This project identifies priority areas in the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion to implement conservation strategies for riverine and riparian habitat. This is tailored towards the Arid Lands Initiative (ALI) conservation goals and objectives, and provides the foundation for adaptation to a changing climate. This project adopts a “zoned” approach to identifying focal areas, connectivity management zones and zones for riparian habitat and ecological representation. Through a series of workshops and webinars, the ALI articulated its freshwater conservation goals and targets. Key aspects of these goals included: a focus on non-anadromous salmonid (salmon and steelhead) species, include riparian birds and waterfowl as key species in freshwater zones, and making ecological representation of different riverine types part of the project. The methods to spatially identify a conservation design in pursuit of the ALI’s goals was developed through a series of one-one-one interviews with freshwater scientists across multiple agencies, universities and NGOs. The spatially-explicit conservation planning tool, Marxan, was used to identify areas that are irreplaceable to meet ALI goals in an efficient solution. The results of the Marxan analysis were further classified to identify focal areas, connectivity zones and riparian and representation zones. The results of this analysis can be used to complement the ALI’s prioritization of terrestrial systems.
Brief Description of Files:
MarxanSolution_FinalRun.zip: These are the Marxan input and output files used in the final analysis.
FinalFieldCrosswalk.xlsx: This is an explanation of different fields in ALI_Riverine_Prioritization_040216.gdb geodatabase.
RiverinePrioritiesfortheAridLandsInitiative_0401_FinalDRAFT.pdf: This is the working document that describes the final project. This may be updated to accomodate comments over the next year.
ALI_Riverine_Prioritization_040217.gdb.zip: This is the spatial Marxan inputs, outputs, and linear version of the final prioritization, described in the final report.
ALI_HydroFacets.gdb.zip: Produced by David Theobald at Conservation Science Partners, this database describes the riverine classification (aka Hydro Facets) used in the project.
ALI_HydroFacets_Model.gdb.zip: Produced by David Theobald at Conservation Science Partners. This database has input data used in the riverine classification (aka Hydro Facets).
ALI_RiverineHydroFacets_SupplementaryMaterial.zip: .lyr files for Hydro Facets, a python script, and ReadMe file.
