What is Vermont Conservation Design?
Vermont's Vision for an Ecologically Functional Landscape
Vermont Conservation Design is a prioritization tool that identifies the lands and waters most important for maintaining Vermont's ecologically functional landscape.
It is a vision to sustain Vermont's biodiversity based on best current science.
What is an ecologically functional landscape?
Left to right: osprey with prey; flooded forest; sulfur shelf fungus decomposing a snag; windthrown trees produce a tip up mound
Ecological Function is the ability of ecosystems to function under natural processes, such as seasonal flooding, nutrient cycling, predator-prey relationships, windthrow of trees, and cyclical forest change over time.
It is further defined by the ability of plants and animals to thrive, reproduce, migrate, and move in response to land-use and climate changes.
From left: black bear and moose are wide-ranging mammals that require large areas of habitat to thrive. Tulip tree and timber rattlesnake are rare species in Vermont that are expected to move northwards and gain habitat as the climate warms.
An Ecologically Functional Landscape therefore is one that contains the full range of Vermont’s native species, habitat types, and natural processes, while also allowing for shifts in their distributions over time in response to environmental change.
This landscape must be well-connected at multiple spatial scales to facilitate species movement.
At the largest scale, Vermont Conservation Design identifies landscape-level features necessary to sustain an ecologically functional landscape statewide.
The foundation of the design is a network of intact and unfragmented Highest Priority Landscape Blocks…
...connected with one another by a system of Highest Priority Surface Waters and Riparian Areas.
These landscape-level features cover large areas of the state, encompassing many kinds of habitats and providing for the needs of many common species, while enabling the movement and migration of animals and plants across the state.
Not all habitat types are equally represented within this backbone of landscape-level features. It is therefore important that Vermont Conservation Design also identifies a range of Highest Priority Natural Community and Habitat Features as conservation targets.
These smaller scale features ensure that more specialized habitat types are included in the overall design.
The priority of each targeted feature is established by factors including its size, rarity, and importance in fostering an inter-connected landscape for animals and plants.
If the overall network of highest priority natural features is appropriately conserved and managed, we can have high confidence that ecological function will continue to be preserved across Vermont, even in the face of threats such as climate change, habitat loss, and forest fragmentation.
Conservation Building Blocks
The basic unit of conservation planning on the landscape scale is called a habitat block:
... a continuous area of natural cover ...
... bounded by roads, ...
... development, ...
... or agriculture.
Habitat blocks may contain open wetlands, like this one, and they may contain other natural feature such as shrublands, ponds, or cliffs.
However, habitat blocks in Vermont are mostly forested, and for this reason may almost always be accurately described as forest blocks.
Larger forest blocks contain a greater proportion of interior forest habitat (green), and as a result, they support a greater diversity of species and permit ecosystems to function under a fuller range of natural conditions and ecological processes.
Vermont Conservation Design designates all large habitat blocks over a minimum size as Interior Forest Blocks, owing to their essential ecological role in providing interior forest conditions across the landscape.
In Vermont, greater biodiversity is found at lower elevation.
So, the minimum interior forest block size varies by bioregion: a smaller block in the valleys may offer similar species conservation value as a larger block in the mountains.
Vermont Conservation Design prioritizes these blocks into two levels of importance.
All interior forest blocks may be considered a priority for landscape level conservation, but only the largest blocks in each region of the state are highest priority, providing the greatest overall habitat value.
Scroll and zoom around the map to explore the location of highest priority and priority interior forest blocks in a region of your interest.
Protecting the highest priority interior forest blocks statewide would be a huge service to the people, plants, and wildlife that call Vermont home.
But on its own, this wouldn't guarantee an ecologically functional landscape...
As climate changes, species will come and go from Vermont over decades and centuries.
Ranges will shift, ecosystems will change in composition, and each forest block may wax or wane in terms of its individual contributions to biodiversity conservation at the state level.
But some features of the landscape will largely remain the same:
Left to right: the cliffs of Smuggler's Notch; "The Oven", calcareous bedrock at Raven Ridge Natural Area in Monkton; valley bottom soils support floodplain forest at LaPlatte River marsh; Lake Willoughby in Westmore
Vermont's biodiversity is tied to the physical landscapes that underlie its forests and wetlands.
Vermont's geological diversity encompasses its many variations in bedrock features, topography, and glacial history.
Diversity in these enduring physical landscape features gives rise to diversity in the ecological communities that call them home. This is true today and will remain true even in a future with an altered climate.
If all elements of Vermont’s physical and geological diversity are represented in the conservation design, we can be much more confident in our ability to conserve biological diversity and maintain a functional landscape into the future.
Vermont Conservation Design aims to capture representative examples of each physical diversity element in proportion to its abundance across the state, using units known as Land Type Associations (LTAs).
Each Land Type Association unit encompasses a unique topographic and/or geologic pattern to represent one recurring component of Vermont's physical landscape diversity, ranging from the Marine Plains of the Champlain Valley to the Temperate Oaky Hills of Southeastern Vermont, and everything in between.
Some landscape settings are given special attention in the conservation design: those that are locally rare (such as the Vermont Escarpment), and those that are regionally rare in the Northeast but well represented in Vermont (such as Calcareous Sediments). This latter category is known as responsibility settings.
Within Vermont Conservation Design, Geologic Diversity Blocks are a selection of habitat blocks that represents the full range of physical landscape settings across Vermont.
This subset begins by including all of the large forest blocks already identified as Highest Priority within Vermont Conservation Design, and adds numerous smaller forest blocks in order to capture proportionally under-represented landscape settings.
Rare elements of landscape diversity and responsibility settings, are each given proportionally greater representation within this set of habitat blocks.
Limestone bluffs at Robinson Point, South Hero: calcareous rocks and soils are common in some parts of Vermont, but rare overall in the Northeast; these are responsibility settings for geological diversity in Vermont.
Highest Priority Geological Diversity Blocks are those habitat blocks that make the greatest contributions towards conserving high quality examples of all of Vermont's physical landscape types.
Primarily, these are habitat blocks that contain a high diversity of geological settings, rare and responsibility settings, or settings that are otherwise under-represented in Vermont Conservation Design.
Priority Geological Diversity Blocks are representative of more common geological settings across Vermont.
Scroll and zoom around the map to explore geological diversity blocks in a region of your interest.
Beyond the terrestrial landscape...
Vermont’s network of surface waters - lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams - are also critical elements of the ecologically functional landscape.
Left to right: steelhead trout at Willoughby Falls; mudpuppy; silty stream with riparian zone; spiny softshell turtle
Aquatic systems provide vital habitat for a rich assemblage of fish, amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates, and plants ...
...while the linear network of riparian areas - the vegetated margins of rivers and streams - acts as a connective tissue between all of our intact forest blocks.
The vegetated margins of streams and rivers is known as the riparian zone.
Vermont Conservation Design identifies the full network of Surface Waters and Riparian Areas state-wide as targets for conservation.
This network includes all rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds, as well as the valley bottoms through which streams flow and migrate over time, and where seasonal flooding is expected.
It is important to note that this set of conservation priorities may include stream buffers, floodplains, or valley bottoms that have long been sites for agriculture ...
... homes, ...
... or other forms of development.
While some of this developed area may have potential for future habitat restoration, ...
.... much of it is also economically or culturally important to maintain as space for humans.
Though the full network of surface waters and riparian areas are priority targets for conservation, only the undeveloped portion is designated as highest priority by Vermont Conservation Design.
Landscape-scale features such as surface waters and forest blocks are foundational for an ecologically functional landscape, but it is also important to identify fine-scale habitat features for conservation priority that may not otherwise be accounted for within the design.
Special consideration is needed for habitat features at the community and species level to ensure protection for the complete biodiversity of present and future Vermont.
This consideration begins with specific habitat settings known as natural communities...
Limestone-Bluff Cedar Pine Forest: Burlington
The Limestone-Bluff Cedar Pine Forest is a rare forest type in Vermont that mostly occurs along Lake Champlain. Many examples are found in small or fragmented forest blocks that wouldn't otherwise be prioritized by landscape-scale conservation.
Fine-scale habit features like this occupy smaller areas of the state but correspond more closely with specific sets of environmental conditions that certain plant and animal species depend on to survive.
Alpine Meadow: Camel's Hump, Duxbury
To date, ecologists have identified at least 97 different natural community types across the state: all different kinds of forests, wetlands, and habitat types that exist in Vermont.
Alpine Meadows are found on the exposed ridgetops of Vermont's highest peaks.
Mesic Maple-Ash-Hickory-Oak-Forest: Snake Mountain, Addison
Each natural community type represents a particular set of organisms and the unique environmental conditions that support them. Together, they encompass the full range of habitat conditions that our native flora and fauna are adapted to.
Red Spruce-Cinnamon Fern Swamp: Okemo State Forest, Mount Holly
Conserving high quality examples of all of the state’s natural community types is an efficient way to conserve most species and identify sites that are expected to continue to support robust ecological communities in the future.
Rich Northern Hardwood Forest: Mount Equinox, Manchester
Vermont Conservation Design identifies significant examples of common and widespread natural community types as priority features (green), and significant examples of less common types as highest priority features (blue).
Mapping these features is an ongoing effort, with new examples identified each year.
From left: community-scale conservation priorities include old forests, wetland complexes, and caves. Managed grassland habitat is identified as a priority for the benefit of grassland bird species including the Bobolink (right).
Vermont Conservation Design also identifies and prioritizes several other fine-scale ecological features, including young and old forests, wetland habitats, grasslands, shrublands, and caves. Special habitat needs are also identified for rare and uncommon species statewide.
While some features are specifically mapped (like vernal pools), others are designated as percent targets within the forest blocks of each bioregion. For example, in the Southern Green Mountains, Vermont Conservation Design identifies a target of 30,000 acres (~4%) of habitat to be maintained as young forest, and 91,000 acres to be managed as old forest.
Vermont Conservation Design young and old forest targets by bioregion.
Landscape Connectivity
Recall that an ecologically functional landscape must be well-connected at multiple spatial scales to facilitate species movement.
Some components of Vermont Conservation Design have been identified primarily for their contributions towards landscape connectivity.
Landscape connectivity refers to the degree to which blocks of suitable habitat are connected to each other by direct proximity and by linking features, such as stream margins, hedgerows, and forest fragments in between.
Connectivity Blocks are the network of forest blocks that, along with their linking features, provide terrestrial connectivity across Vermont and to adjacent states and provinces.
This network provides critical connections between different biophysical regions, between high and low elevation zones, and to and from areas of rare and uncommon geological or biological diversity statewide.
Vermont Conservation Design designates the “backbone” of the Connectivity Blocks network as highest priority (orange).
Forest blocks that provide alternate pathways for species movement, or that support connectivity function are also priority features for state conservation (tan).
The network of highest priority connectivity blocks includes forested habitat along the spines of the major mountain ranges, ...
... forest blocks that connect to unfragmented habitat outside of Vermont, ...
... and "anchor blocks" in the more fragmented regions of the state that capture known occurrences of rare and uncommon species and natural communities.
It also includes smaller, lower quality forest blocks that hold special value as stepping stones between larger forest blocks.
Movement of organisms between Connectivity Blocks is facilitated by the statewide network of riparian areas - the vegetated margins of rivers and streams.
In addition to providing cover for wildlife movement and a pathway for plant migrations, these linear features provide specialized habitat for numerous species including mink, otter, beaver, and wood turtle.
The Riparian Connectivity layer of Vermont Conservation Design identifies those segments of the Surface Waters and Riparian Areas network that are currently vegetated, in patches of at least 1 acre in size.
All Riparian Connectivity areas are highest priority features, due to their essential ecological function in facilitating landscape connectivity.
Within Vermont Conservation Design, the Connectivity Blocks layer and the Riparian Connectivity layer work together to establish an interconnected landscape.
Here in Swanton, a strip of riparian habitat connects the Mississquoi National Wildlife Refuge, located within the orange Connectivity Block on the left, with the rest of the Highest Priority Connectivity Blocks network.
In more fragmented parts of the state, the Riparian Connectivity layer takes on an even greater importance in knitting together isolated habitat blocks.
Landscape-scale connectivity and the ecological functions it provides depends on the ability of species to travel between forest blocks and along riparian corridors.
Roads present a barrier to wildlife movement and to the dispersal of many other species, including some plants.
Sections of road with natural cover on both sides are the most likely to allow wildlife movement and species dispersal.
Forest canopy, shrubland, and wetland habitat are all beneficial, though even a partial hedgerow may help facilitate wildlife road crossings when minimal other cover is present.
Open fields and constructed features of the developed human landscape may act as additional barriers to wildlife movement.
Vermont Conservation Design identifies a set of road segments with moderate to high potential to facilitate wildlife road crossing based on the quantity of adjacent landcover.
To establish prioritization of likely crossing sites each 200-foot section of road is considered along with a strip of land stretching back 250 feet from the road centerline in each direction.
Priority sites for wildlife road crossings are those with greater than 50% natural cover within the rectangle on both sides of the road, while Highest Priority sites contain more than 75% natural cover on both sides of the road.
The Vermont Conservation Design wildlife road crossings dataset can be used to better understand terrestrial connectivity at both the town-level and the regional scale, to facilitate conservation planning and to help prioritize the siting of wildlife-friendly infrastructure such as bridges, signs, and oversized culverts.
Vermont Conservation Design is more than the sum of its components.
By planning for an ecologically functional landscape, Vermont Conservation Design protects both the organisms that call Vermont home and the physical environment that supports them.
And by ensuring a connected landscape, Vermont Conservation Design accounts for the ecological needs of wide-ranging animals, while preserving the ability of organisms to move, migrate, and respond to changes in land-use and climate.
Using Vermont Conservation Design
Vermont Conservation Design (VCD) is a powerful tool for community-powered conservation planning.
Click the image to visit the Biofinder homepage
VCD is available to all via the BioFinder website and mapping tool.
To read more about VCD and BioFinder, detailed reports are available on the website that outline each phase of the design process, and explain each design component in detail.
All mapped design layers and datasets are also viewable using the Biofinder mapping tool.
A Biofinder video tutorial is available below for new users of the mapping tool.
Visit the link below for a summary of VCD dataset updates published in 2023, and for service links that allow these data layers to be used with GIS software.
