Great Lakes Shoreline and Dune Habitat is an indicator of the Midwest Landscape Initiative’s (MLI) 2023 Midwest Conservation Blueprint. The Blueprint is a basemap of priority lands and waters for conservation across the Midwest consisting of over 20 social and environmental values representing diverse interests across society. This indicator was chosen as a targetable, important feature of the MLI goals that will be used to track conditions over time and prioritize areas for conservation. Indicators were defined through elicitation and prioritization exercises with federal and state participants. Criteria for the indicators includes 1) actionable, 2) measurable, 3) relevant to multiple groups across the region, and/or 4) representative of other social and/or environmental values. This indicator identifies the availability of dune and shoreline habitat within the Midwest Landscape. It prioritizes areas based on shoreline type (natural or artificial) and landcover type (Great Lakes Dune or Great Lakes Dune Grassland). This indicator originates from the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework (GLAHF) Harmonized Shoreline Classification and the LANDFIRE Existing Vegetation Type layer. To create this layer, MLI partners, members, and staff completed the following mapping steps: projected all input data to NAD83 (2011) UTM Zone 15N, buffered the Harmonized Shoreline layer by 90m, converted buffered shoreline data to a 30m raster, and reclassified the raster into a binary: Artificial shoreline – 0, Natural shoreline – 1. Pixels classified as “Great Lakes Dune” or “Great Lakes Dune Grassland” were extracted from the LANDFIRE dataset. The extracted dune habitat pixels were mosaicked into a raster with the shoreline data to create a final raster layer with two classes: Artificial shoreline – 0, Natural shoreline OR dune habitat – 1. Finally, highly altered areas were removed from the layer using our Highly Altered Areas mask. For full mapping details, please refer to the Midwest Conservation Blueprint 2023 Development Process document.
