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Jan 27, 2018 10:45 PM
Assessing Future Energy Development across the Appalachian LCC used models that combined data on energy development trends and identified where these may intersect with important natural resource and ecosystem services to give a more comprehensive picture of what potential energy development could look like in the Appalachians. Ultimately this information is intended to support dialogue and conservation on how to effectively avoid, minimize, and offset impacts from energy development to important natural areas and the valuable services they provide.
Assessing Future Energy Development Across the Appalachians -
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Michael P. Strager, Jacquelyn M. Strager, Wesley Burnett, Aaron E. Maxwell,
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Oct 18, 2017 02:32 PM
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Michael P. Strager, Jacquelyn M. Strager, Wesley Burnett, Aaron E. Maxwell,
The goal of this project was to create a spatially explicit 1km2 grid cell model for the Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative (Figure 1) predicting where surface coal mining is likely to occur in in a projected future time period, under two different scenarios. To accomplish this goal we combined GIS spatial analysis, a Random Forests predictive model, and future mining buildout scenarios. This report provides a detailed methodology of our approach and discussion of our results.
Future climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies will be dependent on the best available projections of how the regional climate will change and the impacts those changes will have on the region’s natural and cultural resources. Understanding the vulnerability of various species and habitats to climate change within the Appalachian LCC is of critical importance for making effective conservation decisions. The AppLCC funded a Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment research project that addresses several factors: 1) how the Cooperative should acquire information about the climate vulnerability of Appalachian species and habitats to develop vulnerability assessments for a suite of key species and habitats to share with partners; 2) compilation of known vulnerability assessments of species and habitats, and 3) new climate change vulnerability assessments of selected species and habitats in the AppLCC region.
Species and Habitat Vulnerability Assessments of Appalachian Species and Habitats -
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The Appalachian LCC collaborated with Cornell University to study the environmental impacts of water withdrawals in the Central Appalachian region. The rivers and streams of the Central Appalachians are home to more than 200 species of fish and other aquatic life. They also provide a reliable source of drinking water, recreational opportunities and associated economic benefits to people living in large cities and surrounding communities. This research looks at how the region’s surface freshwater supply – and the health of natural systems delivering this resource – have been impacted and may be altered in the coming years under increasing water withdrawals. It focuses on the Marcellus Shale region in the Central Appalachians, including portions of NY, PA, OH, MD, WV and VA.
Environmental Flows from Water Withdrawals in the Marcellus Shale Region -
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The Data Needs Assessment research project was undertaken to review the variety of resources on conservation planning to provide packages of products, data, and identified data gaps to improve conservation planning in the Appalachian LCC. A suite of core conservation planning products and data from principal investigators at Clemson University are now available to the Cooperative.
Data Needs Assessment -
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Data Needs Assessment Research Team
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Dec 21, 2015 11:27 AM
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Data Needs Assessment Research Team
This document presents map images and text that describes the data that can be posted to the AppLCC web portal. The arrangement follows the layout of the Appalachain Landscape Conservation Cooperative GIS Datasets.
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Data Needs Assessment Research Team
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Dec 21, 2015 11:27 AM
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Data Needs Assessment Research Team
We have provided some interpretation material and text for conservation planning tools. These programs have been grouped into broad, sometime overlapping purposes. These brief descriptions of the various conservation planning tools can be put up on the AppLCC web portal, for users to get an idea about the tools available and what purposes they could serve. We have alo provided other links, where users can get detailed information about the tool.
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Trishna Dutta, Rob Baldwin
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Dec 21, 2015 11:27 AM
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Trishna Dutta, Rob Baldwin
List of number of states within each LCC.
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Rob Baldwin
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Dec 21, 2015 11:26 AM
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Rob Baldwin, Trishna Dutta
In this synthesis, we describe how the information contained in the individual State Wildlife Action Plans and conservation plans by other agencies can be linked together towards identifying opportunities to integrate state and local scale efforts into regional conservation framework for the AppLCC. Specifically, our aim was to quantify the objectivity and efforts across the 15 partner states. We are particularly interested in the commonalities of methodology and results across plans. Throughout the document, we integrate our previous efforts in this data needs assessment to figure out ways that state efforts can be upscaled to meet regional planning goals.
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Data Needs Assessment Research Team
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Dec 21, 2015 11:25 AM
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Data Needs Assessment Research Team
The number of conservation planning tools and approaches is a growing and dynamic field of research. Here, we present description and evaluation of 21 conservation planning tools. To reduce the complexity of the conservation planning tools we decided to take a functional-grouping approach. These six groups are: reserve planning, habitat connectivity, species distribution modeling and viability, planning process integration, threats and climate change. To do the review, we used our own knowledge of conservation planning software and approaches, surveyed the literature for references to published programs, and searched the internet for emerging programs. We have condensed this information into a table (Table 1) and used it as a springboard for further exploration and discussion.
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Trishna Dutta, Robert F Baldwin and Don Lipscomb
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Dec 21, 2015 11:25 AM
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Trishna Dutta, Robert F Baldwin and Don Lipscomb
This project was undertaken to evaluate existing datasets for the Appalachian LCC region, package relevant datasets, review of some of the most commonly used conservation planning tools, provide interpretive text and graphics for datasets and tools, and identify data gaps that could improve conservation planning in the Appalachian LCC. Additionally, we reviewed and analyzed State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAP) from 15 states that intersect with the LCC, and corresponded with the SWAP coordinators to get their input on summaries and information on the upcoming 2015 revisions.
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Data Needs Assessment Research Team
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Dec 21, 2015 11:18 AM
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Data Needs Assessment Research Team
The Appalachain Landscape Conservation Cooperative Datasets are located in a folder named “AppLCC_USGS_ConicEA_Projection” and each theme has its own folder. Most folders have a layer file for displaying the raster datasets, however if there is more than one raster in the folder, it may be necessary to point the layer to the desired raster each time it is loaded. Also there are a few layer files and one geodataset (NWI) that will only work in ArcGIS 10.x. The layer file with the same name as the raster dataset should work in both ArcGIS 9.x and 10.x. In each case we attempted to download the latest (Spring 2013) revision of the dataset that completely covered the Appalachain LCC.
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Nov 19, 2015 09:16 PM
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AppLCC
Spreadsheet Subset One
This video presentation from Paul Leonard of the Appalachian LCC and Clemson University walks through the development of a regional conservation plan for the Cooperative using an interactive and iterative spatial prioritization framework. Using available data and modeling approaches, researchers from Clemson University developed a suite of conservation planning models that include site selection, ecological threat assessments, and broad ranging habitat and ecological connectivity analyses. The research team worked closely with steering committee-organized technical teams from each major region in our LCC to help guide the iterative feedback loops which informed the conservation design. The research team is now working on the second phase of this conservation planning and design modeling that will integrate aquatic and cultural resource components into the design work.
You can also watch the video on our Vimeo Channel.
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Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Research Team
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Aug 31, 2015 12:22 PM
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Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Research Team
How should the Appalachian LCC acquire information about the vulnerability of Appalachian species and habitats to climate change to share with its partners? This report summarizes the findings and recommendations of a seven-member Expert Panel that sought to answer this question identified as a major research priority. The Panel addressed three aspects of the question: the selection of species and habitats to assess, approaches to vulnerability assessment, and the availability of downscaled climate data.
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Riparian Restoration Research Team
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Aug 31, 2015 12:20 PM
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Riparian Restoration Research Team
Canopy Cover by State.
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Jun 04, 2015 04:00 PM
Stream flows are essential for maintaining healthy aquatic ecosystems and for supporting human water supply needs. Integrated modeling approaches assessing the impact of changes in climate, land use, and water withdrawals on stream flows and the subsequent impact of changes in flow regime on aquatic biota at multiple spatial scales are necessary to insure an adequate supply of water for humans and healthy river ecosystems. The combined application of simple, large scale models with more complex, high resolution models has the potential to provide for more robust climate change impact studies, which focus on maintaining a better balance between the availability of water to support aquatic assemblages while conserving water for long-term human needs than using either approach in isolation.
Hydrological modeling for flow-ecology science in the Southeastern United States -
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Jun 04, 2015 03:58 PM
Traditional urban growth models are very localized and data-intensive and lack the capability to be applied across large regions, in response to these limitations the North Carolina Cooperative Research Unit began using the USGS SLEUTH urban growth model to develop urbanization scenarios as part of the Southeast Regional Assessment Project (SERAP). Extensive modifications of the model framework and calibration were undertaken that resulted in the ability to rapidly develop urbanization scenarios for very large regions, such as the Appalachian and Gulf Coastal Plain Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs). This new modeling effort allows LCC’s to address fundamental questions that affect conservation planning over decadal time scales.
Developing long-term urbanization scenarios for the Appalachian and Gulf Coastal Plain and Ozarks LCCs as part of the Southeast Regional Assessment Project -
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