Intact Habitat Cores - Landscape Condition (Midwest Conservation Blueprint 2024 Indicator) [United States]
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Open Data · 2024 Full Details
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Full Details
- Title
- Intact Habitat Cores - Landscape Condition (Midwest Conservation Blueprint 2024 Indicator) [United States]
- Description
- Definition This indicator identifies habitat quality across the Midwest Landscape. It prioritizes areas based on proximity to natural or non-natural landcover types, plus intensity of land use. Pixels can take the following values: 1 - Heavily altered landscape 2 - Altered landscape 3 - Partly natural landscape 4 - Mostly natural landscape 5 - Natural landscape 6 - Very natural landscape Selection This indicator was chosen as a targetable, important feature of the MLI goals that will be used to track conditions over time and prioritize areas for conservation. Indicators were defined through elicitation and prioritization exercises with federal and state participants. Criteria for the indicators includes 1) actionable, 2) measurable, 3) relevant to multiple groups across the region, and/or 4) representative of other social and/or environmental values. Input Data & Mapping Steps This indicator originates from the National Land Cover Database, Maus et al. Global-scale mining polygons, LANDFIRE Existing Vegetation Type, and the Midwest Conservation Blueprint Grasslands indicator. To create this layer, MLI partners, members, and staff completed the following mapping steps: projected all input data to NAD83 (2011) UTM Zone 15N, reclassified NLCD into three categories: 1 - Heavily altered, 2 - Altered, and 3 - Natural. Next, we classified all mining polygons as 2 - Altered, and classified all LANDFIRE "Quarries-Strip Mines-Gravel Pits-Well and Wind Pads" and "Northeastern North American Temperate Forest Plantation" pixels as 2 - Altered. Then, we extracted likely grassland pixels and classified them as 3 - Natural, mosaiced all rasters into a single layer, and used Focal statistics to calculate and average the alteration of the landscape over three spatial scales. The final raster contains the following classes: 1 - Heavily altered landscape, 2 - Altered landscape, 3 - Partly natural landscape, 4 - Mostly natural landscape, 5 - Natural landscape, 6 - Very natural landscape. Finally, highly altered areas were removed using our Highly Altered Areas Mask. For full mapping details, please refer to the Midwest Conservation Blueprint 2024 Development Process . For a complete download of all Blueprint input and output data, visit the Midwest Conservation Blueprint 2024 Data Download .
- Creator
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
- Publisher
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Open Data
- Temporal Coverage
- 2024
- Date Issued
- 2024-09-26
- Rights
- The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data described and/or contained herein. While the Service makes every reasonable effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of data provided for distribution, it may not have the necessary accuracy or completeness required for every possible intended use. The Service recommends that data users consult the associated metadata record to understand the quality and possible limitations of the data. The Service creates metadata records in accordance with the standards endorsed by the Federal Geographic Data Committee. As a result of the above considerations, the Service gives no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of the data. It is the responsibility of the data user to use the data in a manner consistent with the limitations of geospatial data in general and these data in particular. Although these data have been processed successfully on a computer system at the Service, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made regarding the utility of the data on another system or for general or scientific purposes, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. This applies to the use of the data both alone and in aggregate with other data and information.
- Access Rights
- Public
- Format
- ArcGIS ImageMapLayer
- Language
- English
- Date Added
- August 10, 2025
- Provenance Statement
- The metadata for this resource was last retrieved from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Open Data on 2026-01-08.
Cite and Reference
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Citation
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (2024). Intact Habitat Cores - Landscape Condition (Midwest Conservation Blueprint 2024 Indicator) [United States]. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Open Data. https://gis-fws.opendata.arcgis.com/content/fws::intact-habitat-cores-landscape-condition-midwest-conservation-blueprint-2024-indicator (web service) -
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