Stewardship Analysis Project - Delaware Methodolgy This project is funded by a USFS grant to analyze the potential for forest stewardship throughout the State. Twelve common stewardship criteria (layers) were weighted and combined to produce areas of high, medium, and low stewardship potential. The 12 common data layers are briefly explained below. All data is presented in UTM Zone 18 Coordinates (NAD 1983 meters). Public Water- DNREC recharge potential layer was queried to find areas of good and excellent recharge potential. This shapefile was then converted to a 30m raster and then reclassified to have public water with a value of 1 and all other areas equal to 0. Forested Wetlands – National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) data was queried for all forested wetlands. The vector data was then rasterized and then reclassified to show forested wetlands with a value of 1 and all other areas equal to 0. Slope – Slope layer was created from DEMs for each county from the UD Spatlab. Slope was derived for each of the three DEMs by using the slope tool in model builder. Then each county slope raster was combined using the mosaic tool to produce a statewide slope raster. Some of the statewide layer extends beyond the landmass of DE so it was converted to vector and intersected with the region of DE shapefile. This layer was then converted back to raster and then all areas that had slope 5% or greater were extracted. The final layer is a raster reclassified to show areas of slope greater than 5% with a value of 1. All other areas had a value of 0. Priority Watersheds – This data layer shows watersheds of concern based on EPA’s TMDL requirements. The shapefile was converted to raster and reclassified to show all priority watersheds to have a value of one. All other areas had a value of 0. Riparian Buffers- 100 ft riparian buffers were created on all NHD data throughout DE with the buffer tool. All rivers, streams, creeks, and water bodies were buffered. The vector was then merged and converted to raster, the final layer showing all riparian buffers with a value of 1 and all other areas with a value of 0. Threatened & Endangered Species- Natural Heritage Data was obtained in vector format. This was then converted to a 30m raster. All areas of T & E had a value of 1, other areas a value of 0. Forest Patches- The forest patch layer was created by querying the 2002 Delaware Land use layer for shrub/brush (320), deciduous forest (410), evergreen forest (420), mixed forest (430), and wetlands (600). In the creation of land use layer forested wetlands and tidal marsh wetlands are lumped together. This creates a problem as forests do no grow on tidal marsh. To correct the problem, tidal areas were extracted from NWI data and unioned with the query from the 02LU data. The areas in common were then deleted from the shapefile. The next step was to make sure that all roads and railroads that separated forest patches on the ground did indeed separate the patches in the shapefile. All roads from the DelDot centerline shapefile for each county and all railroads from USGS railroad layer were buffered 50 ft as this is the average distance from the roads edge to the edge of the forest. The buffer layer and forest layer were unioned and the common areas were deleted from the shapefile. This produced a vector layer with true forest patches. Next the multipart features were converted to single part and then dissolved to prepare patches for acre calculation. A field was added and populated with acreage of each patch. All patches greater or equal to 10 acres were extracted and then were converted to raster and reclassified to show all patches 10 acres or greater to have a value of 1 and all other areas to have a value of 0. Proximity to Public Land- Tax parcel data for each county was queried for any parcels that were owned by public entities. These features were buffered to one-quarter mile and then converted to raster. The layer was reclassed to show all areas that meet the criteria as one all other areas equal to 0. Wildfire Risk- This is a preliminary data set that was taken from a map of the MidAtlantic Compact that shows areas of Delaware with “High” and “Very High” fire risk. All areas were reclassed to show all areas as 1. Developing Areas- This layer was derived from US Census data from 1990 and 2000. The change in households per square mile of census blocks was determined with the raster calculator. From this raster all cells with 0-20 more households were extracted. The final raster was reclassified to show developing areas a 1 and all other areas as 0. Private Forest- This layer was created from the shapefile of all forests queried from the DE 2002 Land Use Layer. This shapefile was converted to raster and reclassified to show all forested areas to have a value of 1 and all other areas to have a value of 0. This reclassified raster was then added with the analysis mask to produce only areas of privately owned forest. Forest Health- This layer consists of all areas of forest that are susceptible to infestation of Gypsy Moth. The 02 DE Land Use Layer was queried for all deciduous and mixed forests in the state. These were then dissolved and converted to raster format. The raster was then reclassified to show all cells that meet the criteria for the layer as 1 and all other as 0. Green Infrastructure- This layer indicates areas of importance according to the Governor’s Liveable Delaware Program. The vector data obtained was converted to a 1/0 30m raster. Analysis Mask- This layer was created in Model Builder to exclude from the analysis all urban, open water, and publicly owned areas. First the DE 02 LU layer was queried for all urban areas as noted: airports (114) commercial (120) highways/roads/access rds (141) industrial (130) junk/salvage yards (123) marinas/port facilities (146) mixed urban or built up land (160) transportation/communication (140) mobile home parks (114) multi family dwellings (112) other commercial (129) other transportation (149) other built-up land (170) parking lots (142) railroads (143) retail sales/wholesale (121) single family dwelling (111) vehicle related (122) warehouse/storage (125) A vector layer was created for surface water by querying all streams and water bodies from the NHD dataset. This layer was then converted to raster. A vector layer containing all publicly owned tax parcels was also converted to raster. The urban, surface water, and public rasters were then combined using the mosaic tool. The resultant raster was then reclassified to show urban, surface water, and public land as No Data while all other areas are equal to 0. Cells classified as No Data tell ArcGis to exclude them from calculations. Private Forest Mask- The final private forest raster layer was reclassified to show private forests with a value of 0 and all other areas set to No Data. When combined with the High-Med.-Low overlay this produced a raster that shows areas of private forest with high, medium, and low stewardship potential. Non-forest – Non-Developed Mask- The NFND mask was created by taking the private forest raster layer and inverting the values or reclassifying it to show all private forests as No Data and all other areas equal to 1. The result was a raster that shows all areas other than private forests. This layer was added to the analysis mask to mask out all urban, open water, and public lands. The result was the NFND raster layer that shows all areas that are privately owned that are not forested or developed. The NFND layer was then reclassified to show that all NFND areas equal to 0 and all other areas set to No Data. This reclassified NFND layer was then added to the High-Med-Low Overlay. The result was a raster that shows the stewardship potential of Non-forest – Non-developed lands. Overlay Model- The final twelve common data layers were weighted using an interval scale scheme. Eight staff foresters within the Delaware Forest Service were asked to rank each layer from 0 to 2 in increments of 0.25. Zero being lowest importance and 2 being the greatest importance. The weights were then averaged and then expressed as a percent. In raster calculator, each of the twelve data layers were first multiplied by their respective weight and then added together to produce a continuous grid composite. The continuous grid needs to be converted to a discrete grid to show definitive areas of potential. So, the continuous grid was multiplied by 10,000 to preserve data in the conversion process. The resultant raster was then converted to integer data with the Int tool. This discrete data was then reclassified to three classes of natural breaks to show High-Med-Low areas of stewardship. Weighting Scheme Results Factor/ Layer Slope Forest Patches Proximity to Public Land Wildfire Assesment Developing Areas Riparian Buffers Private Forested Land Forested Wetlands Public Water- recharge potential Forest Pests Threatened & Endangered Species Priority Watersheds Green Infrastructure Decimal Increments of 0.25 in a range of 0-2 0.25 0.5 0.75 0.25 0.5 0.5 0 0.25 2 2 1.25 0.5 1.5 1.5 1 1.25 2 1 1.25 1 1.5 1.5 0.75 1.75 0.25 1 1 1.5 1.25 1 0.25 1 1.5 0.5 1.5 1.75 1.5 2 1.75 0.75 1.5 1.25 2 2 1.5 2 1.25 1.75 2 1.75 1 1.5 1.75 2 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.75 1.5 2 1.5 1.25 1.5 1.25 1.25 1.75 1.25 1.5 1.75 2 1 1 1 1 1.75 1 1.75 0.75 0.5 1.5 1.25 1 1.5 1 0.25 0.75 0.5 1.25 1.25 1 1.5 1.75 1 1.5 1.5 1 1.5 1.75 1 2 1.5 0 Mean Weight 0.4 1.4 1.3 0.9 1.4 1.7 1.6 1.6 1.5 1.2 As a % 2% 8% 8% 6% 9% 10% 10% 10% 9% 7% Rel. Weight 0.0229 0.0838 0.0819 0.0552 0.0857 0.1010 0.0990 0.0952 0.0933 0.0705 1.2 1.4 0.8 16.4 7% 9% 5% 100% 0.0724 0.0876 0.0514 1.0000 Project Stats HML Overlay Composite Low Potential Medium Potential High Potential Forest Low Potential Meduim Potential High Potential Area (sq. meters) 1758300000 982940000 712230000 Area (acres) 434499.6101 242897.7118 176001.625 total 853398.9469 Area (sq. meters) 28986300 497980000 697670000 Area (acres) 7162.905105 123057.5646 172403.6529 total Non-Forest Non-Developed Low Potential Medium Potential High Potential Area (sq. meters) 1729200000 484830000 14544000 total Acres in Stewardship Plan Raster = 27,850 % of Total 51% 28% 21% % of Total 2% 41% 57% 302624.1226 Area (acres) 427308.6081 119808.0225 3594.018273 550710.6489 % of Total 78% 22% 1%