The Southeastern U.S. has experienced rapid land use change due to three primary drivers of change (timber management, regeneration of forests from farmland, and urbanization). Given the need to make management decisions now without perfect knowledge, modeling provides a practical approach to studying the potential impacts of land use and climate change. Models can help identify sensitivities in a system that should guide future research, and they can serve as a meaningful tool for implementing an adaptive management strategy.
To help inform these management decisions we are leveraging existing data from the Southeast Gap Analysis Project to model vegetation dynamics across the region.
The outcome of this work will directly inform the development of optimal conservation strategies and decision support tools to guide conservation planning for the South Atlantic Migratory Bird Area.
