Terrestrial Resilience Density

This map depicts the density of "More Resilient" cells (defined as the top two quintiles from the stratified resilience dataset) within a 3-km radius of every cell. This provides important additional context when making land protection or restoration decisions. Cells with higher density values are embedded in a larger resilient landscape. These areas are more likely to support biodiversity and ecological function over time in a changing climate.
 
To quantify resilience at the landscape scale, we used a density function, where all cells classified in the final top two resilience quintiles were included in the density calculations, regardless of their underlying Ecofacet, and all other cells were ignored. Looking out across a circular 3 km neighborhood from each resilient cell, we calculated the proportion of cells within that neighborhood that are “more” resilient. Neighborhoods with a higher proportion of resilient cells have higher density values than neighborhoods with lower proportions. These areas of high density occur in patches of varying size. As both patch size and density score increase, so too does the likelihood that conservation actions may provide enduring benefits.

These data are part of a land facet terrestrial resilience project created for the Pacific Northwest to identify the most resilient terrestrial sites in the Northwest U.S. that will collectively and individually best sustain native biodiversity even as the changing climate alters current distribution patterns. The central idea is that by mapping key geophysical features and evaluating them for landscape characteristics that buffer against the effects of climate change, we can identify the most resilient places in order to guide future conservation investments.  All the datasets, along with the full report containing methods and maps is available at:  http://nature.ly/resilienceNW

See a gallery of all datasets from this report on Data Basin: http://nplcc.databasin.org/galleries/e41a3ea84e78463bbf9f03ce2f8e9205