Coastal Uplands Inland Migration

These data show the potential for Coastal Uplands in Florida to migrate inland with Sea Level Rise (SLR) up to 1-meter. These analyses were created as part of the Landscape Conservation Project for the state of Florida. The project entails large scale assessment of the current status of important natural resources, known as Conservation Assets, as well as large scale coordinated conservation designed to optimize the value of conservation actions undertaken in Florida. The potential for Coastal Inland Migration is part of the assessment to determine the status of this ecological indicator and facilitate planning to ensure the future on Coastal Uplands given potential future conditions. The SLR was acquired from the National Hydrologic Dataset developed by USGS. Bathymetry and topography data were used to delineate the inland extent of sea with a 1-meter SLR, The data are available as a 30m x 30m raster data. For these anylyses, raster data were converted to polygons for creation of the 300-m buffer. The 300-meter buffer was applied to the 1-meter SLR polygon to determine inland areas available for Coastal Uplands to migrate above rising waters. Seaward and other low areas were eliminated from the buffer using marine and estuarine landcovers from the Cooperative Land Cover Dataset (CLC 3.3). This procedure removed areas that would not be suitable for upland migration. Remaining portions of the buffer are presumed available as potential future habitat. Areas that are already in protection are more likely to be available into the future, and so conservation areas were also evaluated using the managed areas shapefile curated by the Florida Natural Area Inventory (FNAI). FNAI maintains these data with quarterly updates as necessary. The data depict all conservation areas in Florida with the exception of some easements that are excluded because of privacy issues. Conservation lands as of August 2019 were used to identify protected areas within the 300-meter buffer.