Yukon Lowlands-Kuskokwim Mountains-Lime Hills Rapid Ecoregional Assessment Project, Alaska

Transcription

1 Yukon Lowlands-Kuskokwim Mountains-Lime Hills Rapid Ecoregional Assessment Project, Alaska Workshop Summary for the Assessment Management Team (AMT) 1b Meeting Meeting Date: May 2, 2013 Meeting Location: USGS Alaska State Office, Anchorage, Alaska Prepared by the University of Alaska Team: Alaska Natural Heritage Program (AKNHP) Scenarios Network for Alaska and Arctic Planning (SNAP) Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)

2 Table of Contents Meeting summary... 2 Webinar summary notes... 3 Process overview (Jamie)... 3 REA Tract (Jamie)... 3 Ecological Intactness (Jamie)... 3 Change Agents... 3 Climate (Nancy)... 3 Fire model (Nancy)... 4 Permafrost model (Nancy)... 4 Biome shift model (Nancy)... 4 Anthropogenic Activities (Jamie)... 4 Invasive Species (Jamie)... 4 Forest pests (Jamie)... 5 Terrestrial Coarse-filter CEs (Jamie)... 5 Terrestrial Fine-filter CEs (Jamie)... 5 Attributes and Indicators... 5 Aquatic Course-filter CEs (Jamie)... 5 Aquatic Fine-filter CEs (Jamie)... 5 Core REA Analyses (Jamie)... 5 Appendix 1:... 7 Full list of meeting attendees, including remote participants... 7 Meeting summary This document summarizes key discussion points from the two hour (AMT 2) methods webinar held May 2, 2013 for the Yukon Lowlands-Kuskokwim Mountains-Lime Hills Rapid Ecoregional Assessment (REA). Prior to this summary webinar the University of Alaska team reviewed methods with smaller focus groups on aquatics, invasives, land cover, wildlife, and anthropogenic activities. After each of these smaller focus groups reviewed methods, their input was incorporated into the final summary methods memo. The culmination of these reviews in addition to the integrated assessments was summarized during this webinar.

3 Participants of the webinar made a variety of comments and suggestions to improve the assessment. Key discussion points that result in potential action items are highlighted in red. These suggestions, in addition to written comments submitted to the AMT and Technical Team will be incorporated into the final version of the memo. Key points from the webinar are summarized below. Webinar summary notes Process overview (Jamie) Task 2 objectives data discovery, data gaps Task 3 objectives methods, models, and tools REA Tract (Jamie) Two tracts (management direction, science direction) Ecological Intactness better than integrity because intactness is a measurement of naturalness, time commitment possible within the scope of the REA Karen - possibly better to term ecological intactness as landscape intactness because ecological implies process not just fragmentation Travis - How does impactness help managers besides wilderness designations? Jamie - Ecological status will be measured, not condition. Travis - What is the difference in condition vs. status? Jamie - (condition=, status =) Nancy Change agents will not necessarily be anthropogenic (landscape condition factors). Models of Travis Ecological integrity was originally added by him (if you can measure status and condition then you can get at intactness). Intactness has been adopted by other contractors too. Fragmentation or landscape intactness might be a better measure of integrity. Ecological Intactness (Jamie) We intend to use the landscape condition model with similar SNK weighting Intactness is measured by looking at natural veg. vs. other on a contiguous surface 5 th level HUC CE status impact of species status by intactness model Karen How complex will the CE intersection be with the CAs? Jamie very complex! There will be a product table we will share later on. Change Agents Climate (Nancy) Use GCM composites to predict temps. Average across decades (2020, 2050/2060s), baseline year time period to smooth out extreme years SNAP downscaled data using PRISM 800m resolution Conceptual model by SNAP of climate products (including temp., precip., permafrost, fire, biome shift) Climate model for REA = sole model to look at climate intersection with pertinent CEs

4 Fire model (Nancy) ALFRESCO model spatial stochasitic model, not modeling precise fire distribution (many different runs to look at average fire possibility) model calibrated using spin-up calibrations to match historical to give good estimates for future, working with ALFRESCO to have more categories than the 5 represented Permafrost model (Nancy) Best tool at getting at hydrologic change, not able to be quantitative about how permafrost impacts hydrology, but can look at tipping points in the region Output from GIPL model (mean annual ground temp. (1-m depth), active layer thickness (how deep winter freeze and thaw goes within the 1-m), model resolution 1-2 km Biome shift model (Nancy) Climate clusters are representative of a climate (12 months of climate data). These are map these across the landscape and projected forward in time. Generally climate variables match up fairly well with the habitats, creating these 18 climate clusters. These will then be intersected with coarse-filter CEs. Climate clusters can be described in different ways (growing degree days, etc.) 18 clusters projected forward in time and back projected in time (2000 s) climate clusters shifting in relationship to current habitats (coarse-filter CEs) will be mapped. Karen GIPL model cores used to validate permafrost data where are they in the YKL? Nancy will provide this. Karen - Lightening lots, but little fire how is this accounted for in ALFRESCO? Wind, vegetation drying, et. Nancy - If lightning strikes at some point it probably will burn. Lightening data isn t comparable historically because detection is increasing we can t compare historic rates of lightening very well Anthropogenic Activities (Jamie) -Numerous land uses, although the footprint is low -Renewable energy projects Index of socio-economic condition Shelly Material well-being does it include nutrition info. like food stamps? Are people skipping meals? Does it get at hunger/poverty? Stephanie Not directly. The number of children with free-lunches, is good proxy for nutritional wellbeing Karen Why is language retention not available if at census data? Stephanie All of rural AK is wrapped into one metric so it s not useful (0-80% estimate not very). Karen - What is being used for YKL for the actual socio-economic condition index? Is it in the memo? If it s not there, it should be. TEK -catalogue of TEK Invasive Species (Jamie) 6 species addressed as part of this REA

5 Mostly disturbance related species We will develop some predicted models in relationship to human footprint Invasive species will be lumped into one unit to look at potential relationship with biomes Forest pests (Jamie) Karen - Is there enough data to look at this? How many of these are native vs. non-native? Monica Not comprehensive, but adequate for looking at trends. Yes, there are some trends that are that are interesting species moving northward Terrestrial Coarse-filter CEs (Jamie) Mosaic map developed at AKNHP original source map data retained at 30m pixels. Terrestrial Fine-filter CEs (Jamie) 9 species suggest using GAP models Modeling exceptions herds need to be modeled independently Attributes and Indicators Example - Habitat availability modelable indicators Aquatic Course-filter CEs (Jamie) Not going to do these because aquatic habitat data are not available Aquatic Fine-filter CEs (Jamie) Will use NHD to develop habitat models Core REA Analyses (Jamie) Scenarios (current, high development/climate, low development/climate) Cliome model by CEs Fire outputs by CEs Karen will these be done using three time periods? (current, near, and long-term) Jamie - We will not due fire for current Permafrost and Anthropogenic overlap with CEs For fine filter CEs we will look at thresholds for each CE and then look at those intersections with climate, fire, permafrost, anthropogenic change Cumulative impacts We will first determine status and then look at intersections (climate, permafrost, fire, human footprint). Karen - What will this look like? How are you going to meaningfully integrate these because climate has different inputs than the permafrost model? Jamie We will not overlay these models. Nancy there are missing variables. Multiple scenarios provide a way to integrate models with lots of variability. Karen The cliomes aren t linked in ALFRESCO what are the limitations?

6 Nancy: They provide for a qualitative assessment on what are the cumulative impact are. We are not producing a quantitative ensemble model. Matt Varner - Mining footprint how are we going to do this? He can provide reports on how mining impacts might impact streams. AKNHP would really like this. Mercury levels in fish and how will impacts affect permafrost thaw. USGS sampled Yukon and BLM sampled Kuskokwim. All pikes sampled reasonable expect that people will turn toward resident fish. Karen: We have large areas with mineral development that aren t captured historically.

7 Appendix 1: Full list of meeting attendees, including remote participants Name Organization Telephone Aimee Rockhill Koyukuk/Nowitna NWR Alan Peck BLM- AKSO (907) Aliza Segal BLM Amanda Robertson Northwest Boreal LCC Angela Floyd SNAP UAF Cara Staab BLM- AKSO (907) Jamie Trammell AKNHP-UAA Gerald Minick BLM John Delapp Northwest Boreal LCC Karen Kelleher BLM Matt Varner BLM- AKSO (907) Monica McTeague AKNHP-UAA Nancy Fresco SNAP Paxton McClurg BLM-AFO Rosyland Frazier ISER-UAA Scott Guyer BLM Shelly Jacobson BLM Stephanie Martin ISER-UAA Tony DeGange USGS Tracey Gotthardt AKNHP-UAA Travis Haby BLM-NOC

8 Jeanie Cole BLM