Forested Wetlands Protection Opportunities

The purpose of this data set is support resource allocation decisions (i.e. where to invest conservation effort) within the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative. The Protection Opportunity action map for the Forested Wetland habitat system ranks pixels (250-m) based primarily on the Forested Wetland Condition Index such that unprotected sites within healthy landscapes are ranked higher than those in very fragmented landscapes. Ranks are increased by information on existing partner interest (i.e. stated priority areas), elevated risk of change by 2060, and predicted occupancy of a majority of species identified in the GCPO LCC’s draft Integrated Science Agenda (v4). Areas ranked as high restoration opportunities (i.e. are currently under an alternative land use) are given an elevated protection opportunity assuming that some form of protection agreement will be required prior to land management changes. Currently protected areas (modified version of PADUS) are assigned a value of 0. Please see PDF file in the Forested Wetland folder in the Blueprint Gallery at https://gcpolcc.databasin.org/ for a full description of the process used to build the index.