraces or nonriverine wet flats. Soil textures are variable in both texture and pH. The vegetation consists of forests
dominated by combinations of trees that include a significant component of mesophytic deciduous hardwood species, such as Fagus
grandifolia or Acer barbatum. Its southern limit is generally exclusive of the natural range of Pinus glabra as mapped by Kossuth and
Michael (1990) and Magnolia grandiflora as mapped by Outcalt (1990). Upland and bottomland oaks at the mid range of moisture
tolerance are usually also present, particularly Quercus alba, but sometimes also Quercus pagoda, Quercus falcata, Quercus
michauxii, Quercus shumardii, or Quercus nigra. Pinus taeda is sometimes present, but it is unclear if it is a natural component or has
entered only as a result of past cutting. Analogous systems on the Gulf Coastal Plain have pine as a natural component, and this may
be true for some examples of this system. Understories are usually well-developed. Shrub and herb layers may be sparse or moderately
dense. Within its range, Sabal minor may be a prominent shrub. Species richness may be fairly high in basic sites but is fairly low
otherwise.

Descriptions of Ecological Systems for
Modeling of LANDFIRE Biophysical Settings
Ecological Systems
06 October 2007
Descriptions provided to TNC and LANDFIRE by NatureServe

Table 1. Dominant plant species