Visualizing
the Big Picture
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The "Big Picture" landscape analysis
provides an ecological basis for identifying core natural areas,
significant natural areas and corridors
as well as identifying the best bets for areas to restore to expand the
core areas and establish effective habitat linkages.
The following maps illustrate the three types of areas identified using
the Niagara Region as an example. Each type of area is described in more
detail elsewhere. This page shows how the different components fit together
and can be used for different purposes.
Carolinian Core Natural Areas
Core natural areas were identified from detailed maps of conservation
scores for each 25x25m map unit across the entire Carolinian zone.
Clusters
of adjacent 25 metre by 25 metre map units with values 12 or greater
were grouped and any cluster larger than 200 ha was automatically
considered a "core natural area". Core natural areas over 200 ha were
concentrated mainly in areas with higher percentage natural vegetation
cover. Sizable regions had no core natural areas larger than 200 ha.
In these areas, core natural areas were identified using the MNR-recommended
minimum size of "significant woodland" (40 or 4 hectares) was used,
based on percentage forest cover by township (i.e. 40 hectares where cover
is 15-30%, and 4 hectares where cover is less than 15%).
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Carolinian Core Natural Areas and Other Significant Natural Areas
Other Significant Natural Areas were identified
as natural areas with 12 or more points and larger than the minimum area
for significant woodland in each township (i.e. 40 hectares where cover
is 15-30%, and 4 hectares where cover is less than 15%).
Carolinian Core Natural Areas, Other Significant Natural Areas and "Best
Bet" Habitat Corridors
The best potential habitat corridors to connect the
system of Carolinian core natural
areas were also identified using the best available ecological inventory
data, a landscape-level ecological approach and state-of-the-art
information technology. This approach used an algorithm to find the best ecological
corridor for the "least cost". The general goal was to connect
core natural areas within 20 kilometres of each other with corridors at
least 200 metres in width incorporating existing natural areas. These corridor alignments generally follow existing areas of natural
vegetation cover, especially riparian areas. Where no such alignments with
many existing natural areas
could occur, the cores were connected along the "highest value per unit
length" route.
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