Conservation Planning
and Ecosystem Management in the Sierra Nevada
Executive
Summary--Year 1
Table of Contents
(October 1, 1999)
- Sierra
Nevada Network for Education and Research Activities
- Reserve
siting research in the Sierra Nevada
- Scoping
activities for a Sierra Nevada Research Institute
1.
Sierra Nevada Network for Education and Research Activities
The Sierra
Nevada Network for Education and Research (SNNER) was funded
by the University of California Office
of the President (UCOP) to disseminate data and findings from
the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem
Project (SNEP), and to support their application in local and
regional conservation and ecosystem management activities. The initial
activities of SNNER included four components: 1) improve access
by the public and local agencies to the SNEP report and GIS database,
2) convene a conference in fall 1999, 3) the Yuba Watershed Project
at UCD, 4) reconvene the SNNER Implementation Board.
- Access
to SNEP Information: The SNEP
report contained a great deal of valuable spatial information
about the entire Sierra Nevada ecosystem. To support the assessment,
a geographic information system (GIS) database was compiled
and made available over the World Wide Web at http://snepmaps.des.ucdavis.edu/snep/.
However, in its current form, SNEP data has proven difficult
to use. Many users do not have the specialized software
needed to extract information for their own analyses. A survey
of SNEP users showed that there was an interest in ready-made
maps and data summaries on electronic media, as well as automated
search programs that search for specific words or topics in
the report. SNEP data needed to be more readily accessible and
analyzed at smaller, more manageable scales to be useful to
many organizations.
- In response
to this need, we developed a website
that presents a series of standardized tables and graphs representing
the SNEP data for 20 counties and 24 watersheds in the ecoregion.
GIS analyses were performed and data extracted for each SNEP
data layer, and for each of the counties and watersheds. The
data were summarized and arranged in tabular or graphical
format. Each county and watershed has an identically formatted
homepage where basic information is presented and GIS data
summaries are listed as links. It is our hope that repackaging
the SNEP data and putting it on the Web will prove valuable
to local planners and grass-roots organizations.
- With
the aid of Deanne DiPietro at CERES, a thesaurus was developed
of key terms from the Sierra
Nevada Ecosystem Project report. Over 500 terms were linked
using Microsoft Access in a hierarchy/web of connections based
on relatedness. The Access database was then attached to a
search protocol
on the CERES website that uses thesaurus terms to search
the SNEP report at Berkeley's electronic library and GIS metadata.
The thesaurus and search protocol are both undergoing modification
to make retrieval of related terms more sophisticated.
- Conference:
SNNER, in collaboration with the Institute for Transportation
Studies, UC Davis, has organized a Fall, 1999, workshop
on rural road networks. Speakers and panelists with expertise
in aquatic systems, geomorphology, habitat fragmentation, transportation
planning, and rural development will engage in cross-disciplinary
discussions on this critical issue in the Sierra Nevada. The
goal of the workshop is to assess the state of road and transportation
system data, management strategies, and policies affecting road
development in the Sierra Nevada. Presenters and attendees
will originate from across the academic, agency, and public
spectrum, from both inside and outside of California. If additional
funding is secured, the proceedings of the workshop will be
published.
- Yuba
Watershed Project: SNNER is supporting the Yuba Watershed
Council with technical and scientific expertise to develop a
conceptual framework for monitoring and watershed assessment
strategies. We have facilitated access to key scientists studying
processes ranging from mercury contamination of waterways to
habitat fragmentation from urban/rural development. The primary
tangible product of this interaction is an interactive
website. It allows the user to view pictures of landscape
conditions throughout the watershed as well as digitized representations
(ArcView coverages) of landscape data (such as road networks
and vegetation community types). The Yuba Watershed Council
sub-committee responsible for actual implementation of monitoring
programs will serve as our primary contact. We are continuing
to monitor the development of other watershed (e.g., American
River) and regional plans.
- Implementation
Board: SNNER's Implementation Board has been reconvened
and has met twice in the last 6 months. The Board was advised
of the nature of the various projects underway at UCSB and UCD
and recommended actions for further development of SNNER and
specific projects, such as a Sierra Nevada-wide bioregional
conference. The Board has indicated that it approves of the
current course of action by SNNER and recommended in May, 1999,
"checking in" again in a year.
2.
Reserve siting research in the Sierra Nevada (Slide
Show)
Development
of a new UC campus in Merced
provided an opportunity to formalize the procedure for selecting
new reserves according to existing Natural Reserve System (NRS)
guidelines. A Windows NT-based decision support system and
GIS database was developed that integrates the multiple, potentially
conflicting criteria in the guidelines into a three-phase procedure
of regional screening, parcel assessment and final site evaluation.
The procedure was applied for the regional screening phase to the
existing network of 33 reserves
and to a planning region surrounding the UC Merced campus site.
At this scale, we found that the environments that are least well
represented by existing NRS reserves include coniferous forest in
the Sierra Nevada and Northern Coast Ranges and deserts in southeastern
California. The highest-ranking reserves tend to satisfy all
three primary criteria. The lower scoring reserves tend to be excellent
in some criteria, but score poorly in at least one. Thus,
the evaluation committees selecting reserves appear to have weighted
the criteria differently in each case. Similarly in the UC
Merced region, no planning unit was perfectly suitable by all criteria,
but the highest values in the planning region were comparable to
the highest-scoring NRS reserves. As Phase 2 begins, we will
limit the assessment to a smaller region with the highest overall
suitability close the Merced campus and modify the specifics of
the decision criteria as appropriate for parcel-level data.
3.
Scoping activities for a Sierra Nevada Research Institute
Dr.
Davis chaired an advisory committee of agency collaborators, UC
researchers, civic leaders and others to define and promote the
concept of a Sierra Nevada Research Institute, an organized research
unit to be housed at UC Merced. Findings from this scoping activity
were summarized in the form of a report
to UCOP (in Acrobat .pdf format) submitted in August, 1999.
Dr. Davis worked with the managers in the National Park Service
and USDA Forest Service to develop mechanisms to foster cooperative
research.
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