Pennsylvania Watersheds with a Documented Bat Occurrence

Forest cores are derived by applying an inverse buffer (-100m) to forest patches to represent the area of contiguous interior forest habitat. Forest patches are defined as areas of contiguous natural cover bound by non-natural edge or linear fragmenting features (roads, railroads, transmission lines, natural gas pipelines). The following land cover types were selected from the 2006 National Land Cover Database (NLCD) to define “natural cover”: deciduous forest, coniferous forest, mixed [deciduous-coniferous] forest, scrub-shrub, woody wetland, and emergent wetland. Forest patches were delineated based on non-forest edge (from the NLCD) and the following linear fragmenting features:electric transmission lines (from Ventyx, LLC, August 2013), natural gas pipelines (from Ventyx, LLC, August 2013),railroads (from 2001-2008 ESRI StreetMap data), and roads (from 2001-2008 ESRI StreetMap data).

This dataset summarizes modeled probabilities of wind energy development within forested cores that are also within 5 miles of a watershed with a documented bat occurrence in Pennsylvania.