These maps display the average percent change in three rangeland ecosystem services – soil carbon, critical habitat and water availability – from 2010 to 2040 for three IPCC-SRES scenarios (A1B, A2 and B1) and two climate projections (warm, wet future and hot, dry future). Soil carbon is soil organic carbon carbon (up to 20 cm in depth), and was estimated annually from 2006 to 2050 by the U.S. Geological Survey's General Ensemble Biogeochemical Modeling System (GEMS) (http://www.usgs.gov/climate_landuse/land_carbon/BGM.asp). Critical habitat is defined as critical priority conservation areas mapped in the California Rangeland Conservation Coalition's focus area map (http://www.carangeland.org/focusarea.html) (TNC, 2007). Water availability is defined as recharge plus runoff. Future change in water availability was modeled using the U.S. Geological Survey's Basin Characterization Model (BCM), a regional water balance model (Flint et al. 2013, Flint and Flint, 2012). Scenarios of critical habitat and carbon for 2040 were coupled with percent change in water availability under two climate projections for climate period 2010-2039. All model outputs were averaged by watershed area. Watershed boundaries are from the 8-digit Watershed Boundary Dataset (http://water.usgs.gov/GIS/huc.html)
Average percent change in multiple ecosystem services was calculated as:
AVEES = (ΔH + ΔC + ΔW)/3
Where:
AVEES = average percent change in ecosystem services
ΔH = change in percentage of watershed area that contains critical habitat
ΔC = percent change in grassland soil carbon sequestration potential from 2010 to 2040, averaged by watershed area
ΔW = percent change in water availability from climate period 1981-2010 to 2010-2039, averaged by watershed
References
Flint, L.E., A.L. Flint, J.H. Thorne, and R. Boynton. 2013. Fine-scale hydrologic modeling for regional landscape applications: the California Basin Characterization Model development and performance. Ecological Processes 2:25. Available online at: http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/25
Flint, L.E. and Flint A.L. 2012. Downscaling future climate scenarios to fine scales for hydrologic and ecologic modeling and analysis. Ecological Processes 1:2. Available online at: http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/1/1/2
Leh, M. D. K., M. D. Matlock, E. C. Cummings, and L. L. Nalley. 2013. Quantifying and mapping multiple ecosystem services change in West Africa. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 165:6-18.
The Nature Conservancy (TNC). 2007. California Rangeland Conservation Coalition Biological Prioritization of Rangelands: Approach and Methods. Available online at: http://www.carangeland.org/images/Appraoch_and_Methods.pdf.
Shapefiles included in file attached to parent Dataset
