Spatial data sets to support conservation planning along the Colorado River in Utah

With the help of local and regional natural resource professionals, we developed a broad-scale, spatially-explicit assessment of 146 miles (~20,000 acres) of the Colorado River mainstem in Grand and San Juan Counties, Utah that can be used to support conservation planning and riparian restoration prioritization. For the assessment we: 1) acquired, modified or created spatial datasets of Colorado River bottomland conditions; 2) synthesized those datasets into habitat suitability models and estimates of natural recovery potential, fire risk and relative cost; 3) investigated and described dominant ecosystem trends and human uses, and; 4) suggested site selection and prioritization approaches. Here, we make available to the public spatial data associated with this work. The data include 51 shape files: 6 of these are related to fluvial geomorphology and hydrology; 1 contains riparian vegetation and surrounding land cover types; 30 are related to habitat or conservation element models (including model components and model results); and 14 are related to supplemental models including the relative cost of restoration, site recovery potential, and fire models. The data released here are associated with a publication that describes the project and results in more detail: Rasmussen, C.G., and P.B. Shafroth. 2016. Conservation planning for the Colorado River in Utah. Colorado Mesa University, Ruth Powell Hutchins Water Center, Scientific and Technical Report No. 3. 93p.