This habitat was assessed in both the Cumberland - Southern Appalachian subregion and the Interior Low Plateau subregion. Results are in the first two tabs of the spreadsheet. A description of the habitat, and a list of associated species, is included in the description tab. The remaining tabs describe the individual factors and their definitions. These results are in the review stage.
Resources
LCCs have produced a wealth of informational documents, reports, fact sheets, webinars and more to help support resource managers in designing and delivering conservation at landscape scales.
This habitat of upland hardwood-dominated forests occurs in the Interior Low Plateau region of the southeastern United States along ridgetops and slopes of various aspects. The floristic expression of different stands included in this habitat varies considerably with aspect and soil type. Included here are a variety of associations ranging along a moisture gradient from submesic to drier ones. The submesic to dry-mesic expressions tend to be found on midslopes with northerly to easterly aspects, and the drier ones on southerly to westerly aspects and on broad ridges.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies are dependent on the best available projections of how climate will change and impact a region’s natural and cultural resources. Understanding the vulnerability of various species and habitats within the Appalachian LCC to climate change is of critical importance. Identifying the most appropriate steps to acquire climate vulnerability information and then using this information to inform adaptation and mitigation strategies is a major research priority of the LCC.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies are dependent on the best available projections of how climate will change and impact a region’s natural and cultural resources. Understanding the vulnerability of various species and habitats within the Appalachian LCC to climate change is of critical importance. Identifying the most appropriate steps to acquire climate vulnerability information and then using this information to inform adaptation and mitigation strategies is a major research priority of the LCC.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies are dependent on the best available projections of how climate will change and impact a region’s natural and cultural resources. Understanding the vulnerability of various species and habitats within the Appalachian LCC to climate change is of critical importance. Identifying the most appropriate steps to acquire climate vulnerability information and then using this information to inform adaptation and mitigation strategies is a major research priority of the LCC.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies are dependent on the best available projections of how climate will change and impact a region’s natural and cultural resources. Understanding the vulnerability of various species and habitats within the Appalachian LCC to climate change is of critical importance. Identifying the most appropriate steps to acquire climate vulnerability information and then using this information to inform adaptation and mitigation strategies is a major research priority of the LCC.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
The Appalachian region is rich in biodiversity that is highly threatened by energy production, development, and a host of other factors. Large-scale impacts such as climate change will play out within this context, affecting habitats and species in different ways. Understanding the vulnerability of various species and habitats within the Appalachian LCC to such changes is of critical importance. Identifying the steps needed to acquire vulnerability information and then using this information to inform adaptation and mitigation strategies is a major research priority of the LCC.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Elizabeth Byers and Sam Norris. 2011. Climate change vulnerability assessment of species of concern in West Virginia. West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, Elkins, WV.
This project assessed and ranked the relative climate change vulnerability of 185 animal and plant species in West Virginia.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
This spreadsheet is a subset of a larger data set that contains a compilation of climate change vulnerability scores for over 700 species in the Appalachian LCC.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
This file contains the combined technical comments of TOT members from the Climate Change Vulnerability Project.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Open Woodlands Used generally to describe low density forests, open woodland ecosystems contain widely spaced trees whose crowns do not touch, causing for an open canopy, insignificant midstory canopy layer, sparse understory and where groundcover is the most obvious feature of the landscape dominated by diverse
Date posted: June 23, 2018
These results are a compilation of climate change vulnerability assessments in the southeastern portion of the LCC, covering the area from southern West Virginia, south to Alabama, west to eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. Hyperlinks to additional information are separated into two additional spreadsheets, one for aquatic and subterranean, and another for terrestrial species.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Research from the Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) and the U.S. Forest Service is integrating society’s value of ecosystems with future risks, to inform natural resource planning and management across the Appalachians and help decision makers, industry and the public adopt policies that protect and invest in these resources.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
This file includes three raster layers. One of the raster files (LCC_MxGasgt90x.img) displays the areas that have a greater than 90 percent or higher risk of shale gas development and areas with less than a 90 percent risk of shale gas energy development. The second raster file (LCCMaxGasProb.img) displays the energy risk across a gradient, but does not include the categories seen in the Energy Forecast Web Mapping Tool. The third raster file (UticaWetGasProbs.img) displays the gradient of energy development risk of wet gas within the Utica shale play only.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
A Nature Conservancy study funded by the Robertson Foundation and published by the open-access Public Library of Science (PLoS) in January 2014, assessed potential impacts of future energy development on water resources in the Marcellus play region.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
In this study funded by the Appalachian LCC, The Nature Conservancy assessed current and future energy development across the entire region. The research combined multiple layers of data on energy development trends and important natural resource and ecosystem services to give a comprehensive picture of what future energy development could look like in the Appalachians. It also shows where likely energy development areas will intersect with other significant values like intact forests, important streams, and vital ecological services such as drinking water supplies.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
The goal of this project was to create a spatially explicit 1km2 grid cell model for the Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative (Figure 1) predicting where surface coal mining is likely to occur in in a projected future time period, under two different scenarios. To accomplish this goal we combined GIS spatial analysis, a Random Forests predictive model, and future mining buildout scenarios. This report provides a detailed methodology of our approach and discussion of our results.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
The "Assessment and Inventory of Ecosystem Services and Environmental Threats" research project will deliver an inventory of existing ecosystem services assessments, products, and decision-support or visualization tools conducted within the Appalachian LCC boundary. The inventory will document and assess the classification, methodology used, describe priority ecosystem services and how they were identified, and provide economic valuations if available.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
While there is an increased need for cultural resource conservation and management in North America, there are few approaches that provide robust integration and combined assessment of visual and cultural resources. Determining the scenic value of important views and identifying potential risk for loss of that view are core components needed to design protection preserving scenic quality and the cultural resources contributing to scenic value and overall sense of place.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Comments from Technical Oversight Team regarding Energy Forecast Project Progress Report in Quarter 1, 2013.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
The web-based mapping tool of this energy assessment combines multiple layers of data on energy development trends and important natural resource and ecosystem services, to give a more comprehensive picture of what potential energy development could look like in the Appalachians. The tool shows where energy development is most likely to occur and indicates areas where such development may intersect with other significant values like intact forests, important streams, and vital ecological services such as drinking water supplies.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
This video presentation by Judy Dunscomb, Senior Conservation Scientist at The Nature Conservancy, provides a detailed overview of how to use the Energy Forecast Mapping Tool. The web-based mapping tool contains model results and important natural assets data layers, which users can operate to see where development may likely occur and where that may intersect with important natural values.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
In 2010, TNC scientists focused on projections of how new energy development could impact natural habitats in Pennsylvania to shape strategies that avoid or minimize those impacts.
The Pennsylvania Energy Impacts Assessment sought to answer:
Date posted: June 23, 2018
This file includes a shapefile that summarizes energy development risk at the 12-digit HUC watershed scale. Within the attribute table, information regarding the amount of impervious surface, HUC 12 watershed name and numerical code as well as the HUC 8 numerical code is included.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
This file includes two raster layers. One of the raster files (LCC_Windgt90x.img) displays the data by differentiating between areas that have a greater than 90 percent or higher risk of development from areas with less than a 90 percent risk of wind energy development. The second raster file (LCC_WindProbs.img) displays the energy risk across a gradient, but does not include the categories seen in the Energy Forecast Web Mapping Tool. The values range from 0-1, with larger values representing a higher probability of development.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
This presentation by Thomas Minney, Director of The Nature Conservancy in West Virginia, provides a detailed overview of the Appalachian LCC funded project "Assessing Future Energy Development across the Appalachians." The study and online mapping tool developed from this research are intended to inform discussions among conservation agencies and organizations, industry, policy makers, regulators and the public on how to protect essential natural resources while realizing the benefits of increased domestic energy production.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
This file includes two raster layers. One of the raster files (LCC_Coal_gt90x.img) displays the data by differentiating between areas that have a greater than 90 percent or higher risk of coal energy development and areas with less than a 90 percent risk of coal energy development. The second raster file (LCC_Coal.img) displays the energy risk across a gradient, but does not include the categories seen in the Energy Forecast Web Mapping Tool. The values range from 0-255, with larger values representing a higher probability of development.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
A new study and online mapping tool by the Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) and The Nature Conservancy are intended to inform discussions among conservation agencies and organizations, industry, policy makers, regulators and the public on how to protect essential natural resources while realizing the benefits of increased domestic energy production.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
This file includes a shapefile of all the areas identified as forest cores with the accompanying information regarding the energy development risk. Within the attribute table, information regarding property ownership is also included.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
This visual guide documents the work gathering and analyzing data on caves and karst resources in the Appalachian LCC. The maps and files provide a comprehensive overview of data available for examining relationships between environmental factors and biological diversity and distribution within karst areas in the region. This visual survey is intended to be a guide to what the researchers have accomplished, and a guide to what new questions and results would be interesting to end-users.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Knowing which ecosystem services are provided and who benefits from these services will allow resource managers, scientists, industries, and the public to explore new institutional, market, and policies to encourage protection of and investments in these resources.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Addressing knowledge gaps to better protect unique landforms and their wealth of hidden biodiversity.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Scientists will employ land use change build-out scenaria for future energy development demand to quantify future impacts on forest habitats across the Appalachian LCC. We propose to create maps of wind, oil and gas, and coal development potential for the entire study area and use these maps and published projections from federal and state land management agencies to model future build-out scenaria.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
We have provided some interpretation material and text for conservation planning tools. These programs have been grouped into broad, sometime overlapping purposes. These brief descriptions of the various conservation planning tools can be put up on the AppLCC web portal, for users to get an idea about the tools available and what purposes they could serve. We have alo provided other links, where users can get detailed information about the tool.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
This document contains a list of the bat species that regularly use caves and mines in the Appalachian LCC region, federal status of these species, and sources of bat data.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
By Jean Brennan - Coordinator & Director of Science, Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) - Presenting on behalf of Tim Murtha, Penn State University
Date posted: June 23, 2018
In-depth presentation from the research team on first completing pilot studies in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The team investigated relevant resources, data requirements, and opportunities to identify the best process for integrating cultural resources into landscape planning. Future efforts may include scaling up local results to apply to the entire Appalachian LCC 15-state geography.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
The advent of Web 2.0 and the growth of social media platforms have fostered an environment for the documentation and sharing of landscape imagery. In addition to looking at the site scale, using these big data allows for visual landscape assessment at the regional scale. The onset of Marcellus shale gas development in the state of Pennsylvania concurrent with the rapidly widening availability of crowd-sourced citizen photography has provided a valuable opportunity to study crowdsourced and georeferenced photography as an aid in visual resource conservation design and planning.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
In this video presentation, Dr. David Culver of American University provides an overview of the unique cave and karst ecosystems of the Appalachians. The Appalachian karst ecosystems have the highest number of aquatic and terrestrial cave-limited species in the United States. Terrestrial species richness in northeast Alabama and central Tennessee make these systems the "Amazon rain forest" of subterranean biodiversity in the nation. Dr.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
The cave and karst dataset from this research is available through our Conservation Planning Atlas.
These GIS data represent the input and results of a spatial statistical model used to examine the hypothesis that the presence of major faunal groups of cave obligate species could be predicted based on features of the Earth surface.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
In this video presentation, Dr. David Culver of American University details the research and decision support tools created from this Appalachian LCC funded project. He describes how the research team collected data and mapped the distribution of cave fauna - both aquatic and terrestrial - throughout the Appalachians. The team also created the first of its kind predictive models for the presence or absence of major types of cave organisms.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
In order to understand ongoing and future climate change and its impacts on ecosystem services, we must have a grasp on historical ranges of climate variability. Fortunately, detailed weather station data are available in the United States for thousands of locations over the last century.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Historically, cave fauna, and any biota for that matter, were largely studied from a taxonomic perspective. With the advent of interest in species diversity in the late 1960’s and especially with the interest in biodiversity and biodiversity hotspots in the late 1980’s, the focus changed. Studies of cave fauna reflected the changing research agendas.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Efforts to model and predict long-term variations in climate-based on scientific understanding of climatological processes have grown rapidly in their sophistication to the point that models can be used to develop reasonable expectations of regional climate change.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Efforts to model and predict long-term variations in climate-based on scientific understanding of climatological processes have grown rapidly in their sophistication to the point that models can be used to develop reasonable expectations of regional climate change.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
Information about economic activity was obtained from the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy (cohesivefire.nemac.org). Data were derived from the USDA Economic Research Service to create a county-level measure of Dominant Economic Activity (county economic dependence). This describes the most prevalent kind of economic activity, which includes activities from farming, mining, and manufacturing to government employment and the service industry.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
One of the basic goals of ecosystem assessment efforts is to describe the impacts of key drivers of change that place the sustained delivery of ecosystem services at risk. Some of these risk factors, such as urban growth and energy extraction, themselves provide important services, and trade-offs must be considered when they compromise other ecosystem benefits. Working towards sustainable landscapes by addressing these trade-offs is one of the great challenges in natural resource management and conservation practice.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
This dataset provides a watershed index of surface drinking water importance, a watershed index of forest importance to surface drinking water, and a watershed index to highlight the extent to which development, fire, and insects and disease threaten forests important for surface drinking water. The results of this assessment provides information that can identify areas of interest for protecting surface drinking water quality.
Date posted: June 23, 2018
The Forest to Faucets dataset provides a watershed index of surface drinking water importance, a watershed index of forest importance to surface drinking water, and a watershed index to highlight the extent to which development, fire, and insects and disease threaten forests important for surface drinking water. This layer displays the percent of the HUC watershed that is threatened bu insects and disease.
Date posted: June 23, 2018