Marxan Results for Nearshore Analysis

This work represents a joint effort between Round River Conservation Studies (RRCS), The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), The Nature Conservancy – Alaska (TNC), with assistance from the Coastal Information Team (CIT) Ecosystem Spatial Analysis Planning Team. This effort included a diverse group of researchers from non-governmental and government agencies and represents a collective of researchers and practitioners in the fields of conservation biology, ecology, zoology, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and land-use planning.

 

To assist the Central Coast Land and Resource Management Planning (Central Coast LRMP) in its decision-making, the Ecosystem Spatial Analysis team was asked to explore a number of possible scenarios and options for protected areas. Using the analytical layers from the ESA and combining them with data about the timber harvesting land base, and the location of proposed protected areas, the ESA team generated a number of scenarios that allowed stakeholders to explore the spatial consequences of their decisions. In order to support this exploration, the ESA team also generated a series of maps that more clearly described the distribution of ecosystem and habitat values by watershed within the LRMP area.

The ESA team used these maps and site selection software known as SITES to help the CCLRMP table consider the relative value of different protected area solutions, and to perform gap analysis of proposed areas. Gap analysis is an evaluation of how much of each ecosystem and habitat type is captured in the proposed areas for protection, relative to the total available in the entire Central Coast LRMP area. Proposed protected areas were evaluated in terms of how well they captured biodiversity values relative to the amount of land they encompassed. This technique was also used to explore trade-offs between biodiversity and other competing values. As these results emerged, and as different scenarios were proposed, the results were presented in a series of meetings with CCLRMP table, CCLRMP technical leads, and with the Joint Solutions Project.

 
·         Representation of a broad spectrum of environmental variation (e.g., vegetation, terrestrial abiotic, and freshwater and marine habitat classes).
 
·         Protection of special elements: concentrations of ecological communities; rare or at-risk ecological communities; rare physical habitats; concentrations of species; locations of at risk species; locations of highly valued species or their critical habitats; locations of major genetic variants.
 
·         Conservation of critical habitats of focal species, whose needs help planners address issues of habitat area, configuration, and quality. These are species that (a) need large areas or several well connected areas, or (b) are sensitive to human disturbance, and (c) for which sound habitat-suability models are available or can be constructed.