Title
Chapter Title: The Human footprint as a conservation planning tool
Book Title: Landscape-scale Conservation Planning
Author(s)
Trombulak, S.C.;Baldwin, R.F.;Woolmer, G.
Published
2010
Abstract
Conservation planning is aided by an ability to view spatially explicit patterns of landscape transformation that are both multivariate and mapped with a fine-scale resolution. The Human Footprint is one such measure of transformation, integrating information on human access, settlement, transformation of land use/land cover, and development of energy infrastructure. We used this methodology to develop a fine-scale (90-m resolution) map of the degree of human transformation of the Northern Appalachian/Acadian ecoregion as well as develop models to project changes in key dynamic aspects of this map – roads, human population density, and land cover change due to amenities development – to identify in a comprehensive and systematic fashion locations that are currently highly transformed or vulnerable to transformation in the future. Although more than 90% of this ecoregion exhibits less than half of the maximum amount of transformation seen anywhere here, several regions, particular around urban areas and within major valleys, are already highly transformed. In addition, under reasonable scenarios of future population growth and development, threat levels for several areas currently with low levels of transformation are projected to increase, providing conservation planners a way to prioritize current conservation action to proactively achieve conservation goals for the future.
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PUB14876