Summit County Ohio Regional Conservation Area Prioritization

The 30m-pixel model, developed in 2011 with data from the past decade, is comprised of ten individually developed metrics ranking a robust suite of natural resource components. The final score is simply a summation of each.

Metric 1a-Landcover Valuation (0-10 points): Scores landcover according to disturbance, regional significance and global ranking, respectively.Metric 2a-Forest Quality Valuation (0-10 points): Scores region (primarily forested areas) according to tree height as a proxy for age, which is known to be highly correlated with floristic quality (internal data).Metric 2b-NonForest Quality (0-10 points); Scores specific soil types according to potential to support rare natural nonforest habitats, such as barrens, bogs, rich fens, rock outcrops and slumps.Metric 2c-Cave and Ledge Potential (0-10 points): Scores potential cave and ledge sites, habitats harboring our highest priority species (northern monkshood and Indiana bat) as well as numerous other rarities, according to a multi-metric model independently produced by The University of Akron.Metric 3a-Natural Area Size Valuation (0-10 points): Scores natural area patches according to a species-area curve equation derived from literature sources and in-house data.Metric 3b-Core Natural Areas Size Valuation (0-10 points): Scores largest and best-bufferred natural areas according to the species-area curve equation. This metric emphasizes Natural Area Size Valuation (Metric 3a) by rescoring core regions.Metric 4a-Forest Interior Valuation (0-10 points): Scores forests according to distance from edge. This metric is complimentary to, and emphasized by, Migration Potential (Metric 4b).Metric 4b-Migration Potential (0-10 points): Scores nonforest areas according to species migration potential, which is based on perceived movement difficulty through various habitat types as well as distance between forest patches. This metric is complimentary to, and emphasizes, Forest Interior Valuation (Metric 4a).Metric 5a-Watershed Prioritization (0-10 points): Scores watersheds according to quality of supported stream biology, based on Ohio EPA Aquatic Life Use (ALU) designations.Metric 5b-Aquatic Resource Valuation (0-10 points): Scores bufferred aquatic resources, including wetlands, ponds, lakes and streams, according to distance from edge. Buffers around aquatic resources vary in width depending on rescource size, disturbance, naturalness and quality.