Abstract
Throughout the Central Appalachians of the United States resource extraction primarily from coal mining has contributed to the majority of the forest conversion to barren and reclaimed pasture and grass. The loss of forests in this ecoregion is significantly impacting biodiversity at a regional scale. Since not all forest stands provide equal levels of ecological functions, it is critical to identify and map existing forested resources by the benefits that accrue from their unique spatial patterns, watershed drainage, and landscape positions. We utilized spatial analysis and remote sensing techniques to define critical forest characteristics. The characteristics were defined by applying a forest fragmentation model utilizing morphological image analysis, defining headwater catchments at a 1 : 24,000 scale, and deriving ecological land units (ELUs) from elevation data. Once critical forest values were calculated, it was possible to identify clusters of critical stands using spatial statistics. This spatially explicit method for modeling forest habitat could be implemented as a tool for assessing the impact of resource extraction and aid in the conservation of critical forest habitat throughout a landscape.
Highlights
Forests provide many benefits to society and the natural environment that include providing wildlife habitat [1], maintaining biodiversity [2], regulating climate and providing carbon storage [3, 4], nitrogen cycling [5, 6], and altering and moderating hydrologic function, including evapotranspiration rates and surface runoff volumes [7]
We suggest that considering forest fragmentation along with catchment and terrain-derived variables provided a better understanding of critical habitat in the Southern Coal Fields of West Virginia than could be obtained utilizing land cover alone
We have presented a method for indexing of critical forest stands on a pixel-by-pixel basis relative to fragmentation patterns, watershed drainage, and landscape position
Summary
Forests provide many benefits to society and the natural environment that include providing wildlife habitat [1], maintaining biodiversity [2], regulating climate and providing carbon storage [3, 4], nitrogen cycling [5, 6], and altering and moderating hydrologic function, including evapotranspiration rates and surface runoff volumes [7]. In reference to forest and biodiversity conservation, there has been a shift in focus from rare or endangered species management to ecosystem and landscape scale management in which the health and function of the ecosystem as a whole is considered [11]. This focus requires that a diversity of ecological processes be considered, such as the health and structure of the forest [11]. Core and fragmented forests differ in terms of structure, composition, and ecological processes. Fragmentation is of critical concern when modeling processes at the landscape scale [16]
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