Virginia Coastal Program: 2006 Coastal Grant Project Description and Final Summary
Project Task:
93.03
Grantee:
Virginia Department of Conservation & Recreation - Natural Heritage
Project Title:
Virginia Biodiversity Assessment - Part 1
Project Description as Proposed:
The Department of Conservation and Recreation - Division of Natural Heritage (DCR-DNH) has identified ecologically important lands as part of its Virginia Natural Landscape Assessment (VaNLA). While the VaNLA prioritizes lands to conserve many interior-forest, wetland, and maritime species, there still remain numerous rare species occurrences and natural communities that are not accounted for by the VaNLA or any current statewide conservation assessment. To address this, we hereby propose a Virginia Biodiveristy Assessment (VBA) to supplement the VaNLA by assessing the conservation significance of lands regardless of whether they are coincident with ecological cores.
This project will address the strongest need for conservation decision-making in Virginia: the product will be a tool that enables protection of lands and streams with our most critically rare species and exemplary natural communities. Many of our rarest species have no regulatory protection AT ALL through federal or state endangered species regulations (Table 1). The proposed project will analyze the protection status for all these critically rare species and natural communities as well as for the entire database of known rare species and significant natural communities in Virginia.
VBA – Part I will be a geographic analysis that will use DCR-DNH’s Conservation Sites (CS), Stream Conservation Units (SCU), and Element Occurrences (EO) databases, and DGIF’s Threatened and Endangered Waters (T&E Waters), Wildlife Action Plan (WAP) Confirmed Reaches, and tiered Species Observations (SO) data, to model biodiversity of rare plants, animals, and natural communities. Observations of tiered species collected as part of the Interactive Stream Assessment Resource (INSTAR) project will be incorporated into the SO database by DGIF. VBA – Part I will highlight occurrences of the rarest species and natural communities for which there is little or no protection. The resulting layer will be combined in VBA - Part II with ecological cores, habitat fragments, and landscape corridors from the VaNLA and with confirmed and predicted distributions of all tiered species from DGIF’s WAP to produce a comprehensive synthesis of Virginia’s biodiversity information. This grant will fund the initiation and completion of VBA – Part I for the Coastal Zone Management Area. A separate proposal will be submitted to request funding for VBA – Part II.
Federal Funding:
$37,300.00
Project Contact:
Jason Bulluck - jason.bulluck@dcr.virginia.gov - (804) 786-8377
Project Status:
10/1/2007 - 3/31/2008
Final Product Received:
Project Summary Provided by Grantee:
Disclaimer: This project summary provides the federal dollars initially awarded to the grantee. Due to underexpenditure or reprogramming of grant funds, this figure may change. For more information on the allocation of coastal grant funds, please contact Laura McKay, Virginia Coastal Program Manager, at 804.698.4323 or email: Laura.McKay@deq.virginia.gov
A more detailed Scope of Work for this project is available. Please direct your request for a copy to Virginia.Witmer@deq.virginia.gov
