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Nature's Network: Lands and waters sustaining wildlife and people
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Nature’s Network is a collaborative effort facilitated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Science Applications program that brings together partners from 13 states, federal agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and universities to identify the best opportunities for conserving and connecting intact habitats and ecosystems and supporting imperiled species to help ensure the future of fish and wildlife across the Northeast region.
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Resources
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NatureServe
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NatureServe represents an international network of biological inventories-known as natural heritage programs or conservation data centers-operating in all 50 U.S. states, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The network not only collects and manages detailed local information on plants, animals, and ecosystems, but develops information products, data management tools, and conservation services to help meet local, national, and global conservation needs.
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Planning In Practice
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Conservation Planning Projects
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North Carolina Natural Heritage Program
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North Carolina Natural Heritage Program's mission is to provide science and incentives to inform conservation decisions and support conservation of significant natural areas in North Carolina.
By gathering and sharing information about rare species and natural communities, the Program ensures public access to information that is needed to weigh the ecological significance of natural areas and to evaluate potential ecological impacts of conservation and development projects. The Program sits within the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
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Organizations Search
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Novel climates, no-analog communities, and ecological surprises
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No-analog communities (communities that are compositionally unlike any found today) occurred frequently in the past and will develop in the greenhouse world of the future. The well documented no-analog plant communities of late-glacial North America are closely linked to “novel” climates also lacking modern analogs, characterized by high seasonality of temperature. In climate simulations for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change A2 and B1 emission scenarios, novel climates arise by 2100 AD, primarily in tropical and subtropical regions. These future novel climates are warmer than any present climates globally, with spatially variable shifts in precipitation, and increase the risk of species reshuffling into future no-analog communities and other ecological surprises. Most ecological models are at least partially parameterized from modern observations and so may fail to accurately predict ecological responses to these novel climates. There is an urgent need to test the robustness of ecological models to climate conditions outside modern experience.
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Resources
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Climate Science Documents
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Observations of Climate Change in the AppLCC
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Observations and likely outcomes from changing climate for AppLCC natural resources.
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Resources
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General Resources Holdings
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AppLCC Development and Operations Planning
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Seeing the landscape for the trees: Metrics to guide riparian shade management in river catchments
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Rising water temperature (Tw) due to anthropogenic climate change may have serious conse- quences for river ecosystems. Conservation and/or expansion of riparian shade could counter warming and buy time for ecosystems to adapt. However, sensitivity of river reaches to direct solar radiation is highly het- erogeneous in space and time, so benefits of shading are also expected to be site specific. We use a network of high-resolution temperature measurements from two upland rivers in the UK, in conjunction with topo- graphic shade modeling, to assess the relative significance of landscape and riparian shade to the thermal behavior of river reaches. Trees occupy 7% of the study catchments (comparable with the UK national aver- age) yet shade covers 52% of the area and is concentrated along river corridors. Riparian shade is most ben- eficial for managing Tw at distances 5–20 km downstream from the source of the rivers where discharge is modest, flow is dominated by near-surface hydrological pathways, there is a wide floodplain with little land- scape shade, and where cumulative solar exposure times are sufficient to affect Tw. For the rivers studied, we find that approximately 0.5 km of complete shade is necessary to off-set Tw by 18C during July (the month with peak Tw) at a headwater site; whereas 1.1 km of shade is required 25 km downstream. Further research is needed to assess the integrated effect of future changes in air temperature, sunshine duration, direct solar radiation, and downward diffuse radiation on Tw to help tree planting schemes achieve
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Resources
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Climate Science Documents
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Sentinel Landscapes Partnership
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The Sentinel Landscapes Partnership is a coalition of federal agencies, state and local governments, and non-governmental organizations that works with private landowners to advance sustainable land management practices around military installations and ranges.
Founded in 2013 by the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Agriculture, and Department of the Interior, the partnership’s mission is to strengthen military readiness, conserve natural resources, bolster agricultural and forestry economies, and increase climate change resilience.
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LP Members
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Organizations Search
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Solar energy development impacts on land cover change and protected areas
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Decisions determining the use of land for energy are of exigent concern as land scarcity, the need for ecosystem services, and demands for energy generation have concomitantly increased globally. Utility-scale solar energy (USSE) [i.e., ≥1 megawatt (MW)] development requires large quantities of space and land; however, studies quantifying the effect of USSE on land cover change and protected areas are limited. We assessed siting impacts of >160 USSE installations by technology type [photovoltaic (PV) vs. concentrating solar power (CSP)], area (in square kilometers), and capacity (in MW) within the global solar hot spot of the state of California (United States). Additionally, we used the Carnegie Energy and Environmental Compatibility model, a multiple criteria model, to quantify each installation according to environmental and technical compatibility. Last, we evaluated installations according to their proximity to protected areas, including inventoried roadless areas, endangered and threatened species habitat, and federally protected areas. We found the plurality of USSE (6,995 MW) in California is sited in shrublands and scrublands, comprising 375 km2 of land cover change. Twenty-eight percent of USSE installations are located in croplands and pastures, comprising 155 km2 of change. Less than 15% of USSE installations are sited in “Compatible” areas. The majority of “Incompatible” USSE power plants are sited far from existing transmission infrastructure, and all USSE installations average at most 7 and 5 km from protected areas, for PV and CSP, respectively. Where energy, food, and conservation goals intersect, environmental compatibility can be achieved when resource opportunities, constraints, and trade-offs are integrated into siting decisions.
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Resources
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Climate Science Documents
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South Florida Water Management District
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Our mission: To safeguard and restore South Florida's water resources and ecosystems, protect our communities from flooding, and meet the region's water needs while connecting with the public and stakeholders.
The South Florida Water Management District is a regional governmental agency that manages the water resources in the southern half of the state, covering 16 counties from Orlando to the Florida Keys and serving a population of 9 million residents. It is the oldest and largest of the state's five water management districts. Created in 1949, the agency is responsible for managing and protecting water resources of South Florida by balancing and improving flood control, water supply, water quality and natural systems.
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South-Central Interior Small Stream and Riparian Habitat
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This habitat was assessed in both the Cumberland - Southern Appalachian subregion and the Interior Low Plateau subregion. Results are in the first two tabs of the spreadsheet. A description of the habitat, and a list of associated species, is included in the description tab. The remaining tabs describe the individual factors and their definitions. These results are in the review stage. Please send comments to lesley_sneddon@natureserve.org.
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Vulnerability
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Phase II: Vulnerability Assessments
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Habitat Vulnerability Assessments
