This raster dataset shows where recreational trail creation will have the most and least impact on wildlife in the Andrews Community Forest. It is meant to reflect the relative importance of various natural features to wildlife. It was created from a natural communities polygon feature class, a forest cover polygon feature class, a slope raster derived from a 0.7 meter Lidar DEM collected in 2014, a stream vector feature class, and a wetlands polygon feature class. Relative sensitivity scores from 0 to 10 were assigned to each feature within each feature class. The scores reflect expert opinion on the feature's importance to various species of wildlife. These feature classes were then converted to rasters based off of their sensitivity scores. Multi-ring buffers were also created around the most sensitive natural community, forest cover, stream, and wetland features. These multi-ring buffers were each rasterized. The raster calculator function was used to add all of the the derived rasters with multipliers to give each layer an appropriate weight. The resultant raster has values that are meant to be used relative to each other, from low sensitivity to high, but do not reflect any real world feature. They are also based off of expert opinion and are tailored to the goals of the town forest, but can and should be adjusted to reflect any user's priorities in trail creation. The expert involed in assigning these values is principally Eric Hagen, with input from Grace Glynn, Meredith Naughton, and Dr. Jeffrey Hughes of the University of Vermont's Field Naturalist Master program. Riparian and wetland buffers were based off of suggestions published by the New Hampshire Fish and Game department.

This raster dataset shows where recreational trail creation will have the most and least impact on wildlife in the Andrews Community Forest. It is meant to reflect the relative importance of various natural features to wildlife. It was created from a natural communities polygon feature class, a forest cover polygon feature class, a slope raster derived from a 0.7 meter Lidar DEM collected in 2014, a stream vector feature class, and a wetlands polygon feature class. Relative sensitivity scores from 0 to 10 were assigned to each feature within each feature class. The scores reflect expert opinion on the feature's importance to various species of wildlife. These feature classes were then converted to rasters based off of their sensitivity scores. Multi-ring buffers were also created around the most sensitive natural community, forest cover, stream, and wetland features. These multi-ring buffers were each rasterized. The raster calculator function was used to add all of the the derived rasters with multipliers to give each layer an appropriate weight. The resultant raster has values that are meant to be used relative to each other, from low sensitivity to high, but do not reflect any real world feature. They are also based off of expert opinion and are tailored to the goals of the town forest, but can and should be adjusted to reflect any user's priorities in trail creation. The expert involed in assigning these values is principally Eric Hagen, with input from Grace Glynn, Meredith Naughton, and Dr. Jeffrey Hughes of the University of Vermont's Field Naturalist Master program. Riparian and wetland buffers were based off of suggestions published by the New Hampshire Fish and Game department.