Habitat loss has been identified as one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, and residential development is a major contributor to that loss. A valuable step to address habitat loss by development is predicting where developmental pressures are impacting critical habitats.
Through support from the Biodiversity Research Institute, Audubon New York has created a system to help further guide conservation actions, including land protection and Smart Growth planning, at Important Bird Areas (IBAs) throughout the state.
Audubon's approach involved refining David Theobald's Spatially Explicit Regional Growth Model (SERGoM v.3) -- which predicts housing density growth through the year 2030 -- by using an additional seven variables to identify areas most threatened by residential development in New York. The supplemental factors that were incorporated employed finer scale data than that used in Theobald's work, and this action enhanced his projections.
This approach was not intended to create a developable data layer based on physiographic data alone, but to include variables that reflect the likelihood of development occurring. The seven refinement variables from data available statewide included the following: 1) school district ranking, 2) proximity to roads, 3) proximity to water, 4) proximity to recreational lands, 5) relative elevation, 6) wetlands, and 7) slope. This information was used to assess the degree of threat due to residential development growth within and adjacent to Important Bird Areas.
More information on this new assessment can be obtained by visiting http://ny.audubon.org/ or by contacting Jillian Liner at Jliner@audubon.org.
