patrickbdevaney/mia9 · Datasets at Hugging Face

text stringlengths 0 6.44k
from fishing, hunting, and wildlife watching (U.S. Census
Bureau 2011). Florida’s 13,576 km of coastline leaves
many of its ecosystems vulnerable to sea level rise (SLR),
Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management \| www.fwspubs.org June 2020 \| Volume 11 \| Issue 1 \| 174
Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/jfwm/article-pdf/11/1/174/3103287/i1944-687x-11-1-174.pdf by guest on 29 February 2024
in addition to threats from urban development, increasing temperature, and altered precipitation regimes (Noss
2011).
Setting conservation targets, the measurable expressions of desired resource conditions, is a commonly used
means for natural resource managers to focus their
conservation needs and goals (Groves et al. 2002; Parrish
et al. 2003). Conservation practitioners have assessed
and prioritized the conservation needs of Florida’s
species, habitats, and ecosystems (e.g., Florida Natural
Areas Inventory 2000, 2018; Oetting et al. 2016). Decades
ago, 44% of Florida’s vertebrate species were reported to
be in population decline (Millsap et al. 1990). Since that
time, environmental conditions have worsened because
of increasing urbanization (Terando et al. 2014) and SLR
(Noss 2011). These declines in ecosystem health and
function emphasize the need for Florida’s natural
resource managers to set conservation targets as a way
to prioritize ecosystem needs and focus resources
toward achieving conservation goals.
The Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative (PFLCC), a public–private partnership focused on
applied conservation science to inform management
decisions, renewed efforts to establish conservation
targets across the state of Florida. The PFLCC had an
advantage of developing targets in a data-rich state and
was able to make use of existing conservation and
management plans as well as research and monitoring
data, such as the Florida Natural Areas Inventory’s
statewide Conservation Needs Assessment, the Critical
Lands and Waters Identification Project (CLIP), Florida
2060 projected urban development, and Florida’s State
Wildlife Action Plan for conserving wildlife and natural
areas. The PFLCC subsequently developed a formal
process for establishing conservation targets and then
worked with subject matter experts to define which
ecosystems were in greatest need of protection and
selected explicit targets for conservation into the future
(Romanach et al. 2016). ˜
The objective of our work was to model susceptibility
scenarios resulting from urbanization and SLR to
understand potential future impacts on the PFLCC’s
conservation targets. We modeled six scenarios of
urbanization and SLR to understand the future susceptibility of a subset of PFLCC conservation targets. We
used conservation targets for three of the PFLCC’s major
categories for protection, termed Priority Resources
(Romanach et al. 2016)—High Pine and Scrub, Coastal ˜
Uplands, and Freshwater Aquatics—the three Priority
Resources for which the PFLCC had defined conservation
targets at the time of writing. The six scenarios were all
possible combinations of intermediate and high SLR
paired with two types of urbanization projections,
sprawling and compact, for both 2040 and 2070. Our
outputs identify the spatial extent of potential threats to
conservation targets on a statewide scale and provide
the PFLCC with a foundation for the assessment and
monitoring of natural resources, a framework for
prioritizing conservation efforts, and information for
communicating priorities.
Methods
We developed six scenarios of urbanization and SLR to
understand the future susceptibility of 14 of the PFLCC
conservation targets in three Priority Resources (Table 1).
The PFLCC uses the Florida state boundary, broader than
the PFLCC boundary, as the boundary for defining
targets for coordination of conservation efforts with
other landscape conservation cooperatives (Figure 1).
For scenario modeling, we extracted projected urbanized
and inundated areas to create spatial composites of
potential future impacts on conservation targets. We
calculated the amount of area impacted by projected
urbanization and SLR and the percentage of total area
affected of each target, for each scenario.
Priority Resources
Priority Resource definitions were adapted by the
PFLCC from Kawula (2018). High Pine and Scrub is
defined as hills with mesic or xeric woodlands or
shrublands; canopy, if present, is open and consists of
pine or a mixture of pine and deciduous hardwoods
(Data A1, Archived Material). Coastal Uplands is defined
as mesic or xeric communities restricted to barrier islands
and near shore with woody or herbaceous vegetation;
other communities may also occur in coastal environments (Data A2, Archived Material). Freshwater Aquatics
is defined as natural rivers and streams where stream
flow, morphometry, and water chemistry are not
substantially modified by human activities, or native
biota are dominant (Data A3, Archived Material). It also
includes natural inland lakes and ponds where the
trophic state, morphometry, and water chemistry are not
substantially modified by human activities, or native
biota are dominant. All three Priority Resource layers
were obtained from the Critical Land and Waters
Identification Project 4.0 Aggregated Priorities model
(Oetting et al. 2016).
Urbanization
Through consultation with the PFLCC, we selected
three, 1000 Friends of Florida urbanization layers: 1)
Florida 2060 projection for the year 2040 (Zwick and Carr

from fishing, hunting, and wildlife watching (U.S. Census

Bureau 2011). Florida’s 13,576 km of coastline leaves

many of its ecosystems vulnerable to sea level rise (SLR),

Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management | www.fwspubs.org June 2020 | Volume 11 | Issue 1 | 174

Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/jfwm/article-pdf/11/1/174/3103287/i1944-687x-11-1-174.pdf by guest on 29 February 2024

in addition to threats from urban development, increasing temperature, and altered precipitation regimes (Noss

2011).

Setting conservation targets, the measurable expressions of desired resource conditions, is a commonly used

means for natural resource managers to focus their

conservation needs and goals (Groves et al. 2002; Parrish

et al. 2003). Conservation practitioners have assessed

and prioritized the conservation needs of Florida’s

species, habitats, and ecosystems (e.g., Florida Natural

Areas Inventory 2000, 2018; Oetting et al. 2016). Decades

ago, 44% of Florida’s vertebrate species were reported to

be in population decline (Millsap et al. 1990). Since that

time, environmental conditions have worsened because

of increasing urbanization (Terando et al. 2014) and SLR

(Noss 2011). These declines in ecosystem health and

function emphasize the need for Florida’s natural

resource managers to set conservation targets as a way

to prioritize ecosystem needs and focus resources

toward achieving conservation goals.

The Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative (PFLCC), a public–private partnership focused on

applied conservation science to inform management

decisions, renewed efforts to establish conservation

targets across the state of Florida. The PFLCC had an

advantage of developing targets in a data-rich state and

was able to make use of existing conservation and

management plans as well as research and monitoring

data, such as the Florida Natural Areas Inventory’s

statewide Conservation Needs Assessment, the Critical

Lands and Waters Identification Project (CLIP), Florida

2060 projected urban development, and Florida’s State

Wildlife Action Plan for conserving wildlife and natural

areas. The PFLCC subsequently developed a formal

process for establishing conservation targets and then

worked with subject matter experts to define which

ecosystems were in greatest need of protection and

selected explicit targets for conservation into the future

(Romanach et al. 2016). ˜

The objective of our work was to model susceptibility

scenarios resulting from urbanization and SLR to

understand potential future impacts on the PFLCC’s

conservation targets. We modeled six scenarios of

urbanization and SLR to understand the future susceptibility of a subset of PFLCC conservation targets. We

used conservation targets for three of the PFLCC’s major

categories for protection, termed Priority Resources

(Romanach et al. 2016)—High Pine and Scrub, Coastal ˜

Uplands, and Freshwater Aquatics—the three Priority

Resources for which the PFLCC had defined conservation

targets at the time of writing. The six scenarios were all

possible combinations of intermediate and high SLR

paired with two types of urbanization projections,

sprawling and compact, for both 2040 and 2070. Our

outputs identify the spatial extent of potential threats to

conservation targets on a statewide scale and provide

the PFLCC with a foundation for the assessment and

monitoring of natural resources, a framework for

prioritizing conservation efforts, and information for

communicating priorities.

Methods

We developed six scenarios of urbanization and SLR to

understand the future susceptibility of 14 of the PFLCC

conservation targets in three Priority Resources (Table 1).

The PFLCC uses the Florida state boundary, broader than

the PFLCC boundary, as the boundary for defining

targets for coordination of conservation efforts with

other landscape conservation cooperatives (Figure 1).

For scenario modeling, we extracted projected urbanized

and inundated areas to create spatial composites of

potential future impacts on conservation targets. We

calculated the amount of area impacted by projected

urbanization and SLR and the percentage of total area

affected of each target, for each scenario.

Priority Resources

Priority Resource definitions were adapted by the

PFLCC from Kawula (2018). High Pine and Scrub is

defined as hills with mesic or xeric woodlands or

shrublands; canopy, if present, is open and consists of

pine or a mixture of pine and deciduous hardwoods

(Data A1, Archived Material). Coastal Uplands is defined

as mesic or xeric communities restricted to barrier islands

and near shore with woody or herbaceous vegetation;

other communities may also occur in coastal environments (Data A2, Archived Material). Freshwater Aquatics

is defined as natural rivers and streams where stream

flow, morphometry, and water chemistry are not

substantially modified by human activities, or native

biota are dominant (Data A3, Archived Material). It also

includes natural inland lakes and ponds where the

trophic state, morphometry, and water chemistry are not

substantially modified by human activities, or native

biota are dominant. All three Priority Resource layers

were obtained from the Critical Land and Waters

Identification Project 4.0 Aggregated Priorities model

(Oetting et al. 2016).

Urbanization

Through consultation with the PFLCC, we selected

three, 1000 Friends of Florida urbanization layers: 1)

Florida 2060 projection for the year 2040 (Zwick and Carr