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1. Gap Analysis Program, University of Idaho, Moscow.
2. Washington Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Washington
A principal objective of the Gap Analysis Program (GAP) has been to provide information and data that can be used for proactive land management activities at the community and landscape level (Scott 2000). As of Fall 2006, 38 states have successfully completed GAP projects. In addition, the first regional GAP project, covering the five southwestern states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Nevada has been completed, while two more regional projects are in progress in the Northwest and Southeast. Data from all of these projects are available from the GAPServe data portal at http://gapanalysis.nbii.gov. The challenge now is implementation; that is, how to use these data to address those proactive land management activities that Scott (2000) envisioned. We will discuss how GAP data have been successfully used to promote conservation at a smaller scale and highlight some cases where Land Trusts have used GAP data to address planning and conservation issues.
GAP produces coarse scale spatial data, which are not always appropriate to apply to finer scale landscapes, such as municipalities, refuges, counties or land trusts. In general, GAP data do not contain enough detail for use in decision making at the land parcel scale for preparing habitat plans or plotting potential land trusts boundaries, for example. As a result, county- and city-level planners do not often use GAP data and maps for their decision-making (Thorne 2005). Nevertheless, some refuge, county, land trust, and city planners have used GAP data successfully.
In addition to predicted species range distribution, land cover, and stewardship data, GAP projects often include ancillary state- and region-specific datasets that can be useful for county and local scale planning. Even at 1:100,000 scale, GAP maps are educational tools that give landowners a perspective of their habitats in relation to neighboring parcels and landscapes. Some planners have used selective portions of these data, such as species lists and richness data or stewardship maps. GAP maps and data have been used in conjunction with other data, for example, Pierce County, Washington planners updated older satellite imagery with new data for urban development, clear cuts, and roads, as well as with new data collected via groundtruthing (e.g. field surveys). Finally, select counties have repeated the traditional GAP process at a smaller scale. Napa County, California planners, along with the Napa Land Trust, conducted a hectare-scale gap analysis of their county. The resulting analysis identified local land parcels as conservation targets (Thorne 2005).
Several land trusts that have a conservation focus have found ways of working with GAP data to address and prioritize their conservation issues. Fostering conservation efforts on these privately held lands is crucial, as new development plans are converting more than 2 million acres of undeveloped land per year, according to the American Farmland Trust (2006). Simultaneously, 800,000 acres are protected annually by local and regional land trusts per year, either in new conservation easements or purchases. By 2003, l 7 millionacres were covered by 17,487 conservation easements held by local, regional and national land trusts (High Country News 2005).
GAP land cover data can be used by land trusts in numerous ways. A state or ecoregion-wide land cover map can be used to place a specific trust into a landscape context, enabling land trusts to make informed planning recommendations. The Eno River Association in North Carolina has been exploring the use of GAP data to provide information on land protection for common species and to identify development trends by looking at changes in impervious surfaces (Klugh Jordan, Director of Land Protection personal communication) Additionally, GAP data can help identify a prospective trust’s connectivity to other protected lands. Using GAP land cover as base map, land trusts can use finer scale open space maps, groundtruthing, and local experts to delineate fragments, riparian areas or other small patches that might otherwise be missed. Species lists can be compiled to predict a species’ occurrence on the land trust based on its habitat associations with the land cover data. A species’ range on a land trust can be compared with that species’ range in the surrounding state or region to assess the importance of conservation on that particular land trust.
GAP data can also identify high priority lands based on critical habitats or species. The Inland Northwest Land Trust in northeastern Washington used maps of corridors identified by Washington GAP to decide which properties to buy in the future (Stevenson 1998). Similarly land trusts in southern and mid-Coast Maine use GAP maps of habitat data to prioritize and direct their land conservation efforts (Krohn 2002). The Palouse Land Trust (Moscow, Idaho) overlaid maps of available lands with existing GAP stewardship, habitat, and species range maps to prioritize lands that had the potential to either provide large areas of natural habitat or to act as corridors (Svancara 2000).
Pierce County, Washington
The Washington State Growth Management Act requires local jurisdictions to include open space in comprehensive plans and to adopt critical area regulations (need a cite). Pierce County planners completed a Biodiversity Plan in 2000(need a cite). They used GAP and other data to designate a Biodiversity Management Network (it would be helpful to briefly describe this) within their open space maps. Pierce County adopted this revised open space map into their Comprehensive Plan and is currently using the Biodiversity Network information in the community planning process (Dvornich et al. 2005). Community plans have used the Biodiversity Network to initiate new zoning that allows for lower densities and intensities of uses. Approximately 30% of the County falls within the Network which has been divided into 16 large blocks of land called Biodiversity Management Areas (BMA) connected by corridors. GAP predicted species lists, augmented by Natural Heritage locations and other data (such as fish and butterfly data) were instrumental in the identification of the BMAs. (What about NatureMapping data?)
The land cover data were updated using 2000 satellite imagery and groundtruthed via aerial photos and driving routes. In an effort to validate the predicted species lists and involve the landowners within the BMAs, bioblitzes (i.e., a 24-hour inventory of plant and animal diversity found within a designated area by experts and the public) have recently been conducted in two BMAs. Landowners received a comparison of the GAP species with species identified through the bioblitz for their use and/or to help them with the process of applying for conservation easements. For example, GAP and bioblitz data were used by a land trust currently negotiating the purchase of 3,000 acres, of which almost half falls within a BMA. The GAP predicted species list is providing important information for all of the land while the bioblitz data is helping the trust prioritize the sequence of land acquisition (You might mention something about this is coarse level data being combined with fine scale data.) .
California Coastal Conservancy
In 2002, the Coastal Conservancy conducted a modified Gap Analysis to assist with regional conservation planning (Wild, 2002).
The Conservancy had four goals for the analysis.
The analysis was completed for land cover and stewardship and used the CA-GAP land cover map (Davis et. al. 1998) to depict location and extent of natural communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. They used a stewardship layer specific to the Bay Area (GreenInfo, 2001). The extent of current protection was compared to two benchmark levels of protection. Natural communities already experiencing statewide declines were compared to a target level of 100%, while other communities were compared to a target of 20%. Communities were then prioritized according to endemicity, local development pressure, statewide rarity, and statewide protection level.
The Coastal Conservancy used the results of the analysis to educate the regional conservation community about natural communities in need of more protection, and to prioritize targets for future open-space areas.
Bainbridge Island, Washington
Bainbridge Island Land Trust has helped local schools participate in NatureMapping, GAP’s outreach program since 1994 (need cite here). In 2006, the City of Bainbridge Island began working on an incentive program to encourage biodiversity offsets during development. GAP’s habitat data was too coarse to help identify potential conservation targets because the habitat data identified <50% of the habitats on the Island. So, as a first step, the Trust and city planners are using GAP species lists, which they compare to frequent sightings of 158 species reported by students all over the Island, to identify areas for land purchases, conservation easements, and further development. During the 2006-2007 school year, each of 400 high school biology students will visit a “natural” area six times. The students will collect wildlife and plant data and generate a journal of photographs for each visit. Throughout the year, they will be compiling groundtruth data for a habitat map being developed concurrently with GAP habitat codes. This baseline map will be used to identify areas of high biodiversity, to monitor sites for species of interest, and for project development and/or acquisition scenarios under consideration by the City and Trust.
Sierra Foothill Conservancy, Central California
The Sierra Foothill Conservancy in California works with other partners under a CALFED Watershed grant managed by the State Water Resources Control Board. The Conservancy’s core areas of field investigations include biodiversity and habitat. The NatureMapping Program provided a “Train the Trainers” workshop in early 2006 to 20 partnering organizations of the Sierra Nevada Alliance to train them how to collect biodiversity and habitat data. California GAP species and habitat type lists were provided to all participants for their use in field investigations. The McKenzie Table Mountain Preserve, as well as others maintained by the Conservancy, allows grazing and other uses on their property. Their goal is to identify the most diverse areas within each of the preserves, design management plans, and assess the plans through data collection and monitoring. A “Project Design” NatureMapping workshop in 2007 will help the Conservancy design monitoring projects with volunteers and schools to answer the different questions/plans for each preserve. These data will provide important information to the Conservancy, California’s Natural Diversity Database, and for the California GAP update.
Conclusions
While not all land trusts are established with the goal of habitat or wildlife conservation; GAP data can be useful for those that are. GAP provides data that land trusts can use to further their conservation efforts. Although data may have to be modified, or downscaled, they are a useful springboard to use for planning decisions. They can also serve as a tool for developing a management plan. As evidenced by Bainbridge Island, GAP modeling and classification protocols are tools that can be made to work at any scale. It is important to remember all conservation efforts have cumulative effects (cite??). Landowners within the Pierce County Biodiversity Network understand they are developing stewardship plans for their BMA and “their” Network.
In some cases, land trust, refuge, and city planners do not have sufficient training or knowledge of how to use GAP data. However, the lessons learned from Pierce County have shown this is not an insurmountable obstacle. The entire Pierce County biodiversity planning process has been documented and will be used to produce a set of guidelines for other planners. In addition, local community vision/stewardship plans now being finalized have been designed to be used as templates for other local jurisdictions.
Working with land trusts is important, because wildlife does not exist solely on publicly owned lands. If GAP wants to reach its goal of “keeping common species common”, working with private landowner is invaluable. GAP can also benefit from these efforts because a closer relationship with private land holders, such as trusts, will facilitate the inclusion of more information into GAP databases as they are updated. For example, land trusts could contribute to GAP stewardship data by identifying the locations of conservation easements. Also, the creation of species lists by land trusts could help to verify species distributions and/or expansions.
Literature Cited
American Farmland Trust, Farmland Information Center, 2006, retrieved December 33, 2006 from http://farmlandinfo.org/agricultural_statistics/?RequestTimeout=999
Conservation Easement Statistics. 2005. High Country News, Paonia, Colorado.
Dvornich, K.M., K. Brooks, M. Tirhi, J. Gardner. 2005. Development of a Community Stewardship Program for the Pierce County Biodiversity Network. Gap Analysis Bulletin No.13, p. 21-22.
GreenInfo Network. 2001. San Franciso Bay Area Stewardship, San Francisco, CA.
Krohn, W. B. 2002. Successful integration of GAP databases into town planning: The Maine experience. Gap Analysis Bulletin No. 11, pp 44-47.
Scott, J.M. 2000 Preface. Gap Analysis Handbook, version 2.0. National Gap Analysis Program, Moscow, ID.
Stevenson, M. 1998. Applying gap analysis to local land use planning in Washington State. Gap Analysis Bulletin No. 7, pp30-32.
Svancara, L. 2000. Creating a conservation plan for Latah County, Idaho. Gap Analysis Bulletin No. 9, p. 54.
Thorne, J.H., J. F. Quinn, and J.A. Kennedy. 2005. Gap analysis at the land parcel scale: conservation assessment for local land management, in review.
Wild, C. 2002. San Francisco Bay Gap Analysis: A preliminary assessment of priorities for protecting natural communities. California State Coastal Conservancy, Oakland, CA.
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