Caribbean Landscape Condition (Southeast Blueprint Indicator)

Reason for Selection A high degree of naturalness across the landscape benefits species diversity as well as ecosystem services such as pollinator habitat, increased water infiltration, and reduced soil erosion. Though many Caribbean habitats have experienced human alternation at some point, natural landcover across the wider landscape provides many benefits. It allows species to disperse during different life stages, better adapt to a changing climate by accessing refugia, and freely move between different habitats. Natural landscapes can also complement existing protected areas and help increase resilience to extreme weather events such as flooding and hurricanes (Kremen and Merenlender 2018). Input Data * [Southeast Blueprint 2023 subregions]: Caribbean * [Caribbean island extent and size] * [Southeast Blueprint 2023 extent] * 2020 [LANDFIRE Existing Vegetation Type] (EVT) (v2.2.0) for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; [access the data for U.S. Insular Areas] Mapping Steps * Reclassify the LANDFIRE EVT data into 3 alteration classes where 3 is natural, 2 is altered, and 1 is heavily altered. Assign a value of 1 to all pixels with a value in the EVT_NAME field of “Developed-High Intensity” or “Developed-Medium Intensity”. Assign a value of 2 to all pixels with a value in the EVT_LF field of “Developed”, “Agriculture”, or “Barren”, or a value in the EVT_NAME field of “Agriculture-Pasture and Hay” or “Caribbean Bush fruit and berries”. Assign a value of 3 to everything else. Classify pixels with a value in the EVT_NAME field of “Open Water” as 3. Note: The Caribbean bush fruit and berries LANDFIRE class is intended to represent sun-grown coffee, while tropical agroforestry plantation is intended to capture shade-grown coffee (LANDFIRE help desk, personal communication, 2-22-23). As a result, we considered Caribbean bush fruit and berries to be in the middle alteration class, and considered tropical agroforestry plantation to be natural for the purposes of this indicator. * Reclassify the Caribbean island extent layer to assign all islands a value of 1 and assign the ocean a value of NoData. * Multiply the reclassified LANDFIRE natural/altered layer and island extent data. This makes the ocean NoData, but retains freshwater, smaller salt ponds, and enclosed brackish water areas, as well as terrestrial areas on the islands. * Many species and ecological processes operate at multiple scales. To account for this, estimate the average amount of alteration using a moving window (or neighborhood) analysis at 4 different scales: single pixel, approximately 10 acres; approximately 100 acres; and approximately 1,000 acres. Then average the values across all scales. This results in continuous values from 1 to 3. * Bin the continuous values into the following categories seen in the final indicator values below: 1 (heavily altered): 1 to <1.5; 2 (altered): 1.5 to <2; 3 (partly natural): 2 to <2.5; 4 (mostly natural): 2.5 to <2.9; 5 (natural): 2.9 to 3. * Clip to the Caribbean Blueprint 2023 subregion. * As a final step, clip to the spatial extent of Southeast Blueprint 2023. Note: For more details on the mapping steps, code used to create this layer is available [in the Southeast Blueprint 2025 Data Download] or [Caribbean-only Southeast Blueprint 2025 Data Download] under > 6_Code. Final indicator values Indicator values are assigned as follows: 5 = Natural landscape 4 = Mostly natural landscape 3 = Partly natural landscape 2 = Altered landscape 1 = Heavily altered landscape Known Issues * This indicator overestimates landscape condition in some marinas and nearby areas because LANDFIRE often classifies marinas as ruderal forests (i.e., a forest type made up of native and non-native early successional species that are the first to colonize a disturbed area). * This indicator does not account for variation in habitat condition due to invasive species. Disclaimer: Comparing with Older Indicator Versions There are numerous problems with using Southeast Blueprint indicators for change analysis. Please consult Blueprint staff if you would like to do this (email [hilary_morris@fws.gov]). Literature Cited Kremen, Claire, and Adina M. 2018. Merenlender. Landscapes that work for biodiversity and people. Science 362.6412. Eaau6020. [[https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau6020]]. LANDFIRE, Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS), U.S. Geological Survey. Published August 1, 2022. LANDFIRE 2020 Existing Vegetation Type (EVT) Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands. LF 2020, raster digital data. Sioux Falls, SD. [[https://www.landfire.gov]]. Oetting J, Hoctor T, and Volk M. 2016.Critical Lands and Waters Identification Project (CLIP): Version 4.0 Technical Report. Accessed Nov 10, 2022. [[https://www.fnai.org/PDFs/CLIP_v4_technical_report.pdf]].