Modeling the full spectrum of habitat connectivity conservation and restoration opportunities in California

For nearly 20 years, a central challenge in California conservation and transportation planning has been to map habitat connectivity priorities to support land protection, habitat restoration, and infrastructure projects. Least cost modeling approaches have been the most commonly used and have supported multiple conservation initiatives which have led to some notable successes around the state. Here we present a novel modeling method that we hope will catalyze the next phase of connectivity conservation and restoration, a moving window implementation of Circuitscape (Omniscape). This modeling approach addresses two common challenges with output from Least Cost modeling that limit utility by conservation practitioners, the a priori specification of discrete cores to connect and the lack of a comprehensive landscape characterization. Mapping the relative contribution of all sites to landscape connectivity can support a wide range of implementation strategies, from specific land acquisition or habitat restoration projects to land use planning for infrastructure.
We present a California-wide analysis of habitat connectivity conservation and restoration opportunities using Omniscape and demonstrate how it can be used to identify multiple connectivity conservation "categories" including potential barriers due to transportation infrastructure. We provide interpretation of model results and comparison to other focal-species based assessments for three geographic case studies focused on highway barriers throughout the state. We discuss how this approach can be used for initial screening of potential barriers and identification of additional barriers, as well broad landscape conservation needs.
To support stakeholder outreach and promote tool adoption we developed a self-guided landscape "tour" of our analysis to explain key methodological steps, and to illustrate possible applications of the results by land use and transportation planners. We will demonstrate that tool in this session and discuss opportunities to scale this approach to other areas.