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Service Description: These data map hub and corridor elements within the green infrastructure and provide restoration value rankings and ecological attributes associated with green infrastructure gaps. The Green Infrastructure Assessment was developed to provide decision support for Maryland's Department of Natural Resources land conservation programs. Methods used to identify and rank green infrastructure lands are intended soley for this use.
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Copyright Text: MD iMAP, DNR
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Document Info:
Title: Maryland Green Infrastructure - Green Infrastructure Hubs And Corridors
Author: Rachel Marks, MD DNR (rachel.marks@maryland.gov
Comments: Maryland's green infrastructure is a network of undeveloped lands that provide the bulk of the state's natural support system. Ecosystem services, such as cleaning the air, filtering water, storing and cycling nutrients, conserving soils, regulating climate, and maintaining hydrologic function, are all provided by the existing expanses of forests, wetlands, and other natural lands. These ecologically valuable lands also provide marketable goods and services, like forest products, fish and wildlife, and recreation. Maryland’s Green Infrastructure serves as vital habitat for wild species and contributes in many ways to the health and quality of life for Maryland residents. To identify and prioritize Maryland's green infrastructure, the Maryland Green Infrastructure Assessment (GIA) was developed.
The GIA was developed using principles of landscape ecology and conservation biology, and provides a consistent approach to evaluating land conservation and restoration efforts in Maryland. It specifically attempts to recognize: a variety of natural resource values (as opposed to a single species of wildlife, for example), how a given place fits into a larger system, the ecological importance of natural open space in rural and developed areas, the importance of coordinating local, state and even interstate planning, and the need for a regional or landscape-level view for wildlife conservation.
Maryland’s Green Infrastructure Assessment (GIA) provides high resolution, statewide data regarding the connected network of hubs, corridors, and gaps throughout the state. For the purposes of the MD GIA, hubs were defined as large contiguous blocks of forests and wetlands, corridors are defined as linear features connecting hubs that enable animals and plant propagules to move between hubs, and gaps are defined as areas within corridors that are not currently part of the optimal natural land use type(s).
The original GIA was completed in 2003, and included mapping of hubs and corridors using 30m resolution Landsat landcover landuse data. GIA hubs were updated in 2010, using newer Landsat data, however corridors were not remapped at that time. This current update to the MD GIA dataset leverages the Chesapeake Conservancy’s 2017/2018 1m Land Use Land Cover (LCLU) dataset. This update provides the most up to date, high resolution green infrastructure data possible for the state.
The Maryland GIA, includes mapping and differentiation of 3 types of hubs: forest, wetland, and aquatic. For the most recent update, forest hubs are defined as large contiguous blocks of forests that are a minimum of 50 acres in size and containing a minimum of 10 acres of contiguous interior forest. Wetlands hubs are defined as contiguous patches of wetlands that are a minimum of 50 acres in size. Aquatic hubs include waterways that meet specific ecological criteria, including those located in Tier II catchments, HUC 12 watersheds with trout, or those with Anadromous fish spawning segments.
This recent update also includes mapping and differentiation of both forest and aquatic corridors. Mapping of corridors was done in 3 major steps. First, forest and aquatic cost rasters were created based on various relevant ecological variables that represent the cost for wildlife to move through each pixel across the landscape. Then, the “Optimal Regions Tool” in ArcGIS was used to manually identify the shortest, least cost path between each set of hub areas. Finally, these least cost paths were buffered by 550 feet to create corridor areas. Corridors generally follow the best ecological or "most natural" routes between hubs. Typically these are streams with wide riparian buffers and healthy fish communities. Other good wildlife corridors include ridge lines or forested valleys. Developed areas, major roads, and other unsuitable features were avoided.
Finally, this updated dataset provides a detailed breakdown of land within green infrastructure corridors. Forest and aquatic corridors are broken into 3 categories, natural corridors, restorable gaps, and non-restorable gaps. Natural corridors are defined as natural land use classes that provide the lowest cost for wildlife movement. Restorable gaps are land use classes that are not currently optimal for animal movement, but that could be good candidates for restoration, such as low vegetation and shrub scrub areas. Non-Restorable Corridors are land use classes wildlife avoid/pass through quickly, and that can not be easily restored, such as impervious surfaces, roads, or buildings.
The Green Infrastructure Assessment was developed to provide decision support for Maryland's Department of Natural Resources land conservation programs. Methods used to identify and rank green infrastructure lands are intended solely for this use. Other applications are at the discretion of the user. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources is not responsible for any inaccuracies in the data and does not necessarily endorse any uses or products derived from the data other than those for which the data were originally intended.
Please to the Green Infrastructure web site (https://dnr.maryland.gov/land/Pages/Green-Infrastructure.aspx) for additional information.
More information can also be found on the DNR Greenprint Webmap (https://geodata.md.gov/greenprint/)
Credits: DNR, Chesapeake Conservancy MD, iMAP, Rachel Marks (rachel.marks@maryland.gov)
Subject: Maryland's Green Infrastructure Assessment (GIA), 2017 - 2018: hubs, corridors, and gaps
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Keywords: MD,Maryland,environment,biota,BIOT,hubs,corridors,green infrastructure,MD iMap,DNR,WFS,KML,WMS
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