Santa Cruz County Regional Conservation Investment Strategy DRAFT Environmental Setting and Conservation Elements November 2020 Contents List of Tables iv List of Figures iv 1 Introduction 1 2 Environmental Setting and Conservation Elements 3 2.1 Overview 3 2.2 Land Use 5 Local Land Use 5 Jurisdictions 5 Land Use Designations 6 Planned Infrastructure and Development Projects 9 Existing Protected Lands 12 Conservation and Mitigation Banks 15 2.3 Existing Conservation Plans 17 Recovery Plans 17 Habitat Conservation Plans 19 Other Conservation Plans 23 2.4 Natural Environment 27 Ecoregions 27 Climate 27 Disturbance Regimes 29 Watersheds 30 Natural Communities and Other Land Cover 32 Aquatic Systems 37 Terrestrial Systems 38 2.5 Conservation Elements 44 Background 44 Approach to the Conservation Elements 44 Communities 48 Other Conservation Elements 52 Habitat Connectivity 52 SCCRTC and RCDSCC ii November 2020 Santa Cruz County Contents Regional Conservation Investment Strategy Working Lands 56 Focal Species 59 Non-Focal Species 60 Co-Benefited Species 63 2.6 Next Steps 74 References 75 Appendices 90 Appendix A: Glossary 90 Appendix B: GIS Data Sources 103 Appendix F: Infrastructure Plans and Projects 108 Appendix G: Species Database Compilation 123 SCCRTC and RCDSCC iii November 2020 Santa Cruz County Contents Regional Conservation Investment Strategy List of Tables Table 2-1: General Land Use Designations within each Jurisdiction 7 Table 2-2: Protected Lands in the RCIS Area 12 Table 2-3: Conservation and Mitigation Banks with a Service Area that includes the RCIS Area 15 Table 2-4: Recovery Plans in the RCIS Area 17 Table 2-5: Habitat Conservation Plans in the RCIS Area 20 Table 2-6: Other Conservation Plans in the RCIS Area 23 Table 2-7: Natural Communities and Other Land Cover 33 Table 2-8: Brief description of the Natural Plant Communities in the RCIS Area 39 Table 2-9: Elements of the Santa Cruz County RCIS Conservation Strategy 46 Table 2-10: Natural Communities included in the RCIS and the Criteria Met 49 Table 2-11: Significant Habitat Patches and Complexes within the RCIS Area 54 Table 2-12: Agricultural Production in Santa Cruz County in 2018 56 Table 2-13: Focal species of this RCIS 59 Table 2-14: Non-focal species of this RCIS 60 Table 2-15: Co-benefited species that are anticipated to benefit from the conservation strategy 63 Table A-1: Glossary 90 Table B-1: GIS Data Sources 103 Table B-2: Vegetation Compilation Sources and Priorities 106 Table F-1: Anticipated transportation projects in the RCIS Area 111 Table F-2: Santa Cruz County Project List 119 List of Figures Figure 2-1: Santa Cruz County RCIS Area 4 Figure 2-2: Land Use 8 Figure 2-3: Infrastructure Areas 10 Figure 2-4: Existing Protected Lands 13 Figure 2-5: Conservation and Mitigation Banks 16 Figure 2-6: Ecological Regions 28 SCCRTC and RCDSCC iv November 2020 Santa Cruz County Contents Regional Conservation Investment Strategy Figure 2-7: Aquatic Resources 31 Figure 2-8: Natural Communities and other Land Cover Types 36 Figure 2-9: Natural Community-Based Conservation Elements 51 Figure 2-10: Habitat Connectivity 55 Figure 2-11: Working Lands 57 SCCRTC and RCDSCC v November 2020 Santa Cruz County Regional Conservation Investment Strategy 1 Introduction This document contains the draft of the Environmental Setting and Conservation Elements section of the Santa Cruz County Regional Conservation Investment Strategy (SCCRCIS). It is provided to obtain feedback that will inform its revision and development of remaining sections of the SCCRCIS. Administered by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), the RCIS Program was established in 2016 to encourage voluntary, non-regulatory regional planning process intended to result in higher-quality conservation outcomes and includes an advance mitigation tool. The RCIS Program uses a science-based approach to identify conservation and enhancement opportunities that, if implemented, will help California's declining and vulnerable species by protecting, creating, restoring, and reconnecting habitat and may contribute to species recovery and adaptation to climate change and resiliency. Additional information about the RCIS program can be found at the CDFW website, https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Planning/Regional-Conservation. The Santa Cruz County RCIS (SCCRCIS) is being developed by the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (SCCRTC) in collaboration with the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County (SCCRCD). Prepared with funding from the Wildlife Conservation Board, the SCCRCIS is being developed to provide a cohesive and comprehensive conservation strategy to protect rare species, conserve biodiversity, promote connectivity, and sustain functioning ecosystems in Santa Cruz County, and to guide future conservation investments in the region. The county boundary was selected to avoid overlap with RCISs in Santa Clara and Monterey counties and promote partnerships and regional conservation efforts amongst agencies and organizations working within the county. The SCCRCIS is being developed in coordination with stakeholders and technical advisors, and is being guided by a steering committee comprised of conservation agencies and transportation organizations. The SCCRCIS is being developed through three main conservation planning steps: 1. Assess the environmental setting and identify the conservation elements which will be the focus of the SCCRCIS; 2. Identify the pressures and stressors to the conservation elements; and 3. Develop a conservation strategy that includes goals, objectives, actions, and priorities for each conservation element, to address their pressures and stressors, incorporate information from prior conservation plans, and achieve the broader goals for this RCIS. This draft report documents results of work to synthesize available information about the RCIS Area that is most relevant to developing the conservation strategy. Feedback from the SCCRCIS steering committee, stakeholders, and technical advisors will be used to revise the draft report, which will constitute the second section of the SCCRCIS, and inform the analysis of pressures and stressors and development of the conservation strategy in the next project phases. Once the SCCRCIS is approved, the priority conservation, restoration, and enhancement actions identified in the conservation strategy will be eligible to be implemented as part of mitigation credit agreements—voluntary agreements with CDFW that will provide proponents with mitigation credits for implementing the RCIS actions. The actions can also be funded through future state grants and be implemented with private (i.e., philanthropic) funds, to collectively focus conservation efforts in the SCCRTC and RCDSCC 1 November 2020 Santa Cruz County Contents Regional Conservation Investment Strategy region on a cohesive strategy to conserve biological systems and species and the ecosystems that sustain them and the broader community in the region. SCCRTC and RCDSCC 2 November 2020 Santa Cruz County Regional Conservation Investment Strategy 2 Environmental Setting and Conservation Elements This section provides background information about the environmental conditions and existing and planned development in Santa Cruz County. It then describes the process and outcomes of steps to identify the RCIS conservation elements: the natural communities, species, and other conservation elements that will be the focus of the conservation strategy. It is provided to the SCCRCIS stakeholders for review and input prior to analyzing the pressures and stressors to the conservation elements, and then developing the RCIS conservation strategies. 2.1 Overview The RCIS Area is in Central California on the Pacific Coast (Figure 2-1). It is generally bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west, the north and east by Castle Rock Ridge, and the Pajaro River to the south. The RCIS Area features varied topography, geology, soils, and hydrology that give rise to a mosaic of biologically rich communities. These include globally rare terrestrial communities such as old-growth redwood forests, Santa Cruz sandhills, karst caves, coastal prairie grasslands, and maritime chaparral; they also include coastal streams and their associated riparian corridors, ponds, sloughs, and other wetlands, and rocky seashore, dunes, and coastal bluffs. These dynamic systems are maintained through natural disturbance regimes, including fire and floods, which create and maintain habitat for many rare species and promote biodiversity within the landscape. These rare communities, along with the more widespread communities which include coastal scrub, oak woodlands, and redwood forests, support rich assemblages of plants and animals. The RCIS Area is an important part of the California Floristic Province, which is a global biodiversity hotspot identified for its abundance of native and endemic plants (Myers et al. 2000). The RCIS Area supports more than 1,000 native plant species (Neubauer 2013) including 17 that are found only within the county, such as Santa Cruz wallflower (Erysimum teretifolium) and Scotts Valley polygonum (Polygonum hickmanii). The RCIS Area also supports a diversity of animal species, including endemic invertebrate species such as the Zayante band-winged grasshopper (Trimerotropis infantilis) and Ohlone tiger beetle (Cicindela ohlone), other rare species endemic to the Monterey Bay Area region, such as the Santa Cruz long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum croceum) and