The South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (SALCC) project area supports a wide variety of critical estuarine and marine habitats. However, the existing maps of these resources were created at different scales and are housed in a variety of locations. This can be challenging for users and limits their utility for a regional approach to analysis. Looking across boundaries is important to understanding relative value when making habitat conservation decisions. With this project, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) proposes to: (1) develop a suite of regional natural resource maps for the South Atlantic; (2) create a report describing data source, analytical methods and mapping results that includes a summary of existing mapping efforts identified during the project; and (3) engage the Governors’ South Atlantic Alliance (GSAA) Healthy Ecosystem Technical Team as the project steering committee. Analysis will be completed using existing data sources for three core sets of biological resources: seafloor habitats, migratory species, and estuarine habitats. Technical experts in each field will be engaged during the development of the new regional natural resource maps. To help ensure that the final products meet the need of users, TNC will engage the GSAA Healthy Ecosystem Technical Team, along with other identified partners (e.g. Atlantic Coast Fish Habitat Partnership), as the steering committee for the project. This will provide a variety of state, federal and regional representatives the opportunity to review and comment on the mapping products.
