Crown of the Continent Landscape Analysis

The CCE Landscape Analysis is a strategic priority of the Crown Managers Partnership focused on resolving issues of transboundary data integration and synthesis, establish an ecological baseline and document change over time (trend analysis), and disseminating knowledge, information products, and geospatial tools arising out of this work to the extensive network of Crown Managers Partnership (CMP) and Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative and Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GNLCC) collaborators. 

To achieve this, the CMP is working with university and agency partners on credible science-based approaches to identify the current condition of indicators (baseline) and to track and document changes over time (trend). Our working assumption is that visible land use changes influence most indicators, so significant emphasis is placed on landscape metrics, augmented by supplemental work on individual indicators as required.

In 2009, the CMP embarked on a partnership with the University of Calgary Geography Department, the National Park Service Rocky Mountain Inventory and Monitoring Network and the Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative to conduct a Landscape Analysis at the scale of the CCE.  A strategic focus of this project is cross-boundary data inventory and synthesis. We are currently focused on synthesizing the data to conduct meaningful analysis of land cover, phenology and human-use footprint, including road density.

Objectives

The Ecological Health Indicators Project aims to provide useable knowledge and information products within a monitoring framework designed to help mangers react effectively to climate change and shifting human activities in the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem. Toward this end, the Landscapes Analysis has the following objectives:

1) Data Integration and Synthesis – we are currently working to define and assemble transboundary geo-spatial datasets for the CCE that inform the ecological health indicators

2) Describe a Baseline Condition and Analyze Trend – we are compiling the transboundary geospatial data to describe the current condition of our ecological health indicators and to track and document changes over time

3) Conduct a Sensitivity Analysis– we are developing  an analysis that reveals the impacts of errors/uncertainty in basemap geospatial products