Spotlight Posters on National Park Resources
Data Needs Assessment Foundational Research
Appalachian LCC Data Needs Assessment Final Report - provides recommendations on how LCC members and partners can use all the information assembled from this research to collect finer-scaled data from states, expand on work accomplished at individual state levels and “scale up” to the LCC level, and deliver data in a format that is useful for individual states and regional planning.
An Analysis of State Wildlife Action Plans in the Appalachian LCC - describe how information contained in these plans can be linked to integrate state and local-scale efforts into a regional conservation framework.
Make up of LCCs across Country by State
List of Conservation Planning Tools, Functions, and Relevance to Appalachian LCC Conservation Planning Goals - describing function and relevance of each towards the Cooperative conservation planning goals.
Interpretive Text and Graphics for AppLCC Web Portal (conservation planning tools) - shared through the LCC Web Portal for users to learn about the tools available and what purposes they could serve.
Interpretive Text and Graphics for AppLCC Web Portal (data) - that describes the data that can be posted to the Web Portal.
Data Access
Regionally connected cores are the largest of the design elements. They are broad areas of regional significance that have high internal landscape connectivity. There were 5 regional cores that were identified. In addition to regional cores, there were eight locally connected cores. These areas are locally significant (irreplaceable) and also have high internal local connectivity.
There were two major types of linkages identified that are likely providing additional connectivity between regionally connected cores and within locally connected cores. Regional connectors are region-scale corridors that connect large cores. Three of these areas were identified. The second type of major linkage, local connectors, were found bridging Valley and Ridge topography and connecting mountainous regions with the low plateaus in an east – west orientation. Four such linkages were identified.
Other Important Areas are smaller, isolated areas that are locally significant. They were identified in two primary ways: (1) build outs acted as buffers around existing protected areas suggesting that many conservation values around the protected area are not fully protected; and (2) small areas that had unique conservation value regionally but are under no current protection. Thirty-six of these areas were identified.
The zip file contains a shapefile for each of the conservation design elements.
Conservation Planning and Design Report
Successful conservation planning processes are typically interactive and inclusive of multiple stakeholders and local expert inputs. These steps are critical to the transparency and adoption of models produced by the planning exercise. This process includes generating actual conservation targets with discrete goals that are important to regional cooperators (such as the Appalachian LCC Steering Committee).
Find below the full report "Interactive Conservation Planning and Design Phase 1 for the Appalachian LCC". The report begins with an executive summary and management recommendations that detail the major findings and conclusion that came out of this research. The report then digs into more detailed information about the research, which can be found within the sections of background, process of assembling and interacting with technical teams for priority resource selection, priority resources used for conservation planning, modeling outputs, framework for cultural resource mapping, and conclusion.
or read it online:
Fact Sheet: Stream Classification
Publication Date: 2017
DOWNLOAD FILE — PDF document, 1,645 kB (1,685,263 bytes)
Phase I: Alternatives for Vulnerability Assessments: Expert Panel Findings
or read it online:
Frequently Asked Questions
Broadly speaking, a climate change vulnerability assessment is a process of using science to make predictions about the likelihood that a landscape, species, habitat, or population is to be impacted negatively by projected changes in climate. Our project focused on species and habitats that are found in the Appalachian LCC region.
In Phase I, we invited a panel of experts in climate change to provide guidance to the Appalachian LCC and its constituency on prioritizing species and habitats to assess, selecting the most effective approaches, and identifying climate data sets to use in the assessments. In addition, we assembled a wealth of recently completed existing assessments by a number of researchers, and compiled the results of over 650 species and 30 habitats into a single set of searchable spreadsheets. We used these results to select additional species and habitats to fill gaps in our data. With guidance from the LCC, the list of species and habitats was finalized, and in Phase II, we conducted vulnerability assessments of 41 species and three habitats, and added these to the previously compiled lists.
A searchable set of Excel spreadsheets are available here, with instructions on how to filter them to focus on your area, species, and habitats of interest.
Phase I and Phase II reports are available here, as are the reports from which the existing assessments were compiled.
The primary findings from Phase I include these recommended approaches: a) The first step in all cases is to determine the appropriate target of the assessment. For example, is the assessment of a particular habitat more likely to provide the information you need, rather than focusing on a single species? b) Use "coarse filter" methods such as an index approach to rapidly assess numerous species. Because hundreds of species had already been assessed using NatureServe's Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI), the panel recommended use of this tool in Phase II to produce directly comparable results. c) Use more in-depth assessments such as bioclimatic modeling for species and habitats determined to be highly vulnerable in the coarse-filter analyses.
It depends on your goals, the amount and quality of data you have at hand to conduct the assessment, and the amount of time and resources you can commit. Our report provides an example of a decision tree you can employ to decide on the approach that is most appropriate for your circumstances. See xxxx (edit when ready).
Wide-ranging species are not expected to respond to climate change uniformly throughout their range. For example, a species at the southern edge of its range is likely to be more vulnerable than it is in the northern portion of the range; different landscapes impose greater or lesser barriers to migration. The Appalachian LCC region is large and varied, so we divided it into three ecologically distinct subregions for analysis: the Central Appalachians, ranging from southern New York to southeastern Ohio, West Virginia, and portions of Virginia; Cumberland - Southern Blue Ridge Subregion, from southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, south to Alabama; and the Interior Low Plateau on the western portion of the LCC region, including southern Indiana, a small slice of southern Illinois, western Kentucky, and a small portion of northern Alabama. This means that species and habitats were assessed up to three times in the LCC region. See the subregion map here.
There had been previous assessments completed on 660 species and 31 habitats by researchers in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Illinois, as well as two regionally focused assessments in the Cumberland and Southern Blue Ridge subregion. Of these, 557 animals were assessed, which included 88 birds, 116 fishes, 80 herptiles, 227 invertebrates (including 74 mussels), and 46 mammals. 101 assessments were conducted on plants. 134 species were globally rare, with NatureServe conservation status ranks of G1, G2, or G1G2. Of these, 33 were cave invertebrates, and all were found to be relatively resistant to climate change. The remaining 101 were found to be at least moderately vulnerable to climate change in at least one subregion of analysis. The greatest number of assessments had been conducted in the Central Appalachian subregion (345), followed by Cumberland - Southern Blue Ridge subregion (273), with only 33 in the Interior Low Plateau.
The set of searchable spreadsheets can be found here, accompanied by guidance on how to use these spreadsheets..
Species and Habitat Vulnerability Assessments of Appalachian Species and Habitats
Species and Habitat Vulnerability Assessments of Appalachian Species and Habitats - Read More…
Cumberland - Southern Appalachian Climate Change Vulnerability Species Assessments
Click Here to View the Spreadsheet Online
Click Here to Download the Excel Spreadsheet
Southern Appalachian Climate Change Vulnerability Species Assessments Excel Spreadsheet
DOWNLOAD FILE — application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet, 4,071 kB (4,169,433 bytes)
Conservation Challenge
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The Appalachian LCC geography covers the entire Marcellus Shale region in the Central Appalachians, including portions of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. Because the LCC has identified energy development as a key driver of landscape change, the Cornell research area focused on the Marcellus Shale region and watersheds that extend beyond the Appalachian LCC borders.
Hydraulic fracturing is a process of drilling and injecting large quantities of water (often obtained from nearby streams) underground to break apart shale rocks and release natural gas. This energy process has rapidly expanded in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and could likely spread into Ohio and New York.
The Marcellus Shale region is characterized by geologic, topographic, and climatic variation that has created a variety of stream habitats and aquatic communities. This variety has led to considerable aquatic biodiversity. For example, field surveys summarized in this study suggest the region is home to more than 220 different fish species, including some threatened and locally endangered species. Furthermore, nearly 135,000 streams drain into three major economically and ecologically important watersheds: the Susquehanna, Ohio, and Delaware River basins.
The abundant biodiversity along with the many societal benefits provided by streams in the region (from energy to recreational) highlight the need for achieving sustainable river and stream flows that balance human/energy needs with healthy ecosystems.
Environmental Flow Analysis for the Marcellus Shale Region PDF
Publication Date: 2015
DOWNLOAD FILE — PDF document, 26,856 kB (27,501,462 bytes)
Environmental Flows from Water Withdrawals in the Marcellus Shale Region
Environmental Flows from Water Withdrawals in the Marcellus Shale Region - Read More…
Video Update: Aquatic Ecological Flows Research
You can also watch this video on our Vimeo Channel.
Stream Impacts from Water Withdrawals Phase 1 Report
Publication Date: 2013
DOWNLOAD FILE — PDF document, 1,077 kB (1,103,248 bytes)
Data Access
The inventory helped to determine what ecological flow models - that can predict both low and high flows - were in use or were applicable to the Marcellus Shale region and recommended suitable model(s) for instream flow predictions both dependent and independent of ecological/biological data. The deliverables for Phase 1 of this project included a report that assessed the availability of hydrologic and ecological flow models suitable for the Marcellus Shale region and a georeferenced summary of the adequacy of available ecological data to inform ecological flow model(s) for streams within the Marcellus Shale region. The georeferenced summary assessment is available as an Access database.
The database consists of five main tables. These tables include:
- tbl_datasets_marcellus: provides information on original dataset and states represented for each dataset
- tbl_originators_marcellus: provides information on data collecting agency and states represented for each originator
- tbl_fish_species_lookup_marcellus: provides unique ids (maris_fishspecies_id), common names and scientific names at family, genus and species level
- tbl_loc_info_marcellus: provides unique ids for collection sites (originator_station_id) and associated site information, including latitude and longitude, which can be used to link location information to fish collection information. Additional queries were run to create refined location tables
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- tbl_location_marcellus_state_stream_sites: all stream fish collection sites within states or ecoregions that overlap the Marcellus boundary
- tbl_location_marcellus_all_sites: all fish collection sites within the Marcellus boundary
- tbl_fish_info_marcellus: provides unique ids for each collection event (originator_sample_id) which can be used to link collection information (date, collection methods, effort, species, abundance) with site information.
Information from the last three tables (tbl_fish_species_lookup_marcellus, tbl_location_info_marcellus, tbl_fish_info_marcellus) can be combined based on unique ids and queried based on criteria in the tables (i.e. collection method, targeted sampling verses community sampling, etc.) to develop fish datasets for different analyses in the future.
In addition, two shapefiles have been created from the database. These shapefiles display the location of the sampling points. If a user wants to view the results of a sampling station, they will need to find the station using the shapefile and then refer to the results table. This process can be completed manually by looking up the information in Access or a join can be performed in ArcGIS to connect these tables so all of the information appears in one attribute table.
Key Findings & Management Recommendations
Based on the assessed relationships and factors such as season, stream size, and projected expansion of natural gas development in the region, scientists developed models showing how water withdrawals impact sustainability of aquatic ecosystems. Cornell researchers also applied a model to vary water withdrawal scenarios – for example from current standards to a more seasonally variable scenario – that provided critical information on how flow regimes can be modified to achieve a balance in meeting both human/energy water needs and those required to maintain healthy ecosystems and diversity.
Key findings and recommendations from the research include:
- Flow-ecology relationships indicate fish are sensitive not only to changes in low flows, but also to changes in a variety of flow components (season, median, and high flows). This has important implications for setting sustainable flow standards and designing monitoring campaigns.
- A considerable number of streams are at high risk of flow alteration due to withdrawals during the summer and fall seasons – especially smaller streams in the southwestern (western portions of Ohio River Basin) and northern (headwaters of the Upper Susquehanna and Hudson River Basins) sections of the region.
- Though these high-risk streams are individually small, combined they drain the majority of the study region.
- Fixed minimum aquatic flow standards that do not consider seasonal changes in flows and throughout the year may not be adequate to sustain fish populations and aquatic biodiversity.
- But a balance can be realized if flow standards due to water withdrawal regulations vary with stream size and season and thus provide the necessary balance between human needs and flows needed to sustain fish and aquatic ecosystems.
Bat Summary for Appalachian LCC Cave/Karst Study
Publication Date: 2016
DOWNLOAD FILE — application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document, 139 kB (142,974 bytes)
Guidelines for Using the NatureServe Climate Change Vulnerability Index
Publication Date: 2016
DOWNLOAD FILE — PDF document, 1,937 kB (1,983,987 bytes)
County Distribution of Assessed Species
Previous Climate Assessments on 700 Species
The subregions include:
There are four worksheets within each excel file:
- Assessment worksheets – Includes species information (common name, scientific name, taxonomic information, and habitat categories) and climate change vulnerability scores as well as link to NatureServe Explorer for more information. (Due to file size, the Cumberland - Southern Appalachian subregion worksheet was divided into three separate worksheets. One worksheet contains the links to NatureServe Explorer for each species.)
- Map worksheets – Overview map of all subregions as well as maps specific to the subregion of interest.
- Instruction worksheets – Contains background information and explains data found in the Assessment worksheets.
- Reference worksheets – Includes citations for references used as well as links to selected publications.
The vulnerability ranks for each state as well as the subregion as a whole are recorded in the spreadsheet. The vulnerability ranks are as follows; extremely vulnerable (EV), highly vulnerable (HV), moderately vulnerable (MV), presumed stable (PS), and increase likely (IL). Each assessment is annotated with the source of the vulnerability assessment using numerical superscripts. More information about the vulnerability scores and sources is available on the Information tab on the excel spreadsheet available for each subregion.
