BLM REA YKL 2011 Long term future (2060) Landscape Condition per 5th Level Hydrologic Units in the Yukon River Lowlands - Kuskokwim Mountains - Lime Hills

Some of the YKL rasters intentionally do not align or have the same extent. These rasters were not snapped to a common raster per the authors' discretion. Please review selected rasters prior to use. These varying alignments are a result of the use of differing source data sets and all products derived from them. We recommend that users snap or align rasters as best suits their own projects. - As a final measure of potential human impacts to the ecoregions, the impacts of current and long term potential anthropogenic development are summarized per 5th level hydrologic unit by the landscape condition model (LCM). The LCM weights the relative influence of different types of human footprints based on factors like permanence, nature of the activity, etc. Permanent human modification is weighted the highest, while temporary use (like snow roads, snow machine trails, etc) receive less weight. Intensive land uses like mining are also weighted higher than less intensive land uses like hunting cabins. These weights are summed across the landscape and coalesced into a single surface identifying how impacted a given area is due to human modification. Categories of human impacts included in this analysis are transportation infrastructure, urban and industrial development, and invasive species. Distance decay values are assigned to each impact such that the impact declines with increasing distance from infrastructure. Human impacts of each type are merged according to MIN rules to create a final dataset. Potential future infrastructure is included in a single possible future scenario. However, the proposed future scenario is just one of many equally possible scenarios. The potential future scenario for infrastructure and development was developed as a best guess. This analysis is intended to identify the level of human impact in the study area in 2060. The landscape condition model can be compared with the distribution of individual Conservation Elements to determine the potential spatial range of human impacts on Conservation Elements.