The US Fish & Wildlife Service, with other partners, is using TerrainWorks online TerrainViewer data to inform the aquatic portion of their Arid Lands Initiative. Learn more about habitat prioritization under the Arid Lands Initiative.
Project Summary: With the continuing support of the Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GNLCC), we aim to build on the products and partnerships we developed in Phase 1 of the project. During the first phase (still in progress), members of the USFWS Region 1 National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) and the Arid Lands Initiative (ALI) are pooling resources to identify a common spatial conservation design in the Columbia Plateau ecoregion. In Phase 2, our goals are to: (1) assess the potential of priority areas identified in Phase 1 to meet conservation goals for ALI and NWRS conservation targets; and (2) assess the future integrity and resiliency of Phase 1 priority areas, based on existing climate change data and decision support tools. The Landscape Conservation Design (LCD) products described in this proposal will be developed with a strong emphasis on the articulation of a “toolkit” of effective LCD approaches, which will be transferrable to other ecoregions in USFWS Region 1 and beyond.
Project Team and Partners: Rex Crawford, WNHP Ecologist; Joe Rocchio, WNHP Ecologist; Kevin O’Hara, USFWS Conservation Planner; Scott McCarthy, USFWS Planning Branch Chief; Khem So, USFWS Conservation Planner; Charles Houghten, USFWS Planning, Visitor Services, and Transportation Division Chief; Sonia Hall, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Senior Scientist; Karen Bicchieri, ALI Spatial Priorities Coordinator; Madeline Steele, USFWS GIS Specialist; David Patte, USFWS Climate Change Coordinator; Nathan Schumaker, EPA Western Ecology Division Landscape Ecologist; David Drescher, USFWS Refuge Information Branch Chief; Pat Comer, NatureServe Chief Ecologist; National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) staff in the Columbia Plateau.