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Energy Forcasts Team: The rapid pace of new energy development coupled with more aggressive methods for extracting traditional fuels pose substantial risks to some of the Appalachians most cherished lands, waterways, and wildlife. Currently, little effort has been paid to the effect of energy development on the swaths of relatively intact, recovering forest habitat that define the Central Appalachian Region. This project employs land use change build-out scenarios from future energy development demand to quantify future impacts on forest habitats across the Appalachian LCC.

Data Needs & GIS Team: Conservation planning is a rapidly maturing field in applied ecology. Numerous methods and data sources have been developed, serving multiple scales and conservation planning goals. There is an extensive academic literature, web presence, and track record of practical application to draw upon in order to conduct conservation planning for the Appalachian LCC. We propose to review conservation planning tools, data needs, and integrative processes for the Appalachian LCC and provide packages of available data, as well as interpretive text. We will review the Interim Steering Committee conservation planning goals and based on those, prioritize and justify gaps that need to be filled.

Climate Change Vulnerability Team: Future climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies will be dependent on the best available projections of how the regional climate will change and on estimates of the impacts those changes will have on the region’s natural and cultural resources. Thus understanding the vulnerability of various species and habitats within the Appalachian LCC to climate change is of critical importance. This project will compile climate change vulnerability assessments and other relevant information on vulnerable species and habitats, discern the various methodologies and criteria used in these assessments, and use a team of exert peer reviewers to recommend the most efficient, effective, and appropriate methods for adoption by the Appalachian LCC for conservation and adaptation planning. The recommended method will then be deployed, resulting in vulnerability assessments for a suite of key species/habitats selected in consultation with partners of the Appalachian LCC.

Cave Classification and Mapping TOT: This is a private Work Space for invited experts to participate in management of the Cave Classification and Mapping project funded by the Appalachian LCC in FY13. The vendor, American University, will report quarterly with updates, process details, any issues, interim products, and eventually final deliverables. It will be the role of this group to carefully review each submission, discuss status and content with other members, make suggestions for improvements, and assist LCC staff in ensuring that the final product is a high quality one. All folders and content within this Work Space can only be seen by registered members of the group; however, appropriate content will be made public on this website once approved by the Team.

Aquatic Ecological Flows Team: The emergence of hydraulic fracturing has led to the rapid expansion of natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale deposit in portions of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Millions of gallons of water are needed per fracturing event and will likely put a substantial strain on regional surface and ground water supplies, as well as lead to changes in stream flow that may alter available habitat for freshwater biodiversity and other ecological processes in adjacent freshwater ecosystems. There is a great need for the development of region-wide flow policies to protect stream ecosystems and enhance long-term management of aquatic resources. To that end, this project will develop model(s) that predict ecological responses to flow alteration within the Marcellus Shale region of the Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC).

The Nature Conservancy Releases Country-Level Temperature and Precipitation Data for Climate Resilience and Adaptation Planning: The Nature Conservancy has released a new country-level dataset for its online Climate Wizard mapping tool that enables users to visualize future climate conditions using the most recent modeled data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).