Case Studies
- Analysis of Conservation and Economic Value of Forest Stands
- Setting Priorities for Biodiversity Conservation in Puerto Rico
- Conservation Prioritization in Napa County, California
- Integrated Conservation and Long Range Planning Using Decision Support Systems
- Community Planning Collaborative
- Biodiversity Analysis in Support of University Master Planning
Case Studies
Conservation Prioritization in Napa County, California
- Location: Napa County, California
- Project Area: ~ 550,000 acres (~ 222,557 hectares)
- Client: The Land Trust of Napa County
- Partner Organizations: Napa County Government
- Time Span: August 2002 — June 2003 with occasional consulting thereafter
- Project Purpose
- To identify biodiversity conservation priorities for Napa County and to prototype analytical functions for the Vista decision support system
- Project Summary
- This project served to both prototype the methodology and analytical functions for NatureServe Vista and to provide the Land Trust of Napa County with several map and database products for its conservation action. Because Vista would not be released for two more years after our completion, we provided a GIS database and an Excel workbook that allowed the Trust to identify values and priority rankings of any parcel in the county.
- Outcomes / Conservation Impact
- This work formed the basis of several conservation actions including a $29,000 acquisition project.
Map of intended land use categories integrated from 36 map layers from local governments, state and federal land management agencies, and conservation organizations.
Map of relative biodiversity value across Napa County.
An optimized conservation site selection for Napa County using Marxan software and later prioritized using UCSB’s Margin Value algorithm.