Molly Cooney-Mesker
GIS UEP 232
Assignment 6
Final Project Proposal
March 30, 2012
Project Description
I am working with Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences to analyze climate change vulnerability and resilience of forests in the Sagadahoc
County region, Maine. The region includes Arroswic, Bath, Bowdoin, Bowdoinham, Richmond, Topsham, and Woolwich counties, in addition to
Brunswick in Cumberland County and Dresden in Lincoln County. I will map variables that describe the state of the forest using an ecosystem
services lens. With changing climates forests are responding to shifting seasons and weather patterns that produce drought and flood
conditions. These changing factors affect soils, insect populations and stormwater, fire frequency and biomass, to name a few variables. These
changes affect the forest as a functional ecosystem and as a forest resource for people – including recreation, timber, water filtration and carbon
storage. Furthermore, the threat of increased wildfires is a significant concern to towns and property owners in Maine.
Literature
Most of the studies evaluating climate change adaptability in forests that I encountered include significant statistical analysis and are narrower
in scope – investigating one tree specifies or looking at vulnerability on a species-to-species basis. Still, the research provided me with a good
baseline understanding of the fields’ discussion of climate adaptability in forests and the standard variables being used for this type of analysis.
1) Westerling, A. L., Hidalgo, H. G., Cayan, D. R., & Swetnam, T. W. (2006). Warming and earlier spring increase western U.S. forest wildfire
activity. Science, 313(5789), 940-943.
This article posits that increasing variability in moisture conditions and/or a trend of increasing drought frequency, and/or warming
temperatures have led to increased wildfire activity in Western Forests. The researchers consider the impacts of forest management (widely
thought to be a contributing factor of increased forest fires) as well as climate change on forest fire activity. The study compares forest wildfire
activity from 1970 to 2003 with data with corresponding hydroclimatic and land surface variables, to address where and why the frequency of
large forest wildfire has changed. The study relies heavily on statistical analysis however also maps forests’ vulnerability to more frequent
wildfires due to warmer temperatures as a function of the spatial distribution of forest area and the sensitivity of the local water balance to
changes in the timing of spring. This aspect of the study was of particular interest to me, as I will be investigating weather with forest cover. The
study findings show associations between wildfire and hydroclimate in western forests, which indicates that increased wildfire activity over
recent decades reflects responses to changes in climate. It will be interesting to see if there are similar patterns in Maine in regards to
2) Anderson, M.G., M. Clark, and A. Olivero Sheldon. (2012). Resilient Sites for Terrestrial Conservation in the Northeast and Mid- Atlantic
Region. The Nature Conservancy, Eastern Conservation Science. 168 pp.
This study has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, at least in one that I could locate. However, from the collection of research on
mapping forest climate adaptation that I have been able to find, it is the most akin to my final project, so has been valuable to read. The project
maps key geophysical settings in the New England region and evaluates them for landscape characteristics that buffer against climate effect in
order to identify the most resilient places in the landscape. It is an extensive project that focuses on landscape connectivity as part of its analysis.
The report is a good resource in providing a lens through which to consider resiliency and vulnerability. For example the report notes that
vulnerable places may still provide valuable ecosystem services even as the biodiversity begins to change. The authors could also be a resource
for datasets.
3) Davison, J. E., Coe, S., Finch, D., Rowland, E., Friggens, M., & Graumlich, L. J. (2012). Bringing indices of species vulnerability to climate
change into geographic space: An assessment across the Coronado national forest. Biodiversity and Conservation, 21(1), 189-204.
This study examines how the distributions of vulnerable species coincide with environmental features such as topography and land use, and to
detect landscape-scale patterns of vulnerability across species. Similar to the Nature Conservancy report above, the researchers applied
vulnerability scores to each species’ habitats in order to visualize the spatial patterns of cross-species vulnerability across the Coronado national
forest. The study examines six variables including elevation, land cover, percent vegetation cover, distance to perennial water sources, distance
to roads, trails or recreation sites, and land stewardship. This study provides a nice example for my project with its use of similar variables.
4) Griesbauer, H. P., Green, D. S., & O'Neill, G. A. (2011). Using a spatiotemporal climate model to assess population-level douglas-fir growth
sensitivity to climate change across large climatic gradients in british columbia, canada. Forest Ecology and Management, 261(3), 589-600.
This report involves two steps of analysis. The first evaluates climatic sensitivity and quantifies relationships between population climate-growth
sensitivity (measurement determined by tree ring analysis) and provenance climate. The second step is particularly applicable to my work. The
researchers use GIS to visualize the link between provenance mean annual precipitation (as I will do with aspects such as flooding) and climatic
sensitivity of Douglas fir across British Columbia (as I will do with various forest types) to identify high-risk populations. The study aims to better
understand the link between biological responses and climate, so that forest managers may be able to spatially identify sensitive populations
using spatiotemporal climate data.
Analysis
I will examine various ecosystem services (listed below) and analyze aspects of forest threats and vulnerability based on variables listed below.
The characteristics and thresholds of resilient and vulnerable sites have not been established for each of these aspects and I need to work with
Manomet to do so.
Base Map: Manomet provided me with the landscape area and road layers. Also, for town boundaries I have been directed to use the MaineGIS
METWP24 dataset and MaineGIS MEDOTPUBRDS for town boundaries and major roadways.
Ecosystem Services
(acres, value)
Total forest cover,
Regional map and
total acres
X
By town and
total acres
X
Cover by forest type
Variable
EVT_Name
Forest Age
X
X
Carbon
X
X
Storm water
regulation
Drinking water
filtration
Timber
Recreation
Biodiversity (large
locks)
By small
watershed
X
Data source
Landfire:
http://www.landfire.gov/NationalProductDescrip
tions21.php
http://www.landfire.gov/NationalProductDescrip
tions21.php
Or
http://fsgeodata.fs.fed.us/rastergateway/forest_
type/
http://www.landfire.gov/NationalProductDescrip
tions21.php
http://svinetfc4.fs.fed.us/clearinghouse/rasterga
teway/biomass/ OR
http://www.whrc.org/mapping/nbcd/index.html
http://www.whrc.org/mapping/nbcd/index.html
http://soils.usda.gov/sdv/
NEED TO LOCATE
NEED TO LOCATE
ME GIS has data for specific species and a
dataset for Biophysical Regions, which includes
96 woody taxa and 22 environmental variables.
NEED TO CLARIFY WITH MANOMET WHAT
MEASURES OF BIODIVERSITY I SHOULD BE USING
AND WHAT LARGE LOCKS MEANS
Forest Threats and
Vulnerability
Assessment:
Disturbance
Regional mapping and
analysis
Town level
X
X
Drought
X
X
Drought
X
X
Flooding
X
X
Fire
X
X
X
X
Using an ecosystem
services lens,
Moist forest types
(forest types
dominated by maples
(sugar or red), birches
(yellow or white),
spruce spp., (black or
red) fir, eastern
hemlock on soils that
have less than 6 inches
of available water in
the root zone
Forest cover where
soils that have less
than 6 inches of
available water in the
root zone or based on
Available Water
Holding Capacity
Forest cover where
Flooding Frequency
Class is “Frequent” or
“Very Frequent”
http://www.landfire.gov/disturbance.php
Forest cover where
Mean Fire Return
Interval – XX (NEED
FROM MANOMET)
http://www.landfire.gov/fireregime.php
http://soils.usda.gov/technical/handbook/conte
nts/part618.html
Soils maps from USDA Natural Resources
Conservation Service. They should include
information about soil drainage class.
Shttp://soils.usda.gov/technical/handbook/cont
ents/part618.html OR
http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/
http://soils.usda.gov/technical/handbook/conte
nts/part618.html
http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/
http://soils.usda.gov/sdv/
Fire
X
X
Insect Outbreaks
(emerald ash borer,
hemlock woody
adelgid, gypsy moth,
Asian longhorned
beetle, and Dutch
elm disease)
Ice Storms
Susceptibility to
Increase in
Temperature
X
X
X
X
X
X
Sea level Rise (SLR)
X
X
Climate change
resilience
X
X
X
Forest cover where
Percent Replacementseverity Fire
http://www.landfire.gov/fireregime.php
http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/global/pubs/gis/index.h
tml
Forest cover for forest
types dominated by
maples (sugar or red),
birches (yellow or
white), spruce spp.,
(black or red) fir,
Forest acres
susceptible to 1 m, 2m,
and 3m SLR by forest
type (see forest type
dataset above)
Resilience metric
http://www.landfire.gov/NationalProductDescrip
tions21.php
http://www.landfire.gov/NationalProductDescrip
tions7.php? This will take you to a 1 m
increment dataset. You likely have access to
DEM datasets with better resolution.
http://conserveonline.org/workspaces/ecs/docu
ments/resilient-sites-for-terrestrialconservation-1?login_failed=Username