Land-Use Threats and Protected Areas: A Scenario-Based, Landscape Level Approach

Anthropogenic land use will likely present a greater challenge to biodiversity than climate change this century in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Even if species are equipped with the adaptive capacity to migrate in the face of a changing climate, they will likely encounter a human-dominated landscape...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Land (Basel) 2014-06, Vol.3 (2), p.362-389
Main Authors: Wilson, Tamara S, Sleeter, Benjamin M, Sleeter, Rachel R, Soulard, Christopher E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropogenic factors
Climate change
conversion threat
IPCC
Land area
land cover
Land use
Landscape
Logging
Pacific Northwest
Protected areas
scenarios
state-and-transition models
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Summary:Anthropogenic land use will likely present a greater challenge to biodiversity than climate change this century in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Even if species are equipped with the adaptive capacity to migrate in the face of a changing climate, they will likely encounter a human-dominated landscape as a major dispersal obstacle. Our goal was to identify, at the ecoregion-level, protected areas in close proximity to lands with a higher likelihood of future land-use conversion. Using a state-and-transition simulation model, we modeled spatially explicit (1 km2) land use from 2000 to 2100 under seven alternative land-use and emission scenarios for ecoregions in the Pacific Northwest. We analyzed scenario-based land-use conversion threats from logging, agriculture, and development near existing protected areas. A conversion threat index (CTI) was created to identify ecoregions with highest projected land-use conversion potential within closest proximity to existing protected areas. Our analysis indicated nearly 22% of land area in the Coast Range, over 16% of land area in the Puget Lowland, and nearly 11% of the Cascades had very high CTI values. Broader regional-scale land-use change is projected to impact nearly 40% of the Coast Range, 30% of the Puget Lowland, and 24% of the Cascades (i.e., two highest CTI classes). A landscape level, scenario-based approach to modeling future land use helps identify ecoregions with existing protected areas at greater risk from regional land-use threats and can help prioritize future conservation efforts.
ISSN:2073-445X
2073-445X
DOI:10.3390/land3020362