SDE Feature Class
Tags
Habitat Connectivity, Riverbank, Stanislaus River, Stanislaus County, San Joaquin Valley
The ability of wildlife to move through a landscape in order to acquire or complement necessary resources for feeding, cover, and reproduction has been recognized as critical for the survival of animal populations. The Safe Passages project was initiated in 2008 to provide guidance to management agencies on how to incorporate this ecological process into land use planning. This data set is one portion of the larger Safe Passages project and includes a linkage design for the city of Riverbank, a local municpality along the Stanislaus River that collaborated with researchers in order to better understand the ecological needs of their local region and to incorporate them into their local land use planning process.
Using data derived in earlier portions of the Safe Passages project as well as land cover and species data specific to this analysis, the research team conducted a systematic conservation planning assessment for the area surrounding Riverbank. Marxan optimization software was used to perform conservation priority analyses of land parcels using a number of land cover and species specific data sources as input. These included connectivity assessments for four focal species at several spatial scales, habitat models for 22 sensitive species and ecosystem types, as well as mapped extents of five major land cover types.
Land ownership parcels receiving a high irreplaceability score at any of the scales of analysis in Marxan were identified as part of the linkage. Further, parcels that were not selected by Marxan but nonetheless had high connectivity scores for any of the focal species at any of the scales were included in the final linkage design.
The final linkage design includes: (1) parcels along the Stanislaus River that can either facilitate wildlife movement along the riparian corridor or provide habitat for resident species; (2) extensive, relatively intact grasslands and vernal pool complexes in the eastern portion of the study area; and (3) agricultural lands that can support both food production and ecological needs for native species.
The final report for "Safe Passages: Local and Regional Wildlife Habitat Connectivity Planning" is available here .
Huber, P. R., R.. C. Hill and S. E. Greco. Landscape Analysis and Systems Research Laboratory, Department of Human Ecology. University of California, Davis
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Extent
West | -121.179541 | East | -120.706182 |
North | 37.944826 | South | 37.558493 |
Maximum (zoomed in) | 1:5,000 |
Minimum (zoomed out) | 1:150,000,000 |