This project identifies priority areas in the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion to implement conservation strategies for riverine and riparian habitat. This is tailored towards the Arid Lands Initiative (ALI) conservation goals and objectives, and provides the foundation for adaptation to a changing climate. This project adopts a “zoned” approach to identifying focal areas, connectivity management zones and zones for riparian habitat and ecological representation. Through a series of workshops and webinars, the ALI articulated its freshwater conservation goals and targets. Key aspects of these goals included: a focus on non-anadromous salmonid (salmon and steelhead) species, include riparian birds and waterfowl as key species in freshwater zones, and making ecological representation of different riverine types part of the project. The methods to spatially identify a conservation design in pursuit of the ALI’s goals was developed through a series of one-one-one interviews with freshwater scientists across multiple agencies, universities and NGOs. The spatially-explicit conservation planning tool, Marxan, was used to identify areas that are irreplaceable to meet ALI goals in an efficient solution. The results of the Marxan analysis were further classified to identify focal areas, connectivity zones and riparian and representation zones. The results of this analysis can be used to complement the ALI’s prioritization of terrestrial systems. The selection frequency output quantifies how many times an AU is selected in the final solution, among the 100 repetitions in a Marxan run. An AU with a selection frequency of 100 would mean that Marxan cannot meet the goals set for each target in an optimal way without that AU as part of the solution. If an AU had a selection frequency of 0, it means that it was never selected in 100 repetitions. If an AU had a selection frequency in between 0 and 100, say 50, it signifies that the solution can be reached with or without that particular AU. The more times an AU is selected, the more valuable, or “irreplaceable” it is. Figure 6 presents the selection frequency results for the final Marxan run. Areas in the darkest blues (100) are those areas that are irreplaceable to meet ALI goals.
