DOI: 10.5061/dryad.s18gk
title: Data from: Prioritizing land management efforts at a landscape scale: a case study using prescribed fire in Wisconsin

description: One challenge in the effort to conserve biodiversity is identifying where
 to prioritize resources for active land management. Cost-benefit analyses
 have been used successfully as a conservation tool to identify sites that
 provide the greatest conservation benefit per unit cost. Our goal was to
 apply cost-benefit analysis to the question of how to prioritize land
 management efforts, in our case the application of prescribed fire to
 natural landscapes in Wisconsin, USA. We quantified and mapped frequently
 burned communities, and prioritized management units based on a suite of
 indices that captured ecological benefits, management effort, and the
 feasibility of successful long-term management actions. Data for these
 indices came from LANDFIRE, Wisconsin's Wildlife Action Plan, and a
 nationwide Wildland Urban Interface assessment. We found that the majority
 of frequently burned vegetation types occurred in the southern portion of
 the state. However, the highest-priority areas for applying prescribed
 fire occurred in the central, northwest, and northeast portion of the
 state where frequently burned vegetation patches were larger and where
 identified areas of high biological importance area occurred. Although our
 focus was on the use of prescribed fire in Wisconsin, our methods can be
 adapted to prioritize other land management activities. Such
 prioritization is necessary to achieve the greatest possible benefits from
 limited funding for land management actions, and our results show that it
 is feasible at scales that are relevant for land management decisions.
description: Data Steps and
 CodeDescription of steps and
 code used to identify the most frequently burned fire dependent vegetation
 (see Step 2 in methods) and the indices used to calculate the priority
 areas for prescribed fire use (see Steps 4 - 7 in
 methods).Hmielowski et al. Fire
 Prioritization Data Steps and
 Code.pdfHistoric Prairie Savanna
 VegetationShapefile used to
 determine historic extent of prairie and savanna vegetation types in
 Wisconsin. Used in Step 2 of methods to include pasture and managed
 grasslands that had potential to include remnant prairie
 patches.HistoricPrairieSavannaVegetationMask.zipFrequently Burned VegetationThis shapefile is the result of Step 2 and Step 3 in the methods, where we have identified the most frequently burned fire dependent vegetation for the purpose of this study. Key fields: Community group (Group), Mean fire return interval (FireRetInt), and Community Rarity (RarityRank)FireDependentVegetationInWisconsin.zipHUC12WatershedBoundariesThis shapefile includes the indices and prioritization scenarios calculated in Steps 4-7 in the methods. This includes the management benefit index (Step 4), management effort Index (Step 5), management feasibility index (Step 6), and the prioritization scenarios of maximum ecological benefit, maximum benefit with minimum effort, and the comprehensive prioritization (Step 7). All indices and prioritization scenarios are calculated for "managment units" which were the HUC12 watershed designations (Available from http://nhd.usgs.gov/wbd.html). Key fields: Management Benefit Index (BenefitInd). Management Ease Index (MgtEaseInd). Management Effort Index (Effort_Nor). Ecological Benefit (EcBenefit). Maximum Ecological Benefit with Minimum Effort (EcBenEffor). Comprehensive Prioritization (CompRank)