Overview of CAPS data:

The Conservation Assessment and Prioritization System (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 "landscape metrics" to each point and patch in the landscape. A metric may, for example, take into account the size of a community patch, its proximity to streams and rivers, the diversity of soil units in the patch, or the intensity of roads in the vicinity. 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 Conservation Assessment and Prioritization System (CAPS) computer program developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Index of Ecological Integrity depicts the relative wildlife habitat and biodiversity value of any point on the landscape based on landscape ecology principles and expert opinion.

Our approach, piloted in the Housatonic watershed and the Highlands Communities region of Massachusetts, is landscape-oriented and focused on a comprehensive valuation of the entire landscape, not just local occurrences. It attempts to combine many complex spatial relationships in the landscape that drive ecological processes.

Massachusetts Index of Ecological Integrity Data:

Index of Ecological Integrity maps have been completed for 112 communities in western Massachusetts. These maps and GIS data are for information only and are not referenced by any regulatory program.

MassDEP Important Habitat Data:

MassDEP recently adopted a new approach to wildlife habitat management via assessment and mapping of important wildlife habitat for use in wetland protection review and permitting. This approach utilizes CAPS to create a set of maps that depict "Habitat of Potential Regional or Statewide Importance." The habitat maps available from this application for 112 communities in western Massachusetts were specially created to meet MassDEP specifications to support regulatory review under the Wetlands Protection Act.