Downscaling IPCC Land Use Scenarios for Global Change Adaptation in Mountains

  
Mountain landscapes support our largest wildland ecosystems and thus are critically important for conservation. Human development is now intensifying in many mountain systems due to advances in technology. Consequently, conservation planning requires credible projections of future human land cover and use (LCLUC) and potential impacts on biodiversity. Our goal is to project LCLUC under IPCC scenarios across western US mountain landscapes to enhance vulnerability assessments of biodiversity to future global change.



Quantifying Land Use Change. Among the fastest increasing land use types in rural landscapes is rural residential development, which it too fine to be mapped with Landsat-scale satellite data. We are quantifying rates of change in RRD, resource extraction, and other major land uses through stratified random sampling of 100-m subplots within 1-km plots. Strata include: rural/urban, new west / old west economies, weather preference index, natural amenity index, and night light density.


Drivers of LCLUC. The relative roles of urban proximity, natural resources, natural amenities, and climate in influencing rates of change in rural land use are poorly understood. We suggest that influence of a given driver is dependent on the condition of other drivers and understanding such context dependency is important for projecting LCLUC. Initial analyses suggest, for example, that the influence of natural amenities on growth in housing density is positive in new west but negative in old west economies.

Projecting LCLUC. The SERGoM model will be parameterized with results of the hypothesis testing and used to project LCLUC into the coming century under IPCC socioeconomic and climate scenarios.


Biodiversity Vulnerability Assessment.
Consequences of LCLUC for biodiversity are being done in the context of Greater Wildland Ecosystems. These are being defined and mapped as large protected areas and surrounding wildlands (areas of low human pressure). We are assessing wildland fragmentation with GWEs and connectivity among GWEs. We have suggested that GWEs be delineated across the US and that national policy empower network governance and adaptive management within them and promote connectivity among them.

We hope the completed project will help provide for sustainable mountain landscapes in the northwest US and that the approach be applied more broadly. 
 
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