CHAPTER 12 the Critical Ecosystem Assessment Model (Cream)
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CHAPTER 12 The Critical Ecosystem Assessment Model (CrEAM): Identifying Healthy Ecosystems for Environmental Protection Planning Mary L. White1, Charles G. Maurice1, Amy Mysz1, Thomas Brody1 1United States Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5 ABSTRACT The Critical Ecosystems Assessment Model (CrEAM) is a screening tool that evaluates the ecological condition of undeveloped landscapes across the Midwest States of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minne- sota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Landscape-level ecological condition is defined by three equally weighted assessment criteria: 1) ecosystem diversity, 2) stressors, and 3) rarity. We defined ecological diversity as the predicted diversity of populations, communities, and ecosystems; stressors as the amount of fragmentation, and chemical and physical pressure; and rarity as both land cover rarity and biological rarity. The Critical Ecosystems Assessment Model (CrEAM) integrates data that describe these three criteria in a geographic information system (GIS). The base map of the CrEAM is a matrix of 300m x 300m cells generated by aggregating the 30 x 30 meter pixels of the 1992 National Land Cover Da- tabase (1992 NLCD). Data from the 1992 NLCD, along with twelve other pre-existing data sets were processed to generate twenty indicators of condition: four for diversity, twelve for stressors, and four for rarity. The data in each layer provide a measurable output for each of the cells in the matrix. These measures were normalized. Results were generated for each criterion and combined into a final com- posite map depicting landscape-level ecological condition. Field validation is underway. The resulting scores from these maps were compared with a previous analysis of the same six states, where natural resource partners identified the ecosystems that were most important to them and where they were concentrating their efforts. The methods developed by the CrEAM can be used as a screening tool to assist workload prioritization, help identify geographic initiatives, and focus geographic targeting. Key words: Landscape ecology, diversity, geographic information systems, indicators, ecosystem assessment 181 182 NORTH AMERICA LAND COVER SUMMIT INTRODUCTION The Region 5 Office of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for federal environmental programs in the Midwest States of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. These programs are developed to ensure compliance with federal laws through assistance and enforcement, build partnerships with state, tribal and local environmental regulators, foster stewardship and further voluntary efforts to protect human health and the environment. Often these programs have similar objectives, such as targeting critical ecosystems for protection and resto- ration efforts. To that end, Region 5 created the Critical Ecosystems Team, tasked with identifying eco- systems of high quality and importance within the Region 5 states. Early on, the team found that some states and environmental and natural resource partners had identified important ecosystems in these states using various approaches at different scales. (Mysz, Maurice, Beltran et al. 2000). The team sought to establish its own systematic and objective method to assess ecological condition throughout the Region using scientifically defensible data or proxies for data. For the CrEAM effort, ecological condition is defined as the integration of three independent cri- teria: 1) ecosystem diversity, 2) lack of ecological stressors and 3) locations with rare species and land cover. In addressing each criteria, ecosystem diversity is defined as the presence of community, and/or ecosystem diversity (Chapin, Zavalet, et al. 2000, Ehrlich and Wilson 1991). Ecological stressors are the agents whose cumulative effects result in loss or decline of ecosystem integrity without external assistance or management. (Dale, Brown, et al. 2000), (Gunderson, Holling, et al. 2002). Species and Land Cover Rarity is defined as the occurrence of rare native species, or communities and land cover types of special ecological interest. (Dobson, Rodriguez, et al. 1997, Pimm and Lawton 1998). Most ecologists agree that these measures of ecosystem organization, vigor, and resilience will indicate the health of an ecosystem (Ulanowicz 1980, Rapport, Costanza, and McMichael 1998, Costanza and Mageau 1999, Patil, Brooks, et al. 2001) and using the three criteria identified above, we hope to use existing data to identify those areas. THE CRITICAL ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT MODEL 183 PROBLEM STATEMENT Natural resource managers could make more informed decisions if they had a consistent way to evaluate the relative ecological condition of an area. Unfortunately, this information is generally not available because the evaluation of ecological condition is a difficult task at the landscape scale. Al- though several researchers have proposed ways to evaluate ecological condition (O’Malley and Wing 2000, Xu, Sawson, Tao et al. 2001, Campbell 2001, Day, Rybczyk, Garson et al. 1997, Costanza and Mageau 1999, Jenson, Bourgeron, Everett et al. 1996), it is difficult to find consistent and compa- rable data for these evaluations over large areas (Gaston 2000, Levin, Bryan Grenfell, Alan Hastings et al. 1997, Verburg, Soepboer, Veldkamp et al. 2002). The recently published materials reporting on the progress of the Convention on Biological Diversity for 2010, (Balmford, Bennun, Brink et al. 2005, Bai, Beintema, Fredvik et al. 2005) and the Millinium Assessment (Meyerson, Baron, Melillo et al. 2005) reiterate the call for scientifically defensible, repeatable assessment methods for ecologi- cal condition. In the United States, attempts have been made to address these issues in the States of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia (Jones, Rit- ters, Wickham et al. 1997, Patil, Brooks, Myers et al. 2002). Unfortunately, a similar analysis does not exist for ecosystems in the Midwest States of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin (Figure 1). METHODS To systematically and objectively assess the ecological condition of undeveloped areas, the team developed a model using available data. We present this as a model because the intent is to predict the condition in areas for which we have very little ecological data from datasets we think will character- ize the condition. It is a spatial model rather than a temporal model. The results of the model are three major data layers that predict the three characteristics (criteria) that would identify a high quality, or ecologically important portion of the region (Table 1). A Geographic Information System (GIS) was selected as the analysis platform because it allows investigators to efficiently aggregate multiple geographically referenced data sets. GIS can also be 184 NORTH AMERICA LAND COVER SUMMIT Figure 1 (A) The study area is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 which includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin (shaded). (B) The study area shown with 1991 National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) data. Colored areas are undeveloped land cover classes, white areas are developed. (C) The study area shown with Omernik level III ecoregions. THE CRITICAL ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT MODEL 185 used to effectively conduct landscape scale analysis (van Horssen, Schot, and Barendregt 1999, Aspi- nall and Pearson 2000), DellaSalla, Staus, Strittholt et al. 2001, Bojorquez-Tapia, Juarez, and Cruz- Bello 2002). Relevant existing data sets were sought as indicators for ecological diversity, stressors, and rarity. The CrEAM data sets were spatially and temporally consistent covering the entire six state study area and representative of conditions that existed in the early 1990’s. A total of 20 data sets were used as indicators for the three criteria: four for ecological diversity (C1.1-4), 12 for stressors (C2.1- 12), and four for rarity (C3.1-4); Table 1. One of the fundamental data sets for developing the indicators was the 1992 National Land Cover Database (1992 NLCD). The 1992 NLCD is a mosaic of satellite scenes taken between 1990 and 1992 and classified into 23 land cover types (Loveland and Shaw 1996). In the six state study area, 20 of the 23 land cover categories were present (Table 2). nine of which were considered potentially undevel- oped, while 11 were considered distinctly developed land cover classifications (Ebert and Wade 2000). Because the principal objective of this project is to identify ecosystems that are healthy and contain ECOLOGICAL STRESSORS RARITY DIVERSITY C2 C3 C1 Landscape Chemical and Physical Fragmentation Stressors C1.1 patch size of C2.1 perimeter to area C2.5 airport buffers C3.1 land cover rarity undeveloped land analysis C1.2 land cover diversity C2.2 patch size by land C2.6 NPL Superfund sites C3.2 species rarity cover type C1.3 temperature & C2.3 weighted road C2.7 RCRA corrective C3.3 rare species precipitation maxima density action sites abundance C1.4 temporal continuity C2.4 waterway C2.8 water quality C3.4 rare species taxa of land cover type impoundment summary abundance C2.12 land cover C2.9 watershed obstruction suitability C2.10 air quality summary C2.11 development disturbance buffer Table 1. Data sets used as indicators of ecological condition. 186 NORTH AMERICA LAND COVER SUMMIT high quality habitat, only the nine potentially undeveloped 1992 NLCD land cover classifications and open water were used. The waters and islands of the Great