SRLCC Steering Committee Meeting November 30 th , 2016 - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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The Green River Basin Landscape Conservation Design Project

A collaborative effort of the Southern Rockies Landscape Conservation Cooperative, the Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative, Conservation Science Partners, and Northern Arizona University’s Landscape Conservation Initiative

SRLCC Steering Committee Meeting

November 30th, 2016

Green River Basin LCD

• One of 3 basins identified by SRLCC

Steering Committee

• Funded by LCC Network in FY15
• Joint effort with Great Northern LCC
• Coordinators and Analysts

– Conservation Science Partners – Landscape Conservation Initiative (NAU)

LCD is both a Process and a Product

Process engages stakeholders and encourages collaboration – Multi-organizational Oversight Team – Workshop and webinar participants – Collaboratively selected Resources and Change Agents – Wiki website to share information – Databasin to share data and analysis Products are Spatially Explicit – Assessment of current condition and potential future conditions – Maps identifying places to focus conservation – Identify opportunities for coordinated conservation

Timeline

Oversight Team (OT) Convened Winter 2014 Conservation Science Partners/NAU contracted Summer 2015 Needs Assessment Fall/Winter 2015 Data assessment and data development Winter 2015-Spring 2016 Workshop 1 Spring 2016 Refine spatial data and analysis, develop opportunity maps Summer 2016-Spring 2017 Ad-hoc technical work groups, review meetings, and webinars Fall 2016-Spring 2017 Workshop 2 Summer 2017 Finalize data products Fall 2017 Project end Winter 2017

Needs Assessment

• Objectives were to build relationships, share info,

explore relevance of LCD to individual organizations in the GRB, identify opportunities, and build a larger group of contacts

• Interviewed 43 individuals representing >30
• rganizations and offices
• Generated referral-based contact list of >140

Key opportunities

• Build coordination, relationships, and info sharing
• Leverage partnerships to increase funding and on-the-ground

conservation

• Develop new partnerships
• Integrate climate change into planning
• Coordinate across states
• Address landscape scale stressors across habitats and resources

(e.g. upland energy development and native fish habitat)

• Provide data products that are determined by ecology rather

than boundaries

Referral network reflects interview results

Analytical framework

Resource Focal sites Actions Vulnerable/ resilient Collaboration Actionable

Conservation Opportunity Areas

Change agents

Gap analysis and compilation of existing data

Workshop 1

• April 2016 in Rock Springs, WY
• Objectives:

– Share background on context and approach for the GRB LCD – Develop shared understanding of project – Share information about existing programs and priorities – Review available data sets: understand why they were chosen, what is under development, and data gaps – Interact with data in order to refine data products – Determine next steps

Workshop 1: Outcomes

• Attended by 47 from across the basin
• Interactive spatial data: layered PDFs
• Identified additional existing spatial

data

• Guidance on refining spatial analysis

going forward

• Field trip to Seedskadee NWR: on-

the-ground look at public/private issues and collaborative management

Data development and preliminary analysis

Resource Focal sites Actions Vulnerable/ resilient Collaboration Actionable Change agents

Analytical framework

Resource Focal sites Actions Vulnerable/ resilient Collaboration Actionable Change agents

Process-based approach to freshwater integrity

• Mechanistic
• Minimal assumptions
• Reliable
• Consistent coverage throughout GRB study area
• Built on peer-reviewed and applied frameworks

(Allan 2004; Reeves et al. 2004)

• Addresses integrity upland (upslope), lateral

(riparian zone), and longitudinal (in-channel)

Efforts to assess freshwater integrity

• Studies

Criteria GRB Freshwater Integrity Colorado Plateau REA WY Basin REA WLCI Aquatic Multicriteria Index TU Conservation Success Index Pathways

• f

influence

• Sedimentation,

contaminant pollution, hydrologic alteration, thermal alteration, riparian clearing Hydrologic alteration, water quality, roads Livestock, development, climate change, invasives Roads, energy, mines, urbanization Species distribution, population, and habitat components

• f

integrity

Future change agents

Oil and gas, climate change

• Urbanization

Invasives, climate change Energy, invasives, minerals, climate change, urban

• Land

conversion, resource extraction, energy development, climate change, introduced species

Complete coverage for GRB

• No

No No No, covers species- specific geographies

Ecological generality

• No

Process  mechanism  measurement

Hydrological process Mechanism

• f

ecological influence (Allan 2004) Variable

Upland Sedimentation due to human modification Slope-weighted human modification

• Nutrient

enrichment Nitrogen and phosphorus

• Contaminant

Pollution Biological impairment

• Oil

& gas exposure Vulnerability to potential breaches by wells and holding ponds Lateral Riparian clearing/canopy

• pening

Human modification Longitudinal Hydrologic alteration Flow Modification Index

• Accumulated

road-stream crossings density

• Timing
• f

snowmelt discharge*

• Thermal

alteration Stream temperature warming*

*Climate-related change agent

Upland

Sedimentation

Erosion/sedimentation potential linked to human modification and topography Cumulative average slope-weighted human modification, overland to river (but not instream) Sources: Human modification (Theobald 2013; Theobald et al. in prep)

Contaminant pollution

Streams listed under 303(d) of the Clean Water Act as “chemically, biologically, or physically impaired” Proportion of stream length classified as impaired Sources: 303(d) listing (USEPA) Upland

Floodplain modification (detailed map)

Localized floodplain modification by human activities Sum of modified area within floodplain / Area of floodplain, within a HUC12 Sources: Human modification (Theobald et al. in prep); High resolution floodplains (TerrainWorks) Lateral

Riparian vegetation

Classified ~1 m aerial photography as riparian vegetation Uses NDVI classification techniques Sources: NAIP 2014-2015 Lateral

Projected change in timing

• f discharge

Projected shift in timing of flows, such as earlier snowmelt due to climate change Change in the timing of center of mass of flow (days) from historic to future (2040; A1B scenario, GCM ensemble model) Sources: Western US Streamflow Metrics (USFS RMRS) Longitudinal

Webinar series

• Purpose: provide updates, build interest and understanding of

spatial data products, receive feedback in order to further refine products, demonstrate what we’ve learned from stakeholders

• Freshwater integrity (October)
• Riparian vegetation (December)
• Sage steppe resilience, change agents, focal areas (TBD)
• High interest level

– >70 registered for riparian vegetation – 40 attended (55 registered) freshwater integrity

Products and outcomes

• New cross boundary spatial data products for use in

planning by individual organizations and across groups via collaboration and cooperation

• Maps of conservation opportunity areas (COAs)
• Opportunities for adaptation strategies given

uncertainty of climate and ecological data, as well as social dynamics

• Relationship building
• Groundwork for future work together to address

landscape-scale challenges and opportunities in the Basin

An iterative process

Workshop #1 Workshop #2

Features:

• Many forms of

engagement

• People move in and out

as they have time and resources to engage

• The “right people” are

those who are here… and we are always doing more outreach

• We are laying the

foundation for many years of future work

Informing strategic efforts to expand and connect protected areas using a model of ecological flow with application to the western United States

Dickson et al. 2016 Cons. Lett.

Example of connectivity atlas

Great Northern Connectivity Atlas

More information

https://sites.google.com/site/grblcdwiki/

Thank you! Any questions?

More info at: https://sites.google.com/site/grblcdwiki

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