The Georgia Scenic Byways program (GDOT, 2017) is a “grassroots effort … to identify,
preserve, promote and protect treasured corridors throughout the state.” There are fifteen such
corridors designated by Georgia DOT, their only protection is a restriction on roadside
billboards. Despite frequent avocation of the beauties of Georgia highways, there is no
systematic articulation of the physical attributes of a scenic landscape, how such attributes would
be identified and thus protected, nor the expertise or resources to devote to new
discoveries.
While there is an increased need for cultural resource conservation and management in
North America, there are few approaches that provide robust integration and combined assessment
of visual and cultural resources. Determining the scenic value of important views and identifying
potential risk for loss of that view are core components needed to design protection preserving
scenic quality and the cultural resources contributing to scenic value and overall sense of place.
The advent of Web 2.0 and the growth of social media platforms have fostered an environment
for the documentation and sharing of landscape imagery. In addition to looking at the site scale,
using these big data allows for visual landscape assessment at the regional scale. The onset of Marcellus shale gas development in the state of Pennsylvania concurrent with the
rapidly widening availability of crowd-sourced citizen photography has provided a valuable
opportunity to study crowdsourced and georeferenced photography as an aid in visual resource
conservation design and planning. As Trombulak and Baldwin (2010) outline, the goals for this
work include identifying spatially explicit measures of change in the landscape, being able to
predict spatially explicit threats to the landscape, recognizing sites within the region that are
important or irreplaceable, and prioritizing areas for conservation action to address pressures
and preserve/conserve exceptional sites in the future.
Forested Stream and/or Seepage
Forested stream environments are typically found in the buffer zones between forested land and stream banks, often
known as riparian zones. Stream headwaters and seepage areas occur where ground water percolates to the surface
through muck, mossy rock, and nettles. It can also be found under rocks, among gravel, or cobble where water has
begun to percolate in areas near open water. Breeding grounds are commonly found beneath mosses growing on
rocks, on logs, or soil surfaces in these types of seepage areas.
Predicted climate change will largely impact changes in temperature and moisture availability in forested stream
and/or seepage systems, likely having a cascading effect on a species habitat and increasing stress to many of these
species. The Appalachian LCC funded NatureServe to conduct vulnerability assessments on a suite of plants,
animals, and habitats within the Appalachians. These assessments can be used as an early warning system to alert
resource managers about changing conditions.
Open Woodlands
Used generally to describe low density forests, open woodland ecosystems contain widely spaced trees
whose crowns do not touch, causing for an open canopy, insignificant midstory canopy layer, sparse
understory and where groundcover is the most obvious feature of the landscape dominated by diverse
flora (grasses, forbes, sedges). Open Woodlands provide habitat for a diverse mix of wildlife species,
several of which are of conservation concern, such as Red Headed Woodpecker, Prairie Warbler,
Kentucky Warbler, Northern Bobwhite and Eastern Red Bat.
Predicted climate change will largely impact changes in temperature and moisture availability in open
woodlands systems, likely having a cascading effect on a species habitat and increasing stress to many
of these species. The Appalachian LCC funded NatureServe to conduct vulnerability assessments on a
suite of plants, animals, and habitats within the Appalachians. These assessments can be used as an early
warning system to alert resource managers about changing conditions.
Forest/Woodland habitats describe large areas primarily dominated by trees, with moderate ground
coverage, such as grasses and shrubs. Density, tree height, and land use may all vary, though woodland is
typically used to describe lower density forests. A forest may have an open canopy, but a woodland must
have an open canopy with enough sunlight to reach the ground and limited shade.
Predicted climate change will largely impact changes in temperature and moisture availability in forest/
woodlands systems, likely having a cascading effect on a species habitat and increasing stress to many
of these species. The Appalachian LCC funded NatureServe to conduct vulnerability assessments on a
suite of plants, animals, and habitats within the Appalachians. These assessments can be used as an early
warning system to alert resource managers about changing conditions.
Meadows are open grasslands where grass and other non-woody plants are the primary vegetation. With no tree
coverage, meadows are typically open, sunny areas that attract flora and fauna that require both ample space and
sunlight. These conditions allow for the growth of many wildflowers and are typically important ecosystems for
pollinating insects. Marshlands are like meadows in that they typically have no tree coverage and host primarily
grasses and woody plants. However, a defining characteristic of marshlands is their wetland features.
Predicted climate change will largely impact changes in temperature and moisture availability in meadows and
marshlands systems, likely having a cascading effect on a species habitat and increasing stress to many of these
species. The Appalachian LCC funded NatureServe to conduct vulnerability assessments on a suite of plants,
animals, and habitats within the Appalachians. These assessments can be used as an early warning system to alert
resource managers about changing conditions.
New vulnerability assessments for 41 species and 3 habitats in the Appalachians now available.
This study clarifies how additional water demands in the region may adversely affect freshwater biological integrity. The results make clear that policies to limit or prevent water withdrawals from smaller streams can reduce the risk of ecosystem impairment. 2016 Scientific Reports associated with the AppLCC-funded research to Cornell.
2014 Scientific Reports Related to this Collaboration with Clemson University. Paul B. Leonard, Robert F. Baldwin, Edward B. Duffy, Donald J. Lipscomb, Adam M. Rose. Landscape and Urban Planning 125 (2014) 156–165.
2015 Scientific Reports Related to this Collaboration with Clemson University. Robert F. Baldwin, Paul B. Leonard. PLoS ONE10(10): Published: October 14, 2015
2017. Scientific Reports Related to this Collaboration with Clemson University. Paul B. Leonard, Robert F. Baldwin & R. Daniel Hanks.
Assessing Future Energy Development across the Appalachian LCC used models that combined data on energy development trends and identified where these may intersect with important natural resource and ecosystem services to give a more comprehensive picture of what potential energy development could look like in the Appalachians. Ultimately this information is intended to support dialogue and conservation on how to effectively avoid, minimize, and offset impacts from energy development to important natural areas and the valuable services they provide.
Assessing Future Energy Development Across the Appalachians -
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The goal of this project was to create a spatially explicit 1km2 grid cell model for the Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative (Figure 1) predicting where surface coal mining is likely to occur in in a projected future time period, under two different scenarios. To accomplish this goal we combined GIS spatial analysis, a Random Forests predictive model, and future mining buildout scenarios. This report provides a detailed methodology of our approach and discussion of our results.
Provision of shade via riparian restoration is a well-established management adaptation strategy to mitigate against temperature increases in streams. Effective use of this strategy depends upon accurately identifying vulnerable, unforested riparian areas in priority coldwater stream habitats. An innovative riparian planting and restoration decision support tool is now available to the conservation community. This user-friendly tool allows managers and decision-makers to rapidly identify and prioritize areas along the banks of rivers, streams, and lakes for restoration, making these ecosystems more resilient to disturbance and future changes in climate.
Riparian Restoration to Promote Climate Change Resilience in Eastern U.S. Streams -
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The cave and karst dataset from this research is available through our Conservation Planning Atlas.
These GIS data represent the input and results of a spatial statistical model used to examine the hypothesis that the presence of major faunal groups of cave obligate species could be predicted based on features of the Earth surface.
Georeferenced records of cave obligate amphipods, crayfish, fish, isopods, beetles, millipedes, pseudoscorpions, spiders, and springtails within the area of Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) in the eastern United States (Illinois to Virginia, and New York to Alabama) were assigned to 20 x 20 km grid cells. Habitat suitability for these faunal groups was modeled using logistic regression with twenty predictor variables within each grid cell, such as percent karst, soil features, temperature, precipitation, and elevation. The models successfully predicted the presence of a group greater than 65 percent of the time (mean=88 percent) for the presence of single grid cell endemics, and for all faunal groups except pseudoscorpions. The most common predictor variables were latitude, percent karst, and the standard deviation of the Topographic Position Index (TPI), a measure of landscape rugosity within each grid cell. The overall success of these models points to a number of important connections between the surface and cave environments, and some of these, especially soil features and topographic variability, suggest new research directions. These models should prove to be useful tools in predicting the presence of species in understudied areas.
