CAPS: Conservation Assessment and Prioritization System

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What is CAPS?

During the past several years, a team of scientists and Extension educators at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass) has developed the Conservation Assessment and Prioritization System (CAPS) to provide an objective, dynamic, and flexible tool and approach for assessing ecological integrity and biodiversity value. CAPS is the cutting edge in landscape-based ecological assessment and is unlike any other tool currently available.

CAPS is an ecological community-based approach for assessing the ecological integrity of lands and waters and prioritizing land for habitat and biodiversity conservation. We define ecological integrity as the ability of an area to support biodiversity and the ecosystem processes necessary to sustain biodiversity over the long term. Our approach assumes that by conserving intact, ecologically-defined communities of high integrity, we can conserve most species and ecosystems.

The first step in our assessment of ecological integrity involves mapping ecological communities (e.g. conifer forest, grassland, shrub swamp, first-order cascading stream). We then apply a suite of ecological integrity metrics to each point in the landscape. Most of our metrics are anthropogenic stressor metrics that index the degree of stress to a site caused by human activities. A stressor metric may, for example, take into account the intensity of development around a point, the level of non-point source pollution affecting a point, or the hydrological disruption of a point caused by upstream road crossings. Other metrics deal with resiliency to anthropogenic stressors and incorporate the natural ecological setting in conjunction with human activities. A resiliency metric may, for example, take into account the connectedness of a point to neighborhoring points, which is a function of both the extent and configuration of the ecological setting and impediments to movement caused by human activities. Several metrics are applied to the landscape and then integrated in a weighted linear model specifically developed for each ecological community. This process results in a final "Index of Ecological Integrity" (IEI) for each point in the landscape. The IEI is calculated by the CAPS computer software developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The IEI depicts the relative ecological integrity and biodiversity value of any point on the landscape based on landscape ecology principles and expert opinion.

The purpose of this web site is to facilitate the dissemination of information pertaining to CAPS. Specifically, as the necessary geographic data is compiled and analyses are completed, the results will be made available via this web site.

About The Developers

CAPS is being developed by the following core team of scientists at the University of Massachusetts, Department of Environmental Conservation:

• Kevin McGarigal --Landscape ecologist; responsible for conceptual development of CAPS and general project oversight.
• Scott Jackson -- Conservation biologist; responsible for conceptual development of CAPS, liason with project sponsors and collaborators, and community outreach.
• Brad Compton -- Ecologist/Modeler; responsible for software development and coordinating and implementing all applications.
• Kasey Rolih -- Community ecologist; responsible for the ecological community classification, characterization, and mapping.

What's In This Website?

This web site is logically organized into the following pages:

• CAPS Documentation -- This page contains links to all CAPS supporting documentation.
• CAPS Presentations --This page contains links to slide presentations on CAPS, including an overview of the project and results from initial applications.
• CAPS Data -- This page contains links to all GIS data and CAPS maps resulting from particular applications.
• CAPS Reports -- This page contains links to the final reports and products from all completed CAPS applications.

Disclaimer

The CAPS software is intended for the public domain, although it is still under development and not yet available to the public. The recipient of any future release of the software may not assert any proprietary rights thereto nor represent it to anyone as other than as a product of the University of Massachusetts. CAPS is to be provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The user will assume all responsibility for the accuracy and suitability of this program for a specific application. In no event will the authors or the University be liable for any damages, including lost profits, lost savings, or other incidental or consequential damages arising from the use of or the inability to use this program.

Acknowledgements

Many individuals and organizations have provided valuable input during the development of CAPS. We are especially grateful to the many individuals who have participated on various 'expert' teams. These individuals provided the necessary expertise to parameterize the model for various applications in Massachusetts and beyon. We are especially grateful to Robert O'Connor, Sharon McGregor, and Christian Jacqz of Mass EOEA for their initial support of this work, and to Lisa Rhodes (Mass DEP) and Andy Finton (TNC) for their subsequent support. Funding for this project has been provided by Mass EOEA, Mass DEP, TNC, The Trustees of Reservations, Mass Audubon, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

For more information, please contact:
Dr. Kevin McGarigal
Department of Environmental Conservation
University of Massachusetts
304 Holdsworth Natural Resources Center
Box 34210, Amherst, MA 01003
Fax: (413) 545-4358; Phone: (413) 577-0655
Email: mcgarigalk@eco.umass.edu