Designing Sustainable Landscapes: The index of ecological impact

Includes five landscape change scenarios: 1) baseline 70-year (2010-2080) climate change and urban growth scenario without additional land protection; 2) same as #1 but with 25% more demand for new development; 3) same as #1 but with increased sprawl to the pattern of development; 4) same as #1 but with both 25% more demand for new development and increased sprawl; and 5) same as #1 but with additional terrestrial reserve areas (core areas) protected from development as established for Nature\u27s Network landscape design (www.naturesnetwork.org).https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1034/thumbnail.jp

Designing Sustainable Landscapes: Ecological Systems

Ecological systems [updated 3/7/2017] --This document provides a summary of our use of ecological systems as an organizational framework for portions of the model. Here, we briefly introduce the concept of ecological systems and the challenges of using them as an organizational framework, and then briefly outline four alternatives (that we considered) for their use in the model, including a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of each, and the final adopted alternative

Designing Sustainable Landscapes: HUC6 Aquatic Cores and Buffers

The HUC6 aquatic cores and associated buffers represent some of the principal Designing Sustainable Landscapes (DSL) landscape conservation design (LCD) products for aquatic ecosystems and species, and they are best understood in the context of the full LCD process described in detail in the technical document on landscape design (McGarigal et al 2017). These products were initially developed for the Connecticut River watershed as part of the Connect the Connecticut project (www.connecttheconnecticut.org) — a collaborative partnership under the auspices of the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (NALCC), and subsequently developed for the entire Northeast region as part of the Nature\u27s Network project (www.naturesnetwork.org). HUC6 aquatic cores represent a combination of lotic core areas (river and stream) and lentic core areas (lake and pond) selected at the HUC6 scale (Fig. 1). In combination with the terrestrial cores, they spatially represent the ecological network designed to provide strategic guidance for conserving natural areas, and the fish, wildlife, and other components of biodiversity that they support within the Northeast.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1053/thumbnail.jp

Designing Sustainable Landscapes: Mean annual temperature, Growing season degree days, Heat index, Minimum winter temperature, and Maximum summer temperature settings variables

These five temperture variables are among several ecological settings variables that collectively characterize the biophysical setting of each 30 m cell at a given point in time (McGarigal et al 2017). The temperature regime strongly affects species composition, as well as rates of ecological processes such as nutrient cycling. We’ve chosen five variables to represent different aspects of temperature. All five variables have future versions that incorporate climate change via General Circulation Models (GCMs) (as described in the technical document on climate, McGarigal et al 2017).https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1013/thumbnail.jp

Designing Sustainable Landscapes: Tidal Restrictions metric

Tidal restrictions include undersized culverts and bridges, tide gates, dikes, and other structures that interfere with normal tidal flushing in estuarine systems. Effects can range from mild changes in species composition and cycling of sediment and nutrients to wholesale conversion of ecological systems, such as conversion of Spartina-dominated salt marshes to Phragmites australis, or, in extreme cases, to freshwater wetlands (Roman et al. 1984, Ritter et al. 2008). The tidal restrictions metric is an element of the ecological integrity analysis of the Designing Sustainable Landscapes (DSL) project (see technical document on integrity, McGarigal et al 2017). Consisting of a composite of 21 stressor and resiliency metrics, the index of ecological integrity (IEI) assesses the relative intactness and resiliency to environmental change of ecological systems throughout the northeast. As a stressor metric, tidal restrictions uses an estimate of the historic loss of mapped salt marshes in areas where they should occur given elevation and tidal regime to indicate the location and magnitude of potential tidal restrictions. The metric estimates the effect of potential tidal restrictions on upstream wetland systems, including intertidal systems such as salt marshes, as well as freshwater systems and low-lying nonforested uplands that may have once been intertidal. Metric values range from 0 (no effect from downstream tidal restrictions) to 1 (severe effect). The metric is based on an estimate of the salt marsh loss ratio above each potential tidal restriction (road-stream and railroad-stream crossings). Note that tide gates not associated with roads are excluded as potential tidal restrictions, as they are not comprehensively mapped throughout the region. The salt marsh loss ratio is the proportion of a basin above a crossing that is modeled as potential salt marsh (from tide range and elevation) but not mapped as existing salt marsh in the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) maps. Funding for this project was provided by the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative and Department of the Interior Project #24, Decision Support for Hurricane Sandy Restoration and Future Conservation to Increase Resiliency of Tidal Wetland Habitats and Species in the Face of Storms and Sea Level Rise.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1028/thumbnail.jp

Designing Sustainable Landscapes: Critical Local Linkages

Critical local linkages includes two Designing Sustainable Landscapes (DSL) products that measure the relative potential to improve local aquatic connectivity through restoration, including dam removals and culvert upgrades. A complete description of the critical local linkage assessment is provided in the technical document on connectivity (McGarigal et al 2017. Here, we briefly describe the dam removal and culvert upgrade layers. These particular products were initially developed for the Connecticut River watershed as part of the Connect the Connecticut project (www.connecttheconnecticut.org) — a collaborative partnership under the auspices of the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (NALCC), and subsequently developed for the entire Northeast region as part of the Nature\u27s Network project (www.naturesnetwork.org). Briefly, each dam or road-stream crossing is scored based on its potential to improve local connectivity through the corresponding restoration action, but only where it matters — in places where the current ecological integrity is not already seriously degraded too much.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1055/thumbnail.jp

Designing Sustainable Landscapes: Development settings variable, Hard development settings variable

Development and hard development are two of several ecological settings variables that collectively characterize the biophysical setting of each 30 m cell at a given point in time (McGarigal et al 2017). Development represents all development, scaled from 0 to 10 by development intensity. Hard development is a subset of development, with a value of 1 for very high intensity development only. Both layers come from DSLland, the primary landcover map. These are dynamic settings variables, increasing with future urban growth.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1008/thumbnail.jp

Designing Sustainable Landscapes: DSLland and Subsysland

DSLland is the land cover map used as an organizational framework in the Designing Sustainable Landscapes (DSL) project (McGarigal et al 2017). It is derived primarily from The Nature Conservancy\u27s Northeast Habitat Classification map (Ferree and Anderson 2013; Anderson et al. 2013; Olivero and Anderson 2013; Olivero-Sheldon et al 2014). To meet the needs of the DSL project, we substantially modified the TNC map. The TNC map is a hierarchical classification. For our purposes, we adopted the \u27habitat\u27 level of the hierarchy, which we refer to as ecosystems , as our finest scale, as it is the most appropriate classification for our ecological assessment. The attribute table also includes the ‘formation’ level for users that prefer a coarse classification.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1036/thumbnail.jp

Designing Sustainable Landscapes: aquatic barriers settings variable

Aquatic barriers is one of several ecological settings variables that collectively characterize the biophysical setting of each 30 m cell at a given point in time (McGarigal et al 2017). Aquatic barriers measures the relative degree to which road-stream crossings (i.e., bridges and culverts) and dams may physically impede upstream and downstream movement of aquatic organisms, particularly fish. It is derived from a custom algorithm (see below for details) applied to dams and derived road-stream crossings. Briefly, each dam has an aquatic barrier score based either on dam height or attributes indicating whether the dam has a partial/complete breach. Similarly, each road-stream crossing has an aquatic barrier score based either on an algorithm applied to field measurements of the crossing structure or predictions from a statistical model based on GIS data. Aquatic barriers is scaled 0-1, where dams and road-stream crossing are assigned values \u3e0 (with 1=complete barrier) and all other cells (including terrestrial) are assigned 0.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1005/thumbnail.jp

Designing Sustainable Landscapes: Incident solar radiation settings variable

Incident solar radiation is one of several ecological settings variables that collectively characterize the biophysical setting of each 30 m cell at a given point in time (McGarigal et al 2017). The amount of sun affects temperature, moisture, and plant growth, affecting the communities found in each place.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1014/thumbnail.jp