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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.
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