The allows users to explore the of HUC5 watersheds within the Pacific Northwest.

, as defined here, is a measure of a natural system's capacity to remain stable as the climate changes over time. This is based on two factors:

• Climate Departure: a measure of how different the future climate is projected to be from the historical climate.
• Climate Resilience: a measure of how resilient an area is expected to be to changes in climate (based on topoclimate diversity and landscape permeability).

A watershed with lower levels of climate departure and higher levels of climate resilience is more likely to sustain current levels of native biodiversity into the future (high geoclimatic stability).

This information is intended to help land managers prioritize conservation efforts and help guide future conservation investments.

The was developed by the Conservation Biology Institute in collaboration with Oregon State University, The Nature Conservancy, and the Great Basin Landscape Conservation Cooperative, with additional funding and support provided by the Bureau of Land Management.

Conserving Nature's Stage (CNS) refers to the value of explicitly incorporating landform, bedrock, soil, and topography (collectively "geodiversity" or "enduring features") into conservation planning as a coarse filter for current and future biodiversity.

Soils + Elevation + Slope = Land Facets

Geophysical features underlie the spatial distribution of biodiversity and a region's biological richness is due, in part, to its geophysical diversity. Using the geophysical features of soil, elevation and slope we were able to produce a wall-to-wall map of 162 land facets within the Pacific Northwest. We defined the geophysical diversity (the unchanging Stage) by overlaying Soils (10 Orders), Elevation (7 categories), and Slope (3 categories), creating 162 land facets. For example, Mollisols at 600-1200 meters on flat ground.

Topoclimate Diversity + Permeability = Terrestrial Resilience

Topoclimate Diversity describes the range of temperature and moisture regimes available to species within a local area. Areas rich in topoclimate diversity may increase species diversity and also increase the likelihood for species persistence over time as the climate changes. We calculated Topoclimate Diversity by looking at the range of local temperatures and the range of soil moisture potential across a 450-m radius neighborhood. The result is a relative index across the study area or a particular land facet that measures how diverse the local climate is, based on topographic qualities that are not likely to change.

Terrestrial Permeability measures the connectedness within a local area, inversely related to the fragmentation caused by development such as roads, cities, agriculture, and energy infrastructure. We mapped permeability based on the degree of development and conversion. This analysis evaluates the capacity for ecological flow outward from each focal cell into its local neighborhood up to a maximum of 3-km, then combines the results into a final, study-wide surface. In the figure from arid Eastern Oregon at left, growth around a focal cell is constrained by fragmentation associated with roads, agriculture, and housing.

Terrestrial Resilience combines Topoclimate Diversity and Permeability to identify where biodiversity is more likely to be resilient to a changing climate. By stratifying the resilience data by ecoregion and land facet with in each ecoregion, we are able to compare similar places to each other (Mollisols with other Mollisols, flat mid-elevation land facets with other flat mid-elevation land facets). We are also able to identify the places where resilience is most dense on the landscape.

Click here for more information about The Nature Conservancy's CNS project.

Climate data used for the historical period (1971- 2000) correspond to the LT71m PRISM (Parameter-elevation Relationships on Independent Slopes Model) 30 arc-second spatial climate dataset for the Conterminous United States (Daly et al. 2008). For future climate projections, we selected two climate models (CanESM2 and HadGEM2-ES), from the 5th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5; Taylor et al. 2012). These models were chosen based on evaluations of their ability to simulate historical climate conditions globally and over the western United States (Rupp et al. 2013) and becauase these models capture a wide range of projected change for both annual average temperature and annual precipitation under the representative concentration pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5; Meinshausen et al. 2011; van Vuuren et al. 2011). RCP8.5 is a highly energy-intensive scenario that results from high population growth and a moderate rate of technology development without establishment of climate change policies.

We used the downscaled climate projections from the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) U.S. Downscaled Climate Projections (NEX US-DCP30) dataset (Thrasher et al. 2013) for the western United States. We chose one thirty-year period, 2016-2045, to represent the projected future.

Calculation of Climate Variables

Climate variable values (tmax, tmin, and prec) were calculated as means of annual average temperatures and of annual total precipitation for each time period (1971-2000 and 2016-2045).

Landfire EVTs are mapped using decision tree models, field data, Landsat imagery, elevation, and biophysical gradient data. Decision tree models are developed separately for each of the three lifeforms -tree, shrub, and herbaceous and are then used to generate lifeform specific EVT layers.

The LF-GAP Map Units Descriptions provide descriptions for each LF EVT including species, distribution and classification information. Vegetation map units are primarily derived from NatureServe's Ecological Systems classification, alliances of the U.S. National Vegetation Classification (USNVC), the National Land Cover Database and LF specific types.

LF uses EVT in several subsequent layers, including the development of the fuel layers.

• Climate Departure, Climate Resilience & Geoclimatic Stability
• Conserving Nature's Stage (CNS)
• Climate Data (Direct Download)
• Landfire

• CONUS Climate Console

  The CONUS Climate Console is a web mapping application designed for exploring climate projections and simulated impacts for a specified area of interest in the Continental United States.

• Sagebrush Climate Console

  The Sagebrush Climate Console is a web mapping application designed for exploring climate projections and simulated impacts for a specified area of interest in the Pacific Northwest.

• Northwest Climate Toolbox

  A collection of web tools for visualizing past and projected climate and hydrology of the Pacific Northwest, USA​.

• Data Basin

  Data Basin is a science-based mapping and analysis platform that supports learning, research, and sustainable environmental stewardship.

Conservation Biology Institute 136 SW Washington Ave # 202 Corvallis, OR 97333 (541) 757-0687 http://consbio.org info@consbio.org Barry Baker barry.baker@consbio.org Mike Gough mike.gough@consbio.org	Oregon State University 1500 SW Jefferson St. Corvallis, OR 97331 541-737-1000 http://oregonstate.edu Dominique Bachelet bacheled@oregonstate.edu	The Nature Conservancy in Oregon 821 SE 14th Avenue Portland, OR 97214 (503) 802-8100 Fax: (503) 802-8199 E-mail: oregon@tnc.org http://www.nature.org/oregon Conserving Nature's Stage: Click Here Ken Popper kpopper@tnc.org Aaron Jones ajones@tnc.org	Great Basin LCC https://greatbasinlcc.org/ info@greatbasinlcc.org John Tull John_Tull@fws.gov

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