GIS as a Tool for Land Conservation Efforts and Improving Resilience in the State of Maine

Author's Note

I am a part-time land conservation and park professional pursuing a graduate degree in Natural Resources from Oregon State University. When I'm not in school, I work as a seasonal technician at a regional park district and am a volunteer stewardship coordinator for a small land conservancy. I am especially interested in pursuing work that works with applying GIS to land conservation and resilience efforts in the state of Maine.

Annotated Bibliography

Adena R. Rissman, Jessica Owley, Andrew W. L'Roe, Amy Wilson Morris, Chloe B. Wardropper. 2017. "Public access to spatial data on private-land conservation." Ecology and Society 1-13.

As private land conservation continues to become a common method of preserving natural resources, and at the same time, GIS becomes a ubiquitous tool for many tasks associated with this work, availability of spatial information becomes an important subject for consideration. While many public lands make maps available for recreationists, or numerous other data forms are made available to research entities, privacy is often a major concern for both landowners and as a consequence, the land conservation agencies that aided them in the land preservation.

Landowners often fear that transparency of spatial information will increase risks of trespassing and vandalism. Additionally, many owners also feel that accessible spatial information could lead to increased monitoring and ultimately restrictions for how they use their own land. This concern is especially true when endangered species are found on private land. Conservation agencies’ concern arises with the well-being of their clients since overall compliance with land-use agreements as well as future land deals often ride on maintaining mutually beneficial relationships. And finally, both parties typically have a vested interest in protecting special natural resources which may draw attention of collectors and looters.

Some potential solutions include labeling certain properties as “Not open to public” within a GIS. Additionally, if certain resources are at risk from public exposure, centroids could be used to mark properties rather than polygons. Having better integrated and organized data networks could allow for aggregation to appropriate scales and help to link landscape-scale planning with property-scale agreements. This could help to fine-tune who has access to what information.

This discussion provides great context to real-world issues that likely arise in nearly any scenario when using or creating spatial information. This discussion will almost certainly come up in my future work and will continue to evolve.

Alex Brett, Chris Petersen, Gordon Longsworth. 2012. Frenchman Bay Atlas. Bar Harbor: College of the Atlantic .

This report provides an excellent discussion of a number of geologic, ecological, social, and economic factors within a watershed on the coast of Maine which encompasses several towns and many ecological treasures. The analysis discusses the various ways which human activity and the surrounding environment are interconnected and form a reciprocal give-and-take relationship. Throughout the report, the authors provide detailed and unique maps to highlight each topic of discussion. These maps and discussion begin with geology, political and watershed boundaries, then cover terrestrial and aquatic ecological topics such as eelgrass and shellfish distributions, as well as other important habitat.

An important complement to many of the maps is that the report highlights changes to many of these ecological systems over time, which is important in addressing how humans might make a positive impact moving forward. Many economic concerns are implied in the discussion of the state of the environment in this part of Maine since much of the local economy relies on healthy ecosystems. Important socioeconomic issue were also covered in the discussion and included issues such as human development, working waterfronts, population change and tourism. Each of these are important elements to include in analyzing this area and most other regions that must find a balance between preserving it’s ecological treasures and supporting it’s human inhabitants.

The geospatial information included and how it was presented will provide a great example for me in pursuing GIS in land management in the future. Some great features included important buffering and shaded layering.  

Aspinall, R. J. n.d. "GIS and Landscape Conservation." 967-980.

In discussing GIS in the context of landscape conservation, the article first defines landscape conservation as the management and planning of wildlife and natural resources in geographic and ecological systems. GIS as an integrative and traditional science is discussed in-depth and three primary principles are identified. First, landscape as a central object of study is identified as encompassing several components: classification, ecology, morphology, chronology, and regionalism. Each of these are essential given a growing interest in studying large geographic areas and modeling for significant real-world variability. Second is spatial analysis, which is instrumental in assessing the causes of observed spatial patterns and in modeling projections where data may be limited. Third, Ecological analysis focuses on processes and functions within the broad study of ecosystem sciences and helps to better understand pattern and scale. Where real-world ecological science provides the framework, GIS acts as the mechanism to process the many needs that come up in study and practice.

Furthermore, the article discusses how biodiversity, scenic value, and human involvement are all important aspect of land conservation. That ecological benefit of “natural sites” often associated with protected land and should not be removed from the social and economic human element.

Christopher S. Cronan, Robert J. Lilieholm, Jill Tremblay, Timothy Glidden. 2010. "An Assessment of Land Conservation Patterns in Maine Based on Spatial Analysis of Ecological and Socioeconomic Indicators." Environmental Management 1-20.

This report provides a retrospective assessment of land conservation in Maine over the past 20 years and uses spatial analysis to view public and private conservations lands through several ecological and socioeconomic lenses. Many detailed maps were generated through GIS and presented to provide effective context to the discussion at hand. Additionally, the many different agencies involved with acquiring and managing Maine’s vast conservation lands were discussed at length.

Economic, social, and ecological elements should all be considered when discussing conservation land management. Funding sources such as the Land for Maine’s Future (LFW) has been tremendously important to securing many properties within the state. Social metrics such as proximity of major population centers to conservation lands are also important to consider. Not surprisingly, most of Maine’s largest and most beloved conserved lands are not near major population centers. Often the initial driving force behind land conservation are the many ecological features, which for this report included maps showing the overlap of endangered species habitat with conserved lands.

The topic of this study and the fact that it presents a large range of spatial information, often overlapped with other layers of interest, will be a great guide for me in developing and presenting my capstone project.

Chunzeng Wang, Jason Johnston, David Vail, Jared Diskinson, David Putnam. 2015. "High-Precision Land-Cover-Land-Use GIS Mapping and Land Availability and Suitability Analysis for Grass Biomass Production in the Aroostook River Valley, Maine, USA." DigitalCommons@UMaine 1-25.

As land use in Maine’s Aroostook County shift from over a century of mostly food-producing farmland, GIS plays an important role in feasibility studies for future uses. With a growing interest in producing grass biomass for energy production, there are good reasons to better understand land characteristics such as soil type, drainage, and fertility.

Land cover and land use (LCLU) assessment was conducted using a combination of aerial imagery, infrared imagery, and LiDAR. The result of these analyses and some on-the-ground assessment resulted in development of an effective land-use map to show various stages of fallowed fields among other land types. Imagery allowed for a more current snap-shot of conditions, while the lidar revealed evidence of past cultivation, even in forested areas due to signs left by past tilling. Overall, the study provided useful information regarding cultivation opportunities, and was a valuable first-ever high-precision mapping project in Maine. The methods and lessons learned will hopefully pave the way for future projects including my own.

Clinton N. Jenkins, Kyle S. Van Houtan, Stuart L. Pimm, and Joseph O. Sexton. 2015. "US protected lands mismatch biodiversity priorities." PNAS 1-6.

Among the many reasons for the large amount of protected land within the lower 48 states of the US, species protection and habitat preservation is likely to be a very common one. However, as discussed in this report, land conservation and biodiversity protection do not always overlap. Probably the biggest take-away is that while the majority of US protected lands lie in the western half of the country, an overwhelming amount of animal and tree species richness, endemism, and conservation priorities are found in the southeastern US, according to the maps presented in this report. The study resulted in a number of great maps to represent concentration of species throughout all regions of the lower 48, but also displayed all protected land through a color scale to represent International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) category.

The presentation of these spatial information of this report was in-depth and impactful. This is a good example of how many copies of the same base map and color scale to show several different categories (i.e. birds, mammals, reptiles, etc.) can be more impactful than overcrowding a map with a large color scale and too much data. This report displayed a lot of important information while making it easy to follow for the reader.

Conservancy, The Nature. n.d. Coastal Resilience, Maine. Accessed March 14, 2023. https://maps.coastalresilience.org/maine/.

The Coastal Resilience Mapping tool utilizes three features to identify conservation priorities along coastal and inland waterways throughout the state of Maine, with the aim of addressing sea-level rise and man-made waterway barriers. The future habitat feature, explores where tidal marshes will expand given one through six feed of sea-level rise. This information is important to know, not only since these habitats provide important ecological benefit, but because they also provide economic and social benefit through coastal buffering from storms and sea-level rise. The coastal risk explorer tool elaborates on some of the social and economic risks by providing estimated costs and impacts to emergency access for communities with similar one through six feet sea-level rise events. Finally, the aquatic barrier tool, shows the location of all dams and waterway crossings. This information is essential for river projects related to restoring access to aquatic species such as fish. All three features of this tool could be tremendously impactful for me in making determinations of land conservation projects in the future. If paired with other data, such as endangered plant species or animal biodiversity to further pinpoint conservation priorities, this would be a powerful tool. 

David Gadsden, Sunny Fleming. 2022. "Striking a Balance Between Conservation and Growth—Maps Show How." Esri Blog. July 12. Accessed March 13, 2023. https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/blog/mapping-conservation-growth-chattanooga/.

The efforts of Thrive Regional Partnership for the area surrounding Chattanooga, Tennessee and southern Appalachia are important in a region which is one of the fastest growing in the nation. In addition to rapid development, the area contains some of the nation’s highest biodiversity, and relies heavily on natural beauty for its appeal. The map created by Thrive is a simple, yet effective tool to help prioritize land conservation efforts and easily display important information regarding at risk species and impaired waterways. In pursuing similar goals with work, I would hope to use this kind of project to help model my approach in data collection and is how information is presented in a GIS, such as through scoring of data and delivery through an interactive dashboard such as is done here.

Dawn Wright, Ryan Perkl. 2022. "Protecting Point Conception, California—Maps and Sensors Aid Science." Esri Blog. September 13. Accessed March 12, 2023. https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/blog/digital-twin-conserving-california-coast/.

Establishment of the Jack and Laura Dangermont Preserve on the coast of California has been an exceptional opportunity to preserve unique land and to make it available for scientific study. Many of these studies use GIS for data collection and, in-turn, the basis of decision for current and future ecosystem management. Since its acquisition, researchers are working against an important (4th) spatial dimension, which is time. Given a rapidly changing climate, data collection of a current state in time is an important, yet difficult task. As a newly preserved, and unique area of California, scientists are working to review legacy maps and data to gain insight to the landscapes historical state and compare this to current data which is being collected through several methods to establish a “digital twin”. With development of ninety map layers thus far, including archaeological, wildlife, and vegetation maps, teams are working to effectively manage biodiversity, conservation, and climate change adaptation.

This project is an important example for me to study as I pursue similar work since it really emphasized the importance of time as a spatial dimension, especially when pursuing conservation and restoration projects during a period of rapidly changing climates. Additionally, researchers involved with this work seem to be implementing a wide range of ground-level data collection techniques, such as drone images, camera traps, and a number of different sensors to gather as much data as quickly as possible. I think there is value in understanding the what, where and, when of data collection methods and this project could be a great one to learn from.

Geneletti, Davide. 2003. "A GIS-based decision support system to identify nature conservation priorities in an alpine valley." Elsevier 1-12.

Ecological evaluation is a process which aims to identify conservation priorities by identifying information and criteria within natural systems. This study conducts an ecological evaluation by integrating GIS and decision support systems (DDS) to identify the best land for conservation given a limited 200 hectare allotment. The area of focus in this study was a forested portion of a valley in northern Italy, and the goal was to identify the most important 200 hectares within the region to set aside as conserved land.

Initial steps included defining criteria and establishment of a GIS database. Criterion of rarity, isolation, dimension, and exposure to disturbance were considered for the evaluation. In assessing these factors and weighing biotic versus abiotic priorities, the researchers came up with six spatial data scenarios presented in the form of six different maps of the same area. Next steps involved conducting a robustness analysis of the six maps to further narrow down the forested areas to the highest priority.

The methodology used for this project will likely be an excellent example for me to refer to in the future since I would also like to use GIS to help prioritize land conservation. I suspect I will encounter very similar limitations including funding, stewardship capacity, and public opinion, so navigating decisions given spatial constraints is likely in my future.

Group, Eastern Reseach. 2020. Volume 1: Vulnerability Mapping: An input to work assessing the impacts climate change may have on the State of Maine’s economy, revenues, and investments decisions. Risk Assessment , Eastern Research Group.

As part of a study to predict the impacts of climate change, Environmental Research Group (ERG) presents a report which focuses on social and economic vulnerability to communities across the state of Maine. Specifically, the study reviews impact of sea-level rise, coastal and riverine flooding, and high heat. Social and economic impacts are highlighted through various maps overlayed with color-coded vector layers. Vulnerability by municipality of employees, job sectors, buildings, and civil infrastructure, such as culverts and wastewater treatment plants is shown with effective GIS visualizations.

As an additional visual tool to complement the vulnerability maps, each municipality’s ability to conduct resiliency planning is also shown and then overlayed with the vulnerability map to show those communities most in need. For a similar affect, the study presents infrastructure and/or communities most a risk given various scenarios ranging from best to worst, which is also a valuable prioritization assessment.

The study is an important example analysis since it touches on several natural forces which will possibly have significant social and economic impacts in our lifetime and uses combined GIS maps to help prioritize assistance and planning across a large area.   

Ivan Fernandez, Robert Marvinney, Cassaundra Rose, Susie Arnold, Linda Bacon, Andrew Barton, Brian Beal, Sean Birkel, Russell Black, Alix Contosta, Amanda Cross, Adam Daigneault, Thomas Danielson, Stephen Dickson, Jeanne DiFranco, Susan Elias. 2020. Scientific Assessment of Climate Change and Its Effects in Maine. Technical Report, The Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the Maine Climate Council.

This assessment report provides a comprehensive study of climate change and the associated vulnerabilities through many lenses including hydrology, water quality, ocean temperature, marine ecosystems, acidification, and several more. Each section provides a significant amount of data primarily through maps, graphs, and data tables, all of which work in tandem to present the many important ways in which climate change is impacting ecological and social systems throughout the state of Maine.

Some of the most important spatial representations in this report include changes in the time of snowmelt based on location, changes to wetlands based on incremental sea-level rise, impacts to developed site due to sea-level rise, shifts in aquatic biomass over time, movement of invasive species over time, changes to soil moisture content, and several observed and predicted shifts in temperature. This report covers a wide range of issues and provides meaningful yet easily understood data including many maps. It will be a great example for my future work due to the methods used to present spatial information and in the breadth of its scope.

Lesley Lichko, Mindy Crandall, Tora Johnson, Adam Daigneault. 2019. Valuing the Economic Benefits of Conservation Land in Downeast Maine. Technical Report, Downeast Conservation Network.

Conservation land in Downeast Maine acts as important natural capital in a rural region which is generally economically depressed. These conserved lands exist is many forms from National Parks, to State Parks, to locally managed private easements among several other types. Since the region encompasses significant natural beauty and acts as a major tourist attraction, these conserved lands are of significant value.

The study outlined in this report covers the many ways which conserved lands contribute economically to Hancock and Washington counties and provides monetary values to the various industries. As important context to the economic data presented via various tables, several detailed maps are used to present spatial data. These maps are essential to identifying the size, location, proximity, and ownership type of each conserved lands. Additionally, important social and socioeconomic variations are presented in a spatial context, which can be linked to the presence of conserved lands.

Given the focus on Maine, the integration of social, economic, and ecological factors, and the presentation of results through maps, this study is a powerful example of how I can format my capstone project.

Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. 2023. Living Shorelines Decision Support Tool. January 16. Accessed March 14, 2023. https://www.maine.gov/dacf/mgs/hazards/living_shoreline/index.shtml.

The Living Shoreline tool is run by the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry and is used to represent a combination of shoreline features on the coast of Maine between the towns of Cape Elizabeth and Gouldsboro. Vector points were placed along the entire coastline within the study area at regular intervals and each provides a score representing the degree to which that location is a “living shoreline”. This term encompasses several aspects including the amount of native material which support plant and animal habitat while also providing structural stability against erosion. In general, the data provided in each vector point represents that location’s ability to support habitat and withstand changes over time, especially in the face of a changing climate.

This information can be helpful in guiding restoration and resiliency projects related to coastal stabilization and play a large role in prioritizing treatment locations. This is a great example of generating and using GIS datapoints to help identify and prioritize work in the field. This is similar to what I hope to do regarding land conservation, so scoring methods used for this project could offer important lessons regarding data processing and presentation.

Mark G. Andersona, Melissa Clarka , Arlene P. Oliveroa, Analie R. Barnettb, Kimberly R. Hallc, Meredith W. Cornettd, Marissa Ahleringe. 2022. "A resilient and connected network of sites to sustain biodiversity under a changing climate." PNAS 1-9.

Conservancy, The Nature. n.d. Resilient Land Mapping Tool. Accessed March 10, 2023. https://maps.tnc.org/resilientland/.

In response to increased concern for biodiversity loss due to climate change and habitat fragmentation, The Nature Conservancy conducted a 12-year analysis of the entire US as well as southern Canada and northern Mexico to assess for conservation priorities. The study area was broken down into 68 ecoregions, and within each, levels of landscape diversity, connectivity, and biodiversity were displayed as spatial representations on several maps. Ultimately, the combined data resulted in a single map which shows a “Resilient and Connected Network” of the entire study area. This resulting map, which is available as a tool online, is a great foundation for land conservation and restoration prioritization at regional and local levels.

This information is not only useful in helping to steer the area of focus for my capstone project, but the means and methods in approaching the data analysis are useful for me to understand, and potentially take to a smaller scale as I focus in on the state or even county level.

NatureServe. n.d. Explorer Pro. Accessed March 12, 2023. https://explorer.natureserve.org/pro/Map/.

The map tool developed and managed by NatureServe uses several raster data layers to identify designated conservation areas as well as species observations, conservation priorities, and natural boundaries. Features which appear most unique compared to other tools listed in this bibliography include the ability to search out individual wildlife species and visualize their respective population status within US sates and Canadian provinces by color coded vector objects. The same page will also provide taxonomic information and other reference material regarding the searched species. The ability to view designated conservation areas beyond the most typical agencies (NPS, USFS, BLM) is very powerful. Many parcel boundaries are shows which are owned by private organization, or non-profits such as The Nature Conservancy or Trust for Public Land, among many others. I haven’t yet been able to find a source which is as comprehensive in presenting this information, so this will be very useful in the future mapping of priorities to avoid redundancy.