Integrating Land Cover Modeling and Adaptive Management to Conserve Endangered Species and Reduce Catastrophic Fire Risk

Land

David Breininger¹  Brean Duncan¹  Mitchell Eaton²  Fred Johnson³ 

[1] NASA Ecological Programs, InoMedic Health Applications, IHA-300, Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island, FL 32899, USA; E-Mail:;Southeast Climate Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, 127H David Clark Labs, North Carolina State University, Box 7617, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA; E-Mail:;Southeast Ecological Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, 7920 NW 71 Street, Gainesville, FL 32653, USA; E-Mail:

关键词: adaptive management;    fire management;    Florida scrub-jays;    structured decision-making;    state transitions;    land cover modeling;   

DOI  :  10.3390/land3030874

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Land cover modeling is used to inform land management, but most often via a two-step process, where science informs how management alternatives can influence resources, and then, decision makers can use this information to make decisions. A more efficient process is to directly integrate science and decision-making, where science allows us to learn in order to better accomplish management objectives and is developed to address specific decisions. Co-development of management and science is especially productive when decisions are complicated by multiple objectives and impeded by uncertainty. Multiple objectives can be met by the specification of tradeoffs, and relevant uncertainty can be addressed through targeted science (i.e., models and monitoring). We describe how to integrate habitat and fuel monitoring with decision-making focused on the dual objectives of managing for endangered species and minimizing catastrophic fire risk. Under certain conditions, both objectives might be achieved by a similar management policy; other conditions require tradeoffs between objectives. Knowledge about system responses to actions can be informed by developing hypotheses based on ideas about fire behavior and then applying competing management actions to different land units in the same system state. Monitoring and management integration is important to optimize state-specific management decisions and to increase knowledge about system responses. We believe this approach has broad utility and identifies a clear role for land cover modeling programs intended to inform decision-making.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.