This is an older version of the Southeast Blueprint.
The Blueprint analysis, maps, and data on this site represent the level of value – high or medium – of healthy natural resources and their potential to benefit fish, wildlife and plants. It is part of our effort to reach beyond our Region’s conservation community’s to begin talking with a range of groups about areas that have value for conservation. This information is crafted to help us get a glimpse of the of the Region as we think about emerging trends, better planning and better conversations with everyone who has a stake in what the Southeast Region might look like in 2060.
Private lands identified on the map may be good candidates for voluntary conservation programs, which help keep working lands working. There are numerous public and private conservation programs that seek to conserve natural resources while supporting and respecting private landownership. Examples include mitigation or conservation banks, conservation easements, voluntary land acquisition programs as well as other innovative conservation planning opportunities such as rural clustering, deer management cooperatives, transfer of development rights, and other stewardship efforts.
Known Issues:
• Areas where multiple LCC Blueprints cover the same geography are likely over-prioritized. These areas include parts of West Virginia, Southeast Virginia, North Florida, and Missouri. This issue is most problematic in West Virginia and Southeast Virginia due to differences in the methods used to integrate aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems between the South Atlantic/Appalachian LCC and the North Atlantic LCC. This issue is less of a problem in North Florida where the consistency among the 3 blueprints was relatively high.
• Corridors are under-prioritized in the western part of SECAS as only the South Atlantic, North Atlantic, Appalachian, and Peninsular Florida Blueprint formally included corridors.
• Adaptation to climate change (not related to sea-level rise) is not formally included in the western part of SECAS as only the South Atlantic, North Atlantic, Appalachian, and Peninsular Florida specifically incorporate this in their Blueprints.
• Responses to urban growth and sea-level rise are not fully captured in SECAS. Urban growth is considered in all SECAS regions except for Northwest Missouri. That area is covered by the Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers and doesn’t yet incorporate urban growth. Sea-level rise is considered in all the SECAS regions where it’s applicable except for most of the Virginia coast. That area is only covered by the North Atlantic which doesn’t yet consider sea-level rise.
• Native prairie is under-prioritized in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and the South Piedmont. This is due to mismatches in state datasets (Southwest Louisiana), the narrow focus of CHAT (Flint hills region of Oklahoma), and the difficulty of identifying certain types of prairies with remote sensing (South Piedmont).
• A section of Northeast Louisiana, Western Mississippi, and Eastern Missouri along the Mississippi Alluvial Valley seems to be under-prioritized. The priorities in this region, which come from the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Blueprint, are based on current condition which is currently worse than other regions in the Valley. However, there are important restoration opportunities in that region that are captured in a separate restoration layer created by the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks LCC but not yet included in the SECAS Blueprint.
• Some areas of coastal marsh seem to be under-prioritized (e.g, coastal Louisiana)
• While the input data from each LCC Blueprint is intended to identify areas of high and medium conservation value, approaches and methods varied so specific definitions of “high conservation value” varied by LCC region
The list below indicates the input data from 8 different LCC’s and associations used to develop the SECAS Blueprint v2.0:
• Peninsular Florida: pflcc_clp12 (Raster)
• Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies: WAFWA_CHAT_downloadable_013016 (Vector)
• South Atlantic: TerrMosiacBlueprint_2_2 (Raster)
• North Atlantic: NaturesNetwork_conservdesign_170425 (Raster)
• Appalachian: AppLCD2_richness5plus_merge_3class_maxval (Raster)
• Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks: secas_cbv1_submit_rev (Raster)
• Gulf Coast Prairie: gcp_blueprint_footprint_high.shp, gcp_blueprint_footprint_mid (Vector)
• Missouri: Missouri_cfa_huc_sum2 (Raster)
• Caribbean: HUC_10_Pilot_Area_Raster (Raster)
Predefined priority classes from each LCC were used in developing SECAS Blueprint v2.0. When priorities were continuous we used a quantile classification and selected break points to get close to 30% of the LCC area in high priority and 20% of the LCC area in medium priority. Any areas not classified as high or medium are set to transparent allowing layers underneath show through. The list below explains the classification of data values for each LCC involved (If a data value is not shown in the list then it is classified with no color):
• Peninsular Florida: High – Priority 1, Medium – Priority 2
• Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies: High – 1 and 2, Medium – 3
• South Atlantic: High – 4 and 3, Medium – 2 and 1
• North Atlantic: High – 1 and 2; Medium – 3
• Appalachian: High – 2, Medium – 1
• Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks: High – 1 and 2, Medium – 3
• Gulf Coast Prairie: High - gcp_blueprint_footprint_mid.shp, Medium - gcp_blueprint_footprint_high.shp
• Missouri: High – 5 through 7, Medium – 4
• Caribbean: High – Value 2, 3, 4, 10, 16, 17, 19, 21; Medium – 5, 12, 18, 22
The individual LCC blueprint that is on top is based on how long that blueprint effort has been going on. The above list is how the data layers should be ordered in the Table of Contents of ArcMap to correctly display SECAS Blueprint v2.0.
