Download - Riverine Analysis
Riverine AnalysisNorthern Great Plains
Sarah OlimbNPCN Fall Meeting20 September 2013
Aquatic Ecosystem Classification
• Regional Climate• Physiography• General physiognomy of
vegetation
• Drainage boundaries• Physiography
• Watersheds• Local climate• Basin morphometry
Analysis
Goal:
Identify riverine conservation priority areas based on representation (species and habitat richness) and ecological condition (derived from Human Threats Index)
Index of Species Representation and Ecological Condition
Rescaled the Species Richness Index and Ecological Condition Index using linear interpolation to, respectively, 0 to 10 and -10 to 0 scales
Resulting layer shows range from High quality (high richness/good ecological condition) to Low quality (low richness/poor ecological condition)
Representation of Habitat Types
Used Aquatic Ecological System (AES) types (ecological “neighborhoods”)
Sensitivity analysis to explore the interaction between the PRAI and the number of AES types
Appendix
Expert Reviews
• The Nature Conservancy Aquatic Ecologists• WWF Conservation Ecology, Freshwater
Aquatics team
• Montana State University Dept. of Ecology