New Study Funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Identifies Nature's Strongholds
A new study by The Nature Conservancy has identified landscapes across the American Midwest that are predicted to withstand the growing impacts of climate change and help ensure nature’s survival.
As droughts, rising temperatures and other climate impacts threaten to destabilize natural areas across the United States and around the world, scientists believe these resilient landscapes will continue to serve as habitat to a wide variety of plants and animals while also providing drinking water, fertile soil and other important natural services that people rely upon.
The study, conducted over three years, analyzed 336 million acres of land encompassing all of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan, much of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio and parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. Parts of two Canadian provinces, Ontario and Manitoba, were also included in the analysis.
Scientists used computerized geographic information systems to analyze 30-meter-square plots, areas about twice the size of a small city lot, across the entire Midwest region that extends from Lake Erie in the east to the edge of the Great Plains.
“Protecting the most important sites we’ve identified and connecting them together is one of our best strategies for ensuring that we continue to have a rich diversity of life in the region and all the benefits that nature provides to us,” said Kim Hall, a Conservancy climate change ecologist who worked on the study.