Understanding how ecological and cultural resources may change in the future is an important component of conservation planning and for the implementation of long-term environmental monitoring. We modeled six future scenarios of urbanization and sea level rise to investigate their potential effects on the Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative's Priority Resources (PFLCC 2016), which were identified as important for conservation through a cooperative multi-partner effort to prioritize conservation efforts on a state-wide scale. These data represent conservation targets for the Coastal Uplands at present, and under six future scenarios of sea level rise and urbanization.

Understanding how ecological and cultural resources may change in the future is an important component of conservation planning and for the implementation of long-term environmental monitoring. We modeled six future scenarios of urbanization and sea level rise to investigate their potential effects on the Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative's Priority Resources (PFLCC 2016), which were identified as important for conservation through a cooperative multi-partner effort to prioritize conservation efforts on a state-wide scale. These data represent conservation targets for the Freshwater Aquatics at present, and under six future scenarios of sea level rise and urbanization.

Understanding how ecological and cultural resources may change in the future is an important component of conservation planning and for the implementation of long-term environmental monitoring. We modeled six future scenarios of urbanization and sea level rise to investigate their potential effects on the Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative's Priority Resources (PFLCC 2016), which were identified as important for conservation through a cooperative multi-partner effort to prioritize conservation efforts on a state-wide scale. These data represent conservation targets for the Freshwater Aquatics at present, and under six future scenarios of sea level rise and urbanization.

Understanding how ecological and cultural resources may change in the future is an important component of conservation planning and for the implementation of long-term environmental monitoring. We modeled six future scenarios of urbanization and sea level rise to investigate their potential effects on the Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative's Priority Resources (PFLCC 2016), which were identified as important for conservation through a cooperative multi-partner effort to prioritize conservation efforts on a state-wide scale. These data represent conservation targets for the Coastal Uplands, High Pine and Scrub, and Freshwater Aquatics Priority Resources at present, and under six future scenarios of sea level rise and urbanization.

Understanding how ecological and cultural resources may change in the future is an important component of conservation planning and for the implementation of long-term environmental monitoring. We modeled six future scenarios of urbanization and sea level rise to investigate their potential effects on the Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative's Priority Resources (PFLCC 2016), which were identified as important for conservation through a cooperative multi-partner effort to prioritize conservation efforts on a state-wide scale. These data represent conservation targets for the Coastal Uplands, High Pine and Scrub, and Freshwater Aquatics Priority Resources at present, and under six future scenarios of sea level rise and urbanization.

Understanding how ecological and cultural resources may change in the future is an important component of conservation planning and for the implementation of long-term environmental monitoring. We modeled six future scenarios of urbanization and sea level rise to investigate their potential effects on the Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative's Priority Resources (PFLCC 2016), which were identified as important for conservation through a cooperative multi-partner effort to prioritize conservation efforts on a state-wide scale. These data represent conservation targets for the High Pine and Scrub at present, and under six future scenarios of sea level rise and urbanization.

Understanding how ecological and cultural resources may change in the future is an important component of conservation planning and for the implementation of long-term environmental monitoring. We modeled six future scenarios of urbanization and sea level rise to investigate their potential effects on the Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative's Priority Resources (PFLCC 2016), which were identified as important for conservation through a cooperative multi-partner effort to prioritize conservation efforts on a state-wide scale. These data represent conservation targets for the High Pine and Scrub at present, and under six future scenarios of sea level rise and urbanization.

Coastal environments are expected to respond to rising sea levels through migration inland. This process is limited by the availability of corridors of sufficiently flat, undeveloped land to be converted to wetland. Developed land protected from tidal influence through the construction of bulkheads and levies and natural areas of elevated land will constrain the area of marsh and wetland forest over time, leading to a loss of biodiversity as habitat area for species requiring tidal influence is decreased. Because these processes depend strongly on the spatial configuration of vegetationelevation relationships, they must be modeled within a framework that accounts for the specific elevation ranges over which different vegetation classes persist, and elevation change due to accretion net of settling and compaction across the full range of affected elevations. For the National Parks along the Potomac River Estuary, models must operate at both a high spatial resolution and over broad spatial extents to capture changes at the fine-grain variation needed by park resource managers. This project produced a spatially explicit computational model (termed the Marsh Accretion and Inundation Model (MAIM)) and model results predicting the impact of user-defined sea level rise scenarios on vegetation. The model takes as input detailed (1-m resolution) map layers representing elevation (generated from LiDAR) and initial vegetation classification. Vegetation classes are constrained to individual elevation ranges, predetermined based on NPS vegetation maps, plot inventory data, and digitalization of aerial photography. Uncertainty in these elevation ranges is represented through 100 Monte Carlo permutations of the vegetation class elevation boundaries. As sea level rise progresses, the model identifies where vegetation classes will become unsuitable for their location, and adjusts the map accordingly. At each time step accretion net of settling and compaction is modeled using an empirical model based on real time kinematic GPS surveys spanning 20 years of historic sea level rise. The accretion sub-model is a non-linear function of elevation, but is not separately parameterized for each vegetation class, thus maintaining smooth topography gradients between vegetation classes. The model also takes into account current species distributions that are likely to persist longer under saturated soil conditions, thus realistically modeling elements of landscape change important for resource conservation. MAIM is not a dynamic model and therefore does not alter accretion net of settling in response to accelerated sea level rise or any other environmental conditions; MAIM assumes that the relationship between accretion and elevation observed in historical data is adequate for modeling future conditions. It also does not account for hydrologic interaction with the watershed that might be expected to increase inundation times in areas of high flow accumulation area. MAIM is not a sediment dynamics model, and therefore cannot respond to changes in suspended sediment concentration in estuarine waters. Finally, MAIM does not model shoreline erosion, as this was not found to be a dominant predictable process over the majority of the study area.

Coastal environments are expected to respond to rising sea levels through migration inland. This process is limited by the availability of corridors of sufficiently flat, undeveloped land to be converted to wetland. Developed land protected from tidal influence through the construction of bulkheads and levies and natural areas of elevated land will constrain the area of marsh and wetland forest over time, leading to a loss of biodiversity as habitat area for species requiring tidal influence is decreased. Because these processes depend strongly on the spatial configuration of vegetationelevation relationships, they must be modeled within a framework that accounts for the specific elevation ranges over which different vegetation classes persist, and elevation change due to accretion net of settling and compaction across the full range of affected elevations. For the National Parks along the Potomac River Estuary, models must operate at both a high spatial resolution and over broad spatial extents to capture changes at the fine-grain variation needed by park resource managers. This project produced a spatially explicit computational model (termed the Marsh Accretion and Inundation Model (MAIM)) and model results predicting the impact of user-defined sea level rise scenarios on vegetation. The model takes as input detailed (1-m resolution) map layers representing elevation (generated from LiDAR) and initial vegetation classification. Vegetation classes are constrained to individual elevation ranges, predetermined based on NPS vegetation maps, plot inventory data, and digitalization of aerial photography. Uncertainty in these elevation ranges is represented through 100 Monte Carlo permutations of the vegetation class elevation boundaries. As sea level rise progresses, the model identifies where vegetation classes will become unsuitable for their location, and adjusts the map accordingly. At each time step accretion net of settling and compaction is modeled using an empirical model based on real time kinematic GPS surveys spanning 20 years of historic sea level rise. The accretion sub-model is a non-linear function of elevation, but is not separately parameterized for each vegetation class, thus maintaining smooth topography gradients between vegetation classes. The model also takes into account current species distributions that are likely to persist longer under saturated soil conditions, thus realistically modeling elements of landscape change important for resource conservation. MAIM is not a dynamic model and therefore does not alter accretion net of settling in response to accelerated sea level rise or any other environmental conditions; MAIM assumes that the relationship between accretion and elevation observed in historical data is adequate for modeling future conditions. It also does not account for hydrologic interaction with the watershed that might be expected to increase inundation times in areas of high flow accumulation area. MAIM is not a sediment dynamics model, and therefore cannot respond to changes in suspended sediment concentration in estuarine waters. Finally, MAIM does not model shoreline erosion, as this was not found to be a dominant predictable process over the majority of the study area.

Coastal wetland ecosystems are expected to migrate landward in response to accelerated sea-level rise. However, due to differences in topography and coastal urbanization extent, estuaries vary in their ability to accommodate wetland migration. The landward movement of wetlands requires suitable conditions, such as a gradual slope and land free of urban development. Urban barriers can constrain migration and result in wetland loss (coastal squeeze). For future-focused conservation planning purposes, there is a pressing need to quantify and compare the potential for wetland landward movement and coastal squeeze. For 41 estuaries in the northern Gulf of Mexico (i.e., the USA gulf coast), we quantified and compared the area available for the landward migration of tidal saline wetlands and the area where urban development is expected to prevent migration (coastal squeeze), under three alternative future sea-level rise scenarios (0.5-, 1.0-, and 1.5-m by 2100).