“No‐regrets” pathways for navigating climate change: planning for connectivity with land use, topography, and climate

Abstract

As both plant and animal species shift their ranges in response to a changing climate, maintaining connectivity between present habitat and suitable habitat in the future will become increasingly important to ensure lasting protection for biodiversity. Because the temporal period commensurate with planning for mid-century change is multi-generational for most species, connectivity designed to facilitate climate adaptation requires pathways with 'steppingstones' between current and future habitat. These areas should have habitats suitable not only for dispersal, but for all aspects of species lifecycles. We integrated present-day land use, topographic diversity, and projections of shifting climate regimes into a single connectivity modeling approach to identify pathways for mid-century shifts in species ranges. Using Omniscape we identified climate linkages, or areas important for climate change-driven movement, as the areas with more current flow than would be expected in the absence of climate considerations. This approach identified connectivity potential between natural lands in the present climate and natural lands with future analogous climate following topo-climatically diverse routes. We then translated the model output into a strategic framework to improve interpretation and to facilitate a more direct connection with conservation action. Across modified landscapes, pathways important to climate-driven movement were highly coincident with the last remaining present-day linkages, reinforcing their importance. Across unfragmented lands, the presence of climate-adapted pathways helped inform the prioritization of conservation actions in areas where multiple connectivity options still exist. Many climate linkages follow major watercourses along elevational gradients, highlighting the importance of protecting or managing for these natural linear pathways that provide movement routes for climate adaptation. By integrating enduring landscape features with climate projections and present-day land uses, our approach reveals "no-regrets" pathways to plan for a connected landscape in an uncertain future.

A framework to select strategies for conserving and restoring habitat connectivity in complex landscapes

“…We used Omniscape, a moving window‐based adaptation of Circuitscape, described in (Hall et al, 2021; Landau et al, 2021; Littlefield et al, 2017; McRae et al, 2016; Schloss et al, 2021) to characterize structural connectivity based on attributes of land cover and levels of human disturbance. Circuitscape uses the principles of electrical conductivity and treats landscapes as resistive surfaces, where high quality movement habitat has low resistance and barriers have high resistance (McRae et al, 2008).…”

“…As such, we followed the approach and methods of (Theobald, 2013) and updated data to reflect ~2016–2019 conditions to create a human modification ( H ) surface at 90 m resolution. H represents multiple stressors such as urban and energy development, roads, agricultural land uses, including additional data important in this region, such as roads through private timberlands or the number of lanes on a road (further described in Schloss et al, 2021). This layer was used to create the source weight layer by calculating naturalness ( N ) as the complement of H , or N = 1 − H (Theobald, 2010).…”

“…We calculated resistance as : R = ([ H + 1] 10 ) 2 following the definition of anthropogenic resistance in Schloss et al (2021). This formula helped meet the study objective to characterize structural connectivity for species that prefer natural, unmodified habitats, but can still move through landscapes with low levels of disturbance.…”

“…For example, some types of connectivity needs may be associated with particular types or patterns of land ownership, such as protection or restoration of riparian corridors in an agricultural matrix or reducing forest fragmentation in industrial timberland (Hilty & Merenlender, 2004; Lindenmayer et al, 2000). Categorizing output from a gradient‐based assessment by factors related to conservation urgency and feasibility could help practitioners identify and prioritize suites of implementation strategies that collectively can help reduce fragmentation of the landscape (McRae et al, 2016; Schloss et al, 2021). Using spatial analytical tools to map where different conservation strategies could have an effect can also support conservation planning in myriad ways, including impact quantification, stakeholder identification, and decision support (Tallis et al, 2021).…”

Sustained Change: Design Speculations on the Performance of Fallow-Scapes in Time along the Erie Canal National Heritage Corridor, (ECNHC), New York

“…Historically, the urban-rural relationship was built on flows of food and raw building materials from the countryside and into the city. Considering "natural" or "biological" solutions [6][7][8][9][10] to climate change, namely, reforestation [11][12][13][14][15], it might be assumed that the rural landscape is perfectly suited to offset the impacts of greenhouse gases generated by cities. Over the past several decades though, the rural has become increasingly urbanized, through uses such as industrialized farming and mining, solar and wind energy production, data storage facilities, and certainly residential and recreational sprawl.…”