Modeling Terrestrial Ecosystem Distribution, Mapping Threats and Updating Protected Area Information

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Modeling Terrestrial Ecosystem Distribution,
Mapping Threats and Updating Protected Area
Information

• Leonardo Sotomayor
• South America Conservation Region

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Terrestrial Ecosystems

• A layer of contiguous vegetation-based ecological
  systems as conservation targets
• Contracted NatureServe to develop the
  classification (Josse et al 2003), but had no map
• Project lead by Roger Sayre (now at USGS)
• Data now being used for various applications
  including preliminary biodiversity assessments
  and effective conservation measures
• Data is undergoing final updates and revisions
  prior to distribution

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Ecosystem Classification
Elevation
Landform
Unique Gridcodes
Terrestrial Ecosystems
Modeling
NS Classification
Geology
Landcover
Bioclimate
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Elevation

• 450 Meter Digital Elevation Model Data (DEM)
  produced by WWF from 90 meter SRTM DEM data.
• Classification is based primarily on floristics
• 0 - 500m corresponds to lowlands
• 500 - 1000m transitional mixed flora of the
  piedmont, in the case of massive ridges like the
  Andes or is already montane, with a different
  set of species, in the case of low ridges
• 1000 - 3300m two life zones in the mountains,
  mostly forest covered
• Over 3300m treelines for the Andes

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General Landform

• Landforms were developed using a neighborhood
  analysis using DEM

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General Geology

• Detailed geology data was purchased from Geologic
  Data Systems Inc. (GDS).
• Compiled geological information from over 50
  published maps to create a digital geology map of
  South America.
• Data for Brazil was compiled at 11,000,000 scale
  with the remainder of South America at 1500,000
  scale.

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Subset of Detailed Geology (Amazon River)
Subset of General Geology with Detailed Geology
Linework
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General Land Cover

• South America GLC 2000 (Global Land Cover 2000)
• 1 km resolution at the equator, resampled to 450
  meters
• Generalized from 57 classes to 18 classes to
  reduce the natural complexity of the data

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General Land Cover
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Subset of Detailed GLC Land Cover
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General Bioclimate

• WORDCLIM Global climate grid data (30 second
  resolution) from the University of California,
  Berkley
• monthly precipitation (prec)
• monthly mean temperature (tmean)

Ombrothermic Index (Io) Io Pp
(Tp/100) x 12 Where Pp Total Annual
Precipitation, and Tp Total Annual Temperature
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Gridcodes

• Each unique gridcode represents a combination of
  the 5 input data layers numeric codes
• For example, the unique gridcode for one polygon
  might be 1742020, which represents
• 1000000 0 500 meters
• 700000 Floodplains
• 40000 Alluvium
• 2000 Tropical Pluvial-seasonal
• 20 Tree Cover, Broadleaf Deciduous

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Terrestrial Ecosystems Map

• NatureServe Ecologist (C. Josse) attributed the
  gridcodes into Ecosystems
• 659 Ecological Systems mapped
• Continuous updates and reviews
• Approximately 285,000 unique ecosystem polygons

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11,000,000
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Current Human Activity

• South America Threat to Biodiversity Assesment

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Threats to Biodiversity

• Conversion to pasture
• Conversion to agriculture
• Infrastructure
• Invasive species
• Conversion by forestry activities
• Fire (in ecosystems without fire regimes)
• Pollution
• Mining
• Oil and gas exploration

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Accessibility

• Calculate km/hr to cross 1km cells of roads,
  rivers, railroads, borders, landcover (glc2000),
  urban areas (nightlights)
• Merge above and represent the time in minutes
• Factor in elevation, slope
• Divide by 60 to convert to hours, then by 1000 to
  convert meters to km

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Time to Market
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TOOLS Comissioned to CIAT
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Protected Areas

• Data Collection using WDPA as the Standard and
  improving the database

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Effective Conservation

• We use the Protected Areas information,
  Biodiversity information and Threats Analysis
• Estimating how well conservation is doing as a
  measure
• Monitor conservation efforts
• Find conservation gaps