Download EAGLES User Manual

EAGLES User Manual –February 2011
1.0 Overview
1.1 Project Objective and Intended Audience
This manual outlines a workflow and a set of software tools collectively known as the
Ecosystem Assessment Geospatial Analysis & Landscape Evaluation System (EAGLES).
EAGLES is designed to aid resource management decision making by providing support for
species habitat planning efforts that integrate changing landscape conditions with
demographic responses. Managers seeking to evaluate multiple development plan proposals
can use this system to compare alternatives and scenarios, including changes in land-use
practices, and explore their implications using hypothetical ‘what-if’ scenarios. For example,
a manager could use this set of tools to investigate how coyotes currently use a portion of
landscape, and how that use pattern might change when the landscape is altered (e.g., through
fire, flood, or development). These tools are particularly relevant for legacy data on species
of concern. To reach the widest possible audience, an ArcGIS environment was selected as
the platform for these tools.
Fixed (static)
predictors
ƒ Slope, aspect, elevation
ƒ Existing habitat/cover
ƒ Custom remote sensing
MDA (merged data array)
Species ‘response’ Data
Dynamic
(time varying)
predictors
ƒ Climate parameters
ƒ Mapped disturbance types
ƒ % water, forage biomass, etc.
EAGLE System: analysis, modeling, predictions, and
what-if-scenarios for decision support
Figure 1.1: Schematic representation of the process of matching (1) fixed and (2) temporally dynamic geospatial
covariates with spatio-temporal response data from legacy data sets to create a merged data array (MDA) for
analysis and modeling in EAGLES.
2