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This raster combines linkages developed from four landscape integrity-derived resistance surfaces: linear, low sensitivity, medium sensitivity, and high sensitivity. See Section 2.5.2 WHCWG (2012) for additional information pertaining to development of the four landscape integrity-derived resistance rasters. Adjacent core areas within 100 km Euclidean distance of one another were connected. This GIS dataset is part of a suite of wildlife habitat connectivity data produced by the Washington Wildlife Habitat Connectivity Working Group (WHCWG). The WHCWG is a voluntary public-private partnership between state and federal agencies, universities, tribes, and non-governmental organizations. The WHCWG is co-led by the...
Abstract (from Oxford Academic): Fire refugia are landscape elements that remain unburned or minimally affected by fire, thereby supporting postfire ecosystem function, biodiversity, and resilience to disturbances. Although fire refugia have been studied across continents, scales, and affected taxa, they have not been characterized systematically over space and time, which is crucial for understanding their role in facilitating resilience in the context of global change. We identify four dichotomies that delineate an overarching conceptual framework of fire refugia: unburned versus lower severity, species-specific versus landscape-process characteristics, predictable versus stochastic, and ephemeral versus persistent....
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Projected current and future distributions of two tree species, Pinus albicaulis (Whitebark pine), Artemisia tridentata (Big Sagebrush), based on empirical bioclimatic models. Many recent changes in tree mortality, tree species distributions, and tree growth rates have been linked to changes in climate. Given that future climatic changes will likely surpass those experienced in the recent past, trees will likely face additional challenges as temperatures continue to rise and precipitation regimes shift. Managing forests in the face of climate change will require a basic understanding of which tree species will be most vulnerable to climate change and in what ways they will be vulnerable. We assessed the relative...
Abstract (from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425716305016): Measuring post-fire effects at landscape scales is critical to an ecological understanding of wildfire effects. Predominantly this is accomplished with either multi-spectral remote sensing data or through ground-based field sampling plots. While these methods are important, field data is usually limited to opportunistic post-fire observations, and spectral data often lacks validation with specific variables of change. Additional uncertainty remains regarding how best to account for environmental variables influencing fire effects (e.g., weather) for which observational data cannot easily be acquired, and whether pre-fire agents of...
Abstract (from esa): Western U.S. wildfire area burned has increased dramatically over the last half‐century. How contemporary extent and severity of wildfires compare to the pre‐settlement patterns to which ecosystems are adapted is debated. We compared large wildfires in Pacific Northwest forests from 1984 to 2015 to modeled historic fire regimes. Despite late twentieth‐century increases in area burned, we show that Pacific Northwest forests have experienced an order of magnitude less fire over 32 yr than expected under historic fire regimes. Within fires that have burned, severity distributions are disconnected from historical references. From 1984 to 2015, 1.6 M ha burned; this is 13.3–18.9 M ha less than expected....
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Snow and meteorological observations were collected over a range of water years (WY) by three research institutions and by citizen scientists to characterize forest effects on snow processes across the Pacific Northwest, USA. Fourteen total study sites cover the western slopes and crest of the Cascade Range in WA and OR, and central and northern ID. Each study location includes one or more paired forest and open area in which to compare snow observations. A range of forest canopy densities and data collection strategies are represented, including paired manual snow courses, snow pits, automated sensors, and time-lapse images of snow measurement poles. Analysis and synthesis of all of these sites are presented in...
Unburned islands are areas within wildfire perimeters that did not burn. These islands are important because they serve as a refuge both during and after the fire for plants and animals to survive and subsequently repopulate adjacent burned areas. This project sought to better understand how and why these islands occur – what makes some areas of the landscape fireproof, even as everything around them burns? How can we use that information to manage forests and rangelands in a way that supports continued development of unburned islands and fire refugia, even under climate change? To answer these questions, we developed a historical atlas of unburned islands across the Northwest (Washington, Oregon, and Idaho) and...
EcoAdapt staff located and compiled relevant gray literature from Northwest national forests (e.g., forest management plans, fire management plans and policies, climate change strategy documents) written between 1986-2015, and categorized the ways in which fire-related climate adaptation actions appear in these documents. A coding system was created to review and catalog how climate adaptation actions appear in each document. Each document was reviewed and scored based on a 0-2 scale with 0 indicating no presence of climate adaptation action(s) within the document, 1 indicating presence of climate adaptation action(s) within the document, and 2 indicating climate adaptation action(s) are the focus/priority of the...
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Field measurements, daily meteorological inputs, and previously validated iSnobal simulations were used to run and inform the biogeochemical models Biome-BGC and Biome-BGC MuSo at three aspen stands in the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed. iSnobal simulations of snow redistribution were used to modify measured precipitation values to account for the redistribution of snow. Biome-BGC simulations were run under historical conditions (1984-2015) assuming both a uniform and redistributed snow layer. Biome-BGC MuSo simulations were run under historical (1996-2015) and future climate scenarios (2046-2065) and account for the redistribution of snow. Biogeochemical simulation data sets include input files used to run...
Aspen forests are “biological hotspots” in the western United States that support numerous wildlife species. Aspen ecosystems are also economically and socially important, providing high quality forage for livestock and game species (e.g. elk), as well as drawing tourists and improving local economies. Aspen ecosystems are in decline across portions of the western U.S., which is thought to be partly due to drought, and recent research suggests that future climate projected for the western U.S. will be even less capable of supporting aspen. We used different research methods to investigate key controls on aspen growth and survivability in the northern Great Basin and central Rockies. Specifically, we projected the...
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Composite Burn Index (CBI) Plot Data from 2015 field campiagn. These data are used in the detection of unburned areas using Landsat imagery, see for more info: Meddens, A. J., C. A. Kolden, and J. A. Lutz. 2016. Detecting unburned areas within wildfire perimeters using Landsat and ancillary data across the northwestern United States. Remote Sensing of Environment 186:275-285. Note that the data are entered into the jFiremon database management tool and outputted as a Microsoft Access database. Most plot locations are recorded in the UTM_zone11 with NAD83 datum, although some are recorded in zone 10. See spreadsheets for more info. A total of 380 plots were recorded.
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This zipped folder includes a file geodatabase that contains the spatial data sets gathered for the second phase of the Arid Land Initiative’s Landscape Conservation Design activity in the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion, as well as an excel file with information about the Ecological Integrity Assessment (EIA) data variables. This analysis, which was funded by the Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative, is fully described in the 2015 ALI report also available on ScienceBase, here.The file geodatabase contains the Priority Conservation Areas identified using Marxan in the first phase of the analysis. For the second phase, numerous statistics summarizing representing current conservation value and vulnerability...
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This project is part of a larger effort to design a sustainable landscape for wildlife and ecological systems in the Columbia Plateau ecoregion. Another goal of this effort is to test and describe different approaches to doing “Landscape Conservation Design” (LCD) and working towards articulating a toolkit of approaches for LCD. This report documents a task related to further develop and testing of this toolkit as applied to priority areas in the Columbia Plateau). This project focuses on a rapid assessment method of several potential areas across a large landscape. This assessment project builds from these previous ALI efforts (ALI 2013 and ALI 2014) by providing decision support for strategy development. This...
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This project is part of a larger effort to design a sustainable landscape for wildlife and ecological systems in the Columbia Plateau ecoregion. Another goal of this effort is to test and describe different approaches to doing “Landscape Conservation Design” (LCD) and working towards articulating a toolkit of approaches for LCD. This report documents a task related to further develop and testing of this toolkit as applied to priority areas in the Columbia Plateau). This project focuses on a rapid assessment method of several potential areas across a large landscape. This assessment project builds from these previous ALI efforts (ALI 2013 and ALI 2014) by providing decision support for strategy development. ...
map background search result map search result map Observations of snow depth and meteorological variables in forests and nearby open areas at field sites in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, USA Crawford and Rocchio, 2014: Assessing the Condition of Spatial Priority Areas in the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion ALI Phase 2 Data EIA Field Data for Columbia Plateau Priority Areas Projected current and future distributions for Big Sagebrush and Whitebark Pine tree species the Pacific Northwest Landscape integrity HCA and corridors from four integrity-derived resistance surfaces Field measurements, biogeochemical model input files, climate data, and simulation output for aspen sites in the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed, ID, USA (1984-2015). Composite Burn Index (CBI) Plot Data from 2015 field campaign Composite Burn Index (CBI) Plot Data from 2015 field campaign Landscape integrity HCA and corridors from four integrity-derived resistance surfaces Crawford and Rocchio, 2014: Assessing the Condition of Spatial Priority Areas in the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion EIA Field Data for Columbia Plateau Priority Areas ALI Phase 2 Data Observations of snow depth and meteorological variables in forests and nearby open areas at field sites in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, USA Field measurements, biogeochemical model input files, climate data, and simulation output for aspen sites in the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed, ID, USA (1984-2015). Projected current and future distributions for Big Sagebrush and Whitebark Pine tree species the Pacific Northwest