Services Directory Login

Settings_Final_November_2021 (Map Service)


View In:    ArcGIS JavaScript   ArcGIS.com   WMTS  

Current Version: 10.81

Service Description:
We developed geophysical settings to characterize and classify the Hawaiian study area into distinct geophysical “stages” based on enduring elevation and geologic properties. Our premise is that the characteristics of a geophysical setting represent enduring features that influence biotic differences in the flora, fauna, and natural communities due to enduring and significantly different patterns of temperature and moisture, pH, nutrients, drainage, or erodibility of soils. These differences now and into the future will continue to favor or select against different subsets of species under future climates. These physical characteristics also often correlate with human land use patterns because properties such as bedrock type, soil texture and chemistry contribute to the value and suitability of sites for agriculture, development, or mining. As we determined how to partition the study area into geophysical settings, we considered settings dual role in our analysis as 1) “coarse filters” for capturing the full range of abiotic conditions that support biodiversity, and 2) a spatial stratification useful to identifying examples of sites that have the most microclimatic variety and natural cover within each setting.   

The Hawaiian Settings used in this analysis include 6 settings in total, with 5 settings being derived by elevation zones. The Alpine, Subalpine, and Montane elevation zone thresholds were taken directly from the Hawaii Ecoregional Plan https://www.hawaiiecoregionplan.info/ecoregion.html. The lowest two zones were created by breaking the formerly defined “Lowland” system from the Hawaii Ecoregional Plan into two distinct portions given new understanding of unique ecological distinctions between Sub-Montane and a lower Lowland threshold (Dr. Sam Gon III, personal communication 8/2022). These zones were mapped using a 10m DEM (USGS, 2020)
Alpine Setting: Above 3,000 m 
Subalpine Setting: Between 2000-3000 m
Montane Setting: Between 1,000- 2,000 m 
Sub-Montane Setting: Between 500-1,000 m elevation,
Lowland System: Below 500 m

An additional Pioneer lava setting, was added as an override on top of the above elevation settings to represent key “Young Lava Substrate Areas” as mapped and defined by Price et al. 2012. Young lava substrates impose several well-known influences on vegetation in the Hawaiian Islands. The unweathered nature of most volcanic substrates permits little soil formation and results in a high degree of drainage that retains less moisture than weathered substrates (Kitayama and others, 1995). In addition, younger soils are deficient in nutrients, particularly nitrogen (Crews and others, 1995).The pioneer vegetation associated with young lava substrates is likely inimical to the growth of many plant species that cannot tolerate such conditions; on the other hand, some species such as Rumex skottsbergii and Scaevola kīlaueae appear to prefer this type of vegetation (Wagner and others, 1990). 
Given the unique properties of the young lava areas, this setting was deemed key to extract and consider. It was also deemed important to consider whether our methods were adequate to map areas of vulnerable to high resilience in this very different setting. Review of our methods, results, and emerging scores within the Pioneer Lava setting were later deemed insufficient to adequately represent resilience in this very unique setting. Similar to how we treated “glaciers’ in our Alaska Resilience analysis, the final integrated “resilience” results later in this report are not presented within the Pioneer Lava setting and we suggest further research is needed to more fully address mapping resilience within this setting. Initial datasets were however compiled for this young lava area and are presented as such before integration stages.



Map Name: Layers

Legend

All Layers and Tables

Layers: Description:
We developed geophysical settings to characterize and classify the Hawaiian study area into distinct geophysical “stages” based on enduring elevation and geologic properties. Our premise is that the characteristics of a geophysical setting represent enduring features that influence biotic differences in the flora, fauna, and natural communities due to enduring and significantly different patterns of temperature and moisture, pH, nutrients, drainage, or erodibility of soils. These differences now and into the future will continue to favor or select against different subsets of species under future climates. These physical characteristics also often correlate with human land use patterns because properties such as bedrock type, soil texture and chemistry contribute to the value and suitability of sites for agriculture, development, or mining. As we determined how to partition the study area into geophysical settings, we considered settings dual role in our analysis as 1) “coarse filters” for capturing the full range of abiotic conditions that support biodiversity, and 2) a spatial stratification useful to identifying examples of sites that have the most microclimatic variety and natural cover within each setting.   

The Hawaiian Settings used in this analysis include 6 settings in total, with 5 settings being derived by elevation zones. The Alpine, Subalpine, and Montane elevation zone thresholds were taken directly from the Hawaii Ecoregional Plan https://www.hawaiiecoregionplan.info/ecoregion.html. The lowest two zones were created by breaking the formerly defined “Lowland” system from the Hawaii Ecoregional Plan into two distinct portions given new understanding of unique ecological distinctions between Sub-Montane and a lower Lowland threshold (Dr. Sam Gon III, personal communication 8/2022). These zones were mapped using a 10m DEM (USGS, 2020)
Alpine Setting: Above 3,000 m 
Subalpine Setting: Between 2000-3000 m
Montane Setting: Between 1,000- 2,000 m 
Sub-Montane Setting: Between 500-1,000 m elevation,
Lowland System: Below 500 m

An additional Pioneer lava setting, was added as an override on top of the above elevation settings to represent key “Young Lava Substrate Areas” as mapped and defined by Price et al. 2012. Young lava substrates impose several well-known influences on vegetation in the Hawaiian Islands. The unweathered nature of most volcanic substrates permits little soil formation and results in a high degree of drainage that retains less moisture than weathered substrates (Kitayama and others, 1995). In addition, younger soils are deficient in nutrients, particularly nitrogen (Crews and others, 1995).The pioneer vegetation associated with young lava substrates is likely inimical to the growth of many plant species that cannot tolerate such conditions; on the other hand, some species such as Rumex skottsbergii and Scaevola kīlaueae appear to prefer this type of vegetation (Wagner and others, 1990). 
Given the unique properties of the young lava areas, this setting was deemed key to extract and consider. It was also deemed important to consider whether our methods were adequate to map areas of vulnerable to high resilience in this very different setting. Review of our methods, results, and emerging scores within the Pioneer Lava setting were later deemed insufficient to adequately represent resilience in this very unique setting. Similar to how we treated “glaciers’ in our Alaska Resilience analysis, the final integrated “resilience” results later in this report are not presented within the Pioneer Lava setting and we suggest further research is needed to more fully address mapping resilience within this setting. Initial datasets were however compiled for this young lava area and are presented as such before integration stages.



Copyright Text: Center for Resilient Conservation Science, The Nature Conservancy.

Spatial Reference:
102100

Single Fused Map Cache: true

Capabilities: Map,TilesOnly,Tilemap

Tile Info:
Initial Extent:
Full Extent:
Min Scale: 0.0
Max Scale: 0.0

Min LOD: 0
Max LOD: 13

Units: esriMeters

Supported Image Format Types: PNG

Export Tiles Allowed: false
Max Export Tiles Count: 100000

Resampling: true

Document Info: