This map represents a potential Conservation Target (CT) for PFLCC's 'Hardwood Forested Uplands' (HFU) Priority Resource (PR). The potential CT is Landscape Configuration. This layer was created for an initial investigation of potential CT's suggested at brainstorming workshops. The initial investigation entails locating available datasets to address the suggested CT as closely as possible and performing minimal analyses to determine their usefulness. The final set of CT's and their associated datasets will be chosen after targets (e.g., endpoints) are established as a threshold for achieving conservation success for that CT.
The available data layer to address landscape configuration is CLIP 4.0 core data -- Landscape Integrity Layer. This layer puts context of patch size and land use to the HFU PR pixels, meaning a relatively small patch of HFU may still have a high landscape integrity because it is part of a larger area of natural habitat without major roads.
The Landscape Integrity (lsi) layer comprises an average of two related landscape indices that assess ecological integrity based on 1) land use intensity and 2) patch size of natural communities and semi-natural land uses. The land use intensity index characterizes the intensity of land use based on five general categories, ranging from natural to high intensity development. The patch size index combines the land use data with major roads data (4+ lanes and/or high traffic roads) to identify contiguous patches of natural and semi-natural land cover and ranks them based on area. Values range from 10 (highest ecological integrity) to 1 (lowest). For additional Information, see the website at: http://fnai.org/clip.cfm.
For a description of the priority resource layer, see the HFU Priority Resource layer found in this gallery.
For this initial analysis, the lsi layer was resampled from a 30x30m to 15x15m pixel size to match the resolution of the HFU PR layer. It should be noted that resampling to a smaller cell size does not imply improved accuracy or resolution of the data. The HFU PR layer was used as a mask on the landscape integrity layer to extract lsi pixelS within the priority resource. For preliminary summaries of the extracted data, see also the 'Hardwood Forested Uplands' webinar (in pdf form) located within this gallery.
