The Conservation watersheds show where there is high likelihood of wetlands, healthy watersheds, high food availability as well as areas where there may be opportunity for marsh migration. These areas may be good candidates for looking further into conservation potential. We could use additional information related to protected lands, impervious cover, or our soon to be available data related to vulnerability of development to refine where to put conservation efforts on the ground that could support black ducks.

1. State Identified Healthy Watersheds http://www.chesapeakeprogress.com/clean-water/healthy-watersheds

2. Wetlands from the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI)

3. Marsh Migration (Nature’s Network) https://nalcc.databasin.org/datasets/14de01cdcd0b4243b04fce3165cf873c

4. DRAFT: Habitat Restoration and Protection Priorities for Wintering Black Duck in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (2010 Scenario) (Relative priority for protection of habitat for wintering black duck, High and Highest) https://nalcc.databasin.org/datasets/40e5daf2c354414f802b4b4a05f2f825 *

The Restoration watersheds show where wetlands, high pollution loading, and marsh migration potential intersect. The geographic universe is limited to areas that have “low” or “lowest” deficit related to food availability. The idea being that these areas are potentially degraded but maybe not too far beyond restoration potential. One could screen these areas and utilize additional information such as impervious cover (included as an attribute in the table) to further refine where one may begin to focus restoration efforts.

The “Restoration” composite includes:
1. Wetlands from the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI)
2. Marsh Migration (Nature’s Network) https://nalcc.databasin.org/datasets/14de01cdcd0b4243b04fce3165cf873c
3. Nutrient Loading (Delivered yield from all sectors combined) – top 25% of all SPARROW NHD Catchments
-Nitrogen

-Phosphorus

4. DRAFT: Habitat Restoration and Protection Priorities for Wintering Black Duck in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (2010 Scenario) (Relative priority for restoration of habitat for wintering black duck, Low and Lowest) https://nalcc.databasin.org/datasets/40e5daf2c354414f802b4b4a05f2f825 *

* The geographical interest was limited to just where there was “deficit” in the Restoration composite and just where there was “surplus” in the Conservation layer.

The final Conservation and Restoration composites represent areas of greatest overlap between all of the layers used in the composite, the darker the color the more likely most or all of the layers intersected in that location.