A time geographic approach to delineating areas of sustained wildlife use

Geographic information systems (GIS) are widely used for mapping wildlife movement patterns, and observed wildlife locations are surrogates for inferring on wildlife movement and habitat selection. We present a new approach to mapping areas where wildlife exhibit sustained use, which we term slow movement areas (SMAs). Nested within the habitat selection concepts of home range and core areas, SMAs are an additional approach to identifying areas important for wildlife. Our method for delineating SMAs is demonstrated on a grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) case study examining road density. Our results showed that subadult females had significantly higher road densities within SMAs than in their potential path area home ranges. The lowest road density was found in the SMAs of adult male grizzly bears. Given increased mortality risks associated with roads, female encampment near roads may have negative conservation implications. The methods presented in this manuscript compliment recent developments to identify movement suspension and intensively exploited areas defined from wildlife telemetry data. SMA delineation is sensitive to missing data and best applied to telemetry data collected with a consistent resolution.PostprintPeer reviewe

The Rain Forests of Home: an Atlas of People and Place

pdf contains 31 page

Applied Remote Sensing Program (ARSP)

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Towards Integrated Environmental Management: A Reconnaissance of State Statutes

15 p. ; 28 cmhttps://scholar.law.colorado.edu/books_reports_studies/1060/thumbnail.jp

Modeling Marine Protected Areas for Threatened Eiders in a Climatically Changing Bering Sea

Delineating protected areas for sensitive species is a growing challenge as changing climate alters the geographic pattern of habitats as well as human responses to those shifts. When human impacts are expected within projected ranges of threatened species, there is often demand to demarcate the minimum habitat required to ensure the species\u27 persistence. Because diminished or wide-ranging populations may not occupy all viable (and needed) habitat at once, one must identify thresholds of resources that will support the species even in unoccupied areas. Long-term data on the shifting mosaic of critical resources may indicate ranges of future variability. We addressed these issues for the Spectacled Eider (Somateria fischeri), a federally threatened species that winters in pack ice of the Bering Sea. Changing climate has decreased ice cover and severely reduced the eiders\u27 benthic prey and has increased prospects for expansion of bottom trawling that may further affect prey communities. To assess long-term changes in habitats that will support eiders, we linked data on benthic prey, sea ice, and weather from 1970 to 2001 with a spatially explicit simulation model of eider energy balance that integrated field, laboratory, and remote-sensing studies. Areas estimated to have prey densities adequate for eiders in 1970–1974 did not include most areas that were viable 20 years later (1993–1994). Unless the entire area with adequate prey in 1993–1994 had been protected, the much reduced viable area in 1999–2001 might well have been excluded. During long non-foraging periods (as at night), eiders can save much energy by resting on ice vs. floating on water; thus, loss of ice cover in the future might substantially decrease the area in which prey densities are adequate to offset the eiders\u27 energy needs. For wide-ranging benthivores such as eiders, our results emphasize that fixed protected areas based on current conditions can be too small or inflexible to subsume long-term shifts in habitat conditions. Better knowledge of patterns of natural disturbance experienced by prey communities, and appropriate allocation of human disturbance over seasons or years, may yield alternative strategies to large-scale closures that may be politically and economically problemati

The Effects of Riparian Management Zone Delineation on Timber Value and Ecosystem Services in Diverse Forest Biomes Across the United States.

Headwater streams are disproportionately affected by forest management activities in working forests of the United States (US) due to their high densities within watersheds. Thus, assigning the right buffer distance and buffer type to represent the ecology and topography of headwater streams is an important management decision. Focusing on headwater streams, this dissertation examines different riparian delineation techniques practiced within the US and proposes alternative approaches that balance ecological and economic factors. This primary objective was addressed using two datasets. The first dataset of stand data and understory vegetation was collected from forests distributed across New York and New Hampshire. The second dataset comprised of 1-meter digital terrain models and FIA data of 33 watersheds across 17 states within the contiguous US. On a regional scale, an ecologically significant riparian buffer was mapped using understory plants along headwater streams in Northeastern forests. A threshold distance of 6-12 m from stream edge was identified using plant species richness. Although this is not the actual extent of a functional riparian area, this distance represents an important zone for increased plant species diversity. A functional riparian area representing topography and forest structure developed by the US Forest Service was used as a variable width riparian buffer delineation technique in this study. The functional approach was compared with state-specific riparian delineation guidelines and a 30- meter fixed width riparian buffer across a broad range of forest regions in the US. From a regional context, when using the functional approach, 16–20 % of watersheds in the West and Pacific Northwestern regions were delineated as riparian. The functional method consistently delineated more land to the riparian area than other riparian delineating methods except for sampled watersheds in the Lake States where there was little to no topography along headwater streams. Delineating valuable timber land as riparian areas is an opportunity cost for landowners given the density of headwater streams in working forests. Alternative riparian management options such as increasing carbon stocks within riparian management zones for carbon markets can not only offset riparian allocation costs but also serve as an investment opportunity for large- scale forest landowners

The Land Conservation Plan for Maine’s Piscataqua Region Watersheds

The Piscataqua River/Great Bay estuary is a shared coastal embayment that forms the southernmost boundary between the states of Maine and New Hampshire. This rich coastal bay provides critical ecological, economic, and social benefits to the southern Maine and coastal New Hampshire region. The Great Bay estuary is such an important coastal resource that it is officially recognized as a coastal area of national significance by both the federal National Estuary Program and the federal National Estuarine Research Reserve program. The Piscataqua River/Great Bay estuary is fed by many rivers in New Hampshire, and by the Salmon Falls River, Great Works River, and Spruce Creek water- sheds in Maine. Collectively, the land area that contributes water flow to this treasured bi-state estuarine system is referred to as the “Piscataqua Region.” Within Maine, this region includes portions or all of ten Maine communities: Acton, Berwick, Eliot, Kittery, Lebanon, North Berwick, Sanford, South Berwick, Wells, and York

Risk Assessment for National Natural Resource Conservation Programs

This paper reviews the risk assessments prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in support of regulations implementing the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). These two natural resource conservation programs were authorized as part of the 1996 Farm Bill. The risk assessments were required under the Federal Crop Insurance Reform and Department of Agriculture Reorganization Act of 1994. The framework used for the assessments was appropriate, but the assessments could be improved in the areas of assessments endpoint selection, definition, and estimation. Many of the assessment endpoints were too diffuse or ill-defined to provide an adequate characterization of the program benefits. Two reasons for this lack of clarity were apparent: 1) the large, unprioritized set of natural resource conservation objectives for the two programs and 2) there is little agreement about what changes in environmental attributes caused by agriculture should be considered adverse and which may be considered negligible. There is also some "double counting" of program benefits. Although the CRP and EQIP are, in part, intended to assist agricultural producers with regulatory compliance, the resultant environmental benefits would occur absent the programs. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for continuing efforts to conduct regulatory analyses of these major conservation programs. The central recommendation is that future risk assessments go beyond efforts to identify the natural resources at greatest risk due to agricultural production activities and instead provide scientific input for analyses of the cost-effectiveness of the conservation programs.