MODELING TERRESTRIAL LANDSCAPE DYNAMICS FOR THE SOUTHEAST REGIONAL ASSESSMENT PROJECT: HOW THE NATIONAL GAP ANALYSIS PROGRAM HELPED SET THE STAGE

In the Southeast U.S., fish and wildlife agencies are increasingly challenged to predict and respond to the potential effects of a changing climate and land use change. Of primary concern to agencies seeking to implement long-term conservation strategies is the rapid urbanization and potential shifts in climate that will impact habitat availability and quality. Modeling the future range of landscape conditions under a variety of policy and land use, as well as climate change scenarios is an effective way in which to provide managers the information they will need to adaptively manage for species. We will describe ongoing landscape dynamics modeling to support the terrestrial component of the Southern Regional Assessment Project (SERAP). This effort is an extension of an ongoing partnership with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Joint Venture Program, the USGS Gap Analysis Program and the USGS Cooperative Research Program on the “Designing Sustainable Landscapes Project”. The regional effort includes urban growth modeling based on the USGS SLEUTH-R model and mapping vegetation dynamic using state transition models to project those changes through 2060. Our base land cover map (2001 Southeastern GAP Analysis) represents the most thematically rich and ecologically meaningful vegetation map for the region and provides the basis for modeling state transitions (i.e. early succession/open canopy to late succession/closed canopy) for the hundreds of vegetation types (Ecological Systems and their modifiers) that had been mapped. Together these two models (urban and vegetation dynamics) are being used to investigate the range of possible outcomes given a variety of management and climate change scenarios. To date we have tested scenarios of urban growth, vegetation response to three climate change scenarios (A1, B2, A1B) and the impact of strategic longleaf pine restoration in the Southern Atlantic Coastal Plain.

SERAP Southern Regional Assessment Project