Table 1.
Description of data used to calculate the value of each planning unit for six conservation objectives.
| Conservation objective | Measure of conservation value for each planning unit | Description of data used to estimate conservation value | Data source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maximize protection of boreal caribou habitat |
Expand Protection scenario: Area of unprotected land and inland waters > 500 m from human disturbance Protect Habitat scenario: Area of unprotected land and inland waters unburned for > 40 years and > 500 m from human disturbance |
Footprint of human disturbance within the boreal caribou distribution, manually digitized from 15-m panchromatic imagery | Environment and Climate Change Canada 63 |
| Extent of occurrence of fires occurring between 1975 and 2015 | provided to Environment and Climate Change Canada by provinces and territories | ||
| Maximize representation of other (i.e. non-boreal-caribou) species at risk | Number of species with extents of occurrence overlapping the unprotected portion of a planning unit | The extent of occurrence for each of 80 species (or other designatable units*) that (a) are listed as Special Concern, Threatened, or Endangered under the Species at Risk Act, (b) are found within the boreal caribou distribution, and (c) could benefit from protection of habitat for caribou, i.e. species for which human disturbance has been identified as a threat to persistence. Species were classified into one of nine taxonomic groups (amphibian, arthropod, bird, lichen, mollusc, mammal, reptile, vascular plant, fish) | Johnson et al.25 |
| Maximize taxonomic representation of other species at risk | Modified inverse Berger-Parker index = number of species with extents of occurrence overlapping the unprotected portion of a planning unit/number of species in the taxonomic group with the most species | ||
| Maximize representation of unique species | Number of “unique” species with extents of occurrence overlapping the unprotected portion of a planning unit, for the subset of seven species with an extent of occurrence covering ≤ 20% of the boreal caribou distribution and > 50% of their full Canadian extent within the boreal caribou distribution | ||
| Maximize potential as a climate refugia | Sum of refugia potential values for the unprotected portion of a planning unit | Maximum refugia potential for each 1-km2 grid cell, where potential = 1 if the cell was projected to remain in the same ecoregion type in 2050, and values decline towards zero as the distance between the ecoregion type in a cell now and the closest cell where that type is projected to be in 2050 (under RCP 8.5) increases | Stralberg et al.64 |
| Maximize mass of soil carbon stores | Tonnes of stored carbon within the top 1 m of the soil profile for the unprotected portion of a planning unit | Predicted organic carbon content to a depth of 1 m for each 250 m grid cell; predictions are derived from a set of 158 remote-sensing-based data layers, using machine-learning methods and a set of ~ 150,000 soil profiles for model training | Hengl et al.65 |
Measures of conservation value for each objective were the same in the Expand Protection and Protect Habitat scenarios, with the exception of the objective to maximize protection of boreal caribou habitat.
*Canada’s Species at Risk Act includes subspecies, varieties, geographically distinct populations, and genetically distinct populations in its definition of a wildlife species; these are referred to as designatable units (https://cosewic.ca/index.php/en-ca/reports/preparing-status-reports/guidelines-recognizing-designatable-units.html accessed 18/08/2021).