2004 UC Proceedings Abstract
 GIS-Based Ecological Modeling in the Caribbean Basin for Conservation Planning Track: Ecology and Conservation Author(s): Steven Schill The goal of the Caribbean basin conservation plan is to identify areas of conservation importance that contain multiple and viable examples of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecological communities. This research is an attempt to automate the process of selecting target occurrences based on the development of new spatial models that combine topography, geology, climate, and satellite imagery. New techniques in GIS-based data mining and machine learning are showing significant advantages to traditional approaches to conservation planning. Once target occurrences are delineated, landscape metrics can be used to provide a framework that permits the comparison of conditions within and across landscapes and conditions across different types of ecological risks. The goal is to estimate the current status and extent of selected indicators in the landscape, seek associations between selected indicators and ecological/human stresses, and provide statistical summaries of the condition of the landscape. Steven Schill The Nature Conservancy Caribbean Ecoregional Plan 307 So 100 East Richmond , UT 84333 US Phone: 435-258-5599 E-mail: sschill@tnc.org |
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