North Carolina Natural & Working Lands Dashboards – overview, carbon, and conservation – with introductory StoryMap

Natural and working lands – forests, farmland, and wetlands – make up more than 80% of North Carolina's area and provide a variety of benefits to our communities and economy.

The importance of natural and working lands has been recognized in several recent planning efforts, including the state’s  Natural & Working Lands Action Plan  (part of the NC  Climate Risk & Resilience Plan ) and the  Coastal Habitat Protection Plan 2021 Amendment  (currently in draft form). These plans brought together many sources of information to help quantify the benefits we are currently getting from these lands, and additional benefits that could be created through management actions.

To make this information more accessible, the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions has developed three online dashboards that allow users to quickly and easily see results for certain parts of the state or specific types of natural and working lands:

•  Overview dashboard : General information about the area and benefits of NWL
•  Conservation dashboard : Focus on NWL that are protected for conservation purposes
•  Carbon dashboard : Detail about past, current, and potential carbon storage by NWL

This StoryMap briefly introduces concepts and terms used in the dashboards, explains how to use the dashboards effectively, and highlights key findings. More details on the data sources used for the dashboards can be found in the informational panel in the center of each dashboard. The data used in the dashboards is primarily from national or state-level sources; please be aware when using the dashboards that these datasets may not be accurate for very local areas, and are best used for analysis at larger scales.