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Preface

The earliest use of the term "Gap Analysis" was by Burley (1988):

The concept [of Gap Analysis] is deceptively simple, if not simplistic: within a particular country or region, first identify and classify the various elements of biological diversity in several ways. Then examine the existing and proposed systems of protected areas and other land-management units that help conserve biological diversity. Finally, using various classifications, determine which elements (e.g., major ecosystems, vegetation types, habitat types, species) are unrepresented or poorly represented in the existing system of conservation areas. Once this is known with reasonable precision, priorities for the next set of conservation actions can be established.

In their article "Land-use conflicts with natural vegetation in the United States," Klopatek and others (1979) estimated that 34% of the land surface in the United States was subject to some form of intensive land use. The authors concluded that 23 of the 106 types of potential (or original) vegetation may have been reduced by over 50%.

Much more significantly, though, they concluded that there were major drawbacks and limitations to their findings because no inventory of actual vegetation existed at that time. They relied on general predictions of the occurrence and extent of potential vegetation for baseline data and compared those hypothetical data with nonstandardized estimates of county-level land-use practices. Nobody has been "keeping the books" needed for a reasonably accurate assessment of our biological wealth. The information has, until now, been unavailable at the level of resolution necessary for large-area assessments of ecological systems.

This report covers the progress of Gap Analysis over the past two years. Both technical and institutional progress have been rapid. In this time, the Gap Analysis Program (GAP), coordinated by the National Biological Service, has undergone both a formal peer review and an independent review funded by the forest products industry. In the 1993 federal fiscal year, 26 states were funded to conduct state GAP projects. By the 1995 fiscal year, 40 states were funded, and project organization was under way in seven others and Puerto Rico. The benefits from the institution-building, necessary for the collaborative development of GAP data, have turned out to be as valuable as benefits from applications of the data.

Mike Jennings

Moscow, Idaho

November 1995