Using Open Data to Protect our Most Vulnerable Species

Analysis using publicly available data identifies counties with most at-risk species across the Southeast

What do the Florida panther, vermilion darter, and frosted flatwoods salamander have in common? Like 368 other species in the southeastern United States, these three are threatened with extinction. We can easily understand how development directly impacts the iconic panther; we’re acutely aware of how building roads through their habitat has led to the increase in panther roadkills. The alluring streams where the beautiful vermilion darter lives may not be directly destroyed by having houses built mid-stream, but development around those creeks leads to sedimentation and water quality degradation that makes them unlivable for the darter. The spectacular frosted flatwoods salamander needs forest pools to reproduce, and clearing the surrounding forest or filling the pools for construction will doom the salamander. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) extends some protections to these and more than 1,600 other U.S. species, but more needs to be done to protect them from development. This is especially true in an area like the Southeast, with its combination of fantastic biological richness and increasing human pressures on wildlife.

Recognizing the need for concerted action in the region, Defenders recently opened a Southeast Office in Asheville, North Carolina. We’re thrilled to be widening the scope of our work to include more of the incredible biodiversity found in the American southeast. But where to start? We wanted to be sure that our work would help to protect the species and places that are most at risk – so we turned to the data. We analyzed data on all 371 ESA-listed species in each of the 875 counties in this 10-state region. Then we looked at the human factors in those areas: What counties’ populations are growing? Where do we expect more development to take place? Where will we see more habitat loss in the coming years?

All the information we used is publicly available – county-level human population projections, urbanization projections, locations of protected areas, recent forest loss trends – but it often resides in a vacuum. We combined it with the data on endangered species to see what wildlife or habitats are most likely to need us to stand between them and the threat of extinction. We then ranked each county based on the number of imperiled species, the population change per county by 2040, and the amount of protected land per county. The result is the map below. High-ranking counties (those in darkest blue) have many imperiled species, rapidly growing populations (which means more development), and relatively little protected land, leaving those species nowhere else to go.

(Project by Stanback Fellow Andrew Pericak)

Those darkest blue counties are where species are going to be at greatest risk – and where our work and the work of groups like ours is going to be most needed in the years ahead.

The areas that rank the highest—the areas of greatest concern—make sense. Counties including and surrounding some of the Southeast’s major cities, such as Atlanta, Orlando, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Raleigh, rank very high, mostly because these cities will experience large population growth over the next 25 years. But broader regions within the Southeast, such as eastern Tennessee, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle, are also of concern. Some counties in other regions are projected to see their population decrease, but remain highly ranked because so many imperiled species live there.

Knowing where we most need to focus conservation work is vitally important. But that’s not all this analysis can show us.  It also points out which counties may not need as much urgent conservation work, even if they host many endangered species or a human population that is expected to grow. For example, Miami-Dade County in Florida is an area of least concern. This county has the largest projected population increase of any county in the Southeast. It’s also home to 18 ESA-listed species. But while we can expect to see lots of development in Miami-Dade, this county also has over 660 square miles of land that is already protected. It’s not a final solution, and protecting habitat in the area is still important – but not as urgent as for species that have nowhere to run, fly or swim to if their habitat is developed.

This analysis is a first step in creating a comprehensive conservation plan – one that we hope other agencies and organizations will replicate in other regions of the country. By combining readily available public data and widely used analytical tools, we can figure out the places and the species that will need the greatest attention in the coming decades.

Other southeastern species offer a cautionary tale about what will happen if we don’t plan ahead. The upland combshell was an endangered freshwater clam native to the Southeast. Like other native clams, it filtered and cleaned the waters it lived in, providing an ecosystem service essential to human health. But we have to discuss the combshell in the past tense, because it is now extinct. Failing to plan for how to protect our most vulnerable species has irreversible consequences. We can and must work to ensure that panthers, darters, salamanders, and hundreds of other imperiled species living in the Southeast today continue to have a place to call home.