Ecologically-Relevant Maps of Landforms and Physiographic Diversity for Climate Adaptation Planning

Abstract

Key to understanding the implications of climate and land use change on biodiversity and natural resources is to incorporate the physiographic platform on which changes in ecological systems unfold. Here, we advance a detailed classification and high-resolution map of physiography, built by combining landforms and lithology (soil parent material) at multiple spatial scales. We used only relatively static abiotic variables (i.e., excluded climatic and biotic factors) to prevent confounding current ecological patterns and processes with enduring landscape features, and to make the physiographic classification more interpretable for climate adaptation planning. We generated novel spatial databases for 15 landform and 269 physiographic types across the conterminous United States of America. We examined their potential use by natural resource managers by placing them within a contemporary climate change adaptation framework, and found our physiographic databases could play key roles in four of seven general adaptation strategies. We also calculated correlations with common empirical measures of biodiversity to examine the degree to which the physiographic setting explains various aspects of current biodiversity patterns. Additionally, we evaluated the relationship between landform diversity and measures of climate change to explore how changes may unfold across a geophysical template. We found landform types are particularly sensitive to spatial scale, and so we recommend using high-resolution datasets when possible, as well as generating metrics using multiple neighborhood sizes to both minimize and characterize potential unknown biases. We illustrate how our work can inform current strategies for climate change adaptation. The analytical framework and classification of landforms and parent material are easily extendable to other geographies and may be used to promote climate change adaptation in other settings.

Enhancing the Role of Geoconservation in Protected Area Management and Nature Conservation

“…Geodiversity also supports biodiversity adaptation to climate change (Groves et al 2012;Anderson et al 2014;Theobald et al 2015). For example, areas with a high geodiversity provide a range of topographic and environmental mosaics, corridors, and elevational settings, including macro-and micro-refugia, that enable species to persist, adapt, or relocate (Fig.…”

A Conceptual Model for Delineating Land Management Units (LMUs) Using Geographical Object-Based Image Analysis

“…While the use of direct factors such as soil and climate data is preferable for understanding ecological conditions, data are usually unavailable or have poor relevance in terms of scale and content. Moreover, characterizing landforms and physiographic diversity solely on relatively static, physical variables of topography has advantages such as being straightforward, avoiding confounding classification, and stability over long periods of time [25]. Landforms, on the other hand, are recognized as entities that structure ecological patterns and processes, and they have a significant role in producing particular environmental conditions.…”

“…Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) derived from DEMs are extensively used to represent abiotic parameters of land such as soil moisture, nutrients, and solar radiation [30][31][32][33], and classification methods have been employed to construct LMUs based on DTMs, soil and other available geographic data. [6,25,34,35]. This study adopts a general type of landform classification based on geometric form rather than a specific type that is intended to derive information about certain phenomena, such as drumlins, volcanos, etc.…”

“…Correlation between vegetation and landforms is evident [3,25,51], and it is assumed that undisturbed vegetation is "potential vegetation". Potential vegetation is a descriptor of the ecological conditions at that particular space [9,52].…”

Progress in marine geoconservation in Scotland’s seas: assessment of key interests and their contribution to Marine Protected Area network planning

“…This could usefully build on the MAREMAP initiative (Howe et al, 2015a), application of the Norwegian 'nature areas' mapping type of approach in the marine environment Thorsnes et al, 2009;Buhl-Mortensen et al, 2015b) or other forms of seabed biophysical characterisation (Harris and Baker, 2012). In addition, as in the terrestrial environment (Anderson and Ferree, 2010;Beier et al, 2015;Theobald et al, 2015), an approach that recognises the potential value of 'conserving nature's stage' in MPA network design could help to enhance ecosystem resilience in the face of climate change, which is recognised as an important objective and challenge for marine conservation planning (Hopkins et al, 2016). Also in relation to climate change, the importance of protecting natural sinks for blue carbon in marine sediments (Scottish Government, 2015;Hopkins et al, 2016) offers further opportunities to integrate geodiversity and geoconservation.…”