Marine Wilderness Mapping

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Marine Wilderness Mapping

• Conservation Implications and Theoretical
  Considerations

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What is wilderness mapping?

• Wilderness mapping is an analytical methodology
  where geographic data, assumed to represent some
  indication of past and present human influence on
  ecological processes, are used to assign values
  to landscape components reflecting the degree to
  which they can be considered wild
• Wilderness mapping utilizes geographic
  information systems (GIS) technology and may
  incorporate satellite imagery, statistical data,
  and compiled observations

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Previous wilderness mapping attempts

• The Wilderness Society (Aplet et al.1999)
• Wilderness map for contiguous U.S. using GIS
• Beyond biodiversity and traditional landscape
  classifications
• Determine wildness as a function of freedom
  (controlled to self-willed) and naturalness
  (artificial to pristine) using multiple
  indicators
• solitude (population density)
• remoteness (distance from road)
• uncontrolled processes (landscape patchiness)
• natural composition (satellite land cover data)
• unaltered structure (infrastructure)
• pollution (EPA priorities nighttime light data)

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Previous wilderness mapping attempts

• Wildlife Conservation Society (Sanderson et al.
  2002)
• Map the Human Footprint on global scale
• Conservation advocacy one of the primary goals
• Used similar model to WS, but had to restrict to
  available global data and use more pragmatic
  considerations
• Biome normalization
• Last of the Wild largest least influenced
  areas in each biome
• Links biodiversity characterization with human
  influence variables
• Ability to interpret results on various scales

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The Human Footprint
Sanderson et al. 2002
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The Human Footprint
Sanderson et al. 2002
New York and Boston
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The Last of the Wild
Sanderson et al. 2002
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The Last of the Wild
Sanderson et al. 2002
Western Africa
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How can we use wilderness mapping techniques to
better understand human influence in the oceans?
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Defining marine wilderness

• Is all of the ocean wilderness, or none of it?
• Possible definitions
• Free of extractive activities
• Free of all human activities
• Unaltered biological, chemical, and physical
  processes
• No definition--look at relative human influence
  without reference to a pristine state

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Translating a terrestrial model to the marine
environment

• Can we use analogs of terrestrial variables?
• How do we determine extent of impact from any
  single variable?
• Is human influence in the oceans relatively
  homogenous over large areas?
• Can we define ocean biomes?
• Can we incorporate an understanding of ocean
  biogeochemical processes in our model?

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What factors reduce the wilderness quality of the
oceans?

• Reduction of biological integrity due to fishing
• Biological, chemical, and solid waste
  contamination
• Productivity changes due to nitrogen inputs
• Physical alteration and habitat destruction
• Human-induced atmospheric and climatic changes

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What factors reduce the wilderness quality of the
oceans?

• Reduction of biological integrity due to fishing
• Large amount of statistical data on fisheries
  available, but data cannot be referenced
  geographically.
• New GIS data may be available in the near future.
• Biological, chemical, and solid waste
  contamination
• Productivity changes due to nitrogen inputs
• Physical alteration and habitat destruction
• Human-induced atmospheric and climatic changes

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What factors reduce the wilderness quality of the
oceans?

• Reduction of biological integrity due to fishing
  ?
• Biological, chemical, and solid waste
  contamination
• Productivity changes due to nitrogen inputs
• Physical alteration and habitat destruction
• Human-induced atmospheric and climatic changes

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What factors reduce the wilderness quality of the
oceans?

• Reduction of biological integrity due to fishing
  ?
• Biological, chemical, and solid waste
  contamination
• Can be derived from existing datasets
• Productivity changes due to nitrogen inputs
• Physical alteration and habitat destruction
• Human-induced atmospheric and climatic changes

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What factors reduce the wilderness quality of the
oceans?

• Reduction of biological integrity due to fishing
  ?
• Biological, chemical, and solid waste
  contamination ?
• Productivity changes due to nitrogen inputs
• Physical alteration and habitat destruction
• Human-induced atmospheric and climatic changes

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What factors reduce the wilderness quality of the
oceans?

• Reduction of biological integrity due to fishing
  ?
• Biological, chemical, and solid waste
  contamination ?
• Productivity changes due to nitrogen inputs
• Could determine source, but not enough known to
  determine extent
• Physical alteration and habitat destruction
• Human-induced atmospheric and climatic changes

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What factors reduce the wilderness quality of the
oceans?

• Reduction of biological integrity due to fishing
  ?
• Biological, chemical, and solid waste
  contamination ?
• Productivity changes due to nitrogen inputs
  x
• Physical alteration and habitat destruction
  
• Human-induced atmospheric and climatic changes

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What factors reduce the wilderness quality of the
oceans?

• Reduction of biological integrity due to fishing
  ?
• Biological, chemical, and solid waste
  contamination ?
• Productivity changes due to nitrogen inputs
  x
• Physical alteration and habitat destruction
  
• Coastal alteration is less relevant than other
  factors
• Scale of physical alteration is sometimes too
  small to map
• Off-shore petroleum drilling results in habitat
  destruction
• Human-induced atmospheric and climatic changes

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What factors reduce the wilderness quality of the
oceans?

• Reduction of biological integrity due to fishing
  ?
• Biological, chemical, and solid waste
  contamination ?
• Productivity changes due to nitrogen inputs
  x
• Physical alteration and habitat destruction
  /-
• Human-induced atmospheric and climatic changes

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What factors reduce the wilderness quality of the
oceans?

• Reduction of biological integrity due to fishing
  ?
• Biological, chemical, and solid waste
  contamination ?
• Productivity changes due to nitrogen inputs
  x
• Physical alteration and habitat destruction
  /-
• Human-induced atmospheric and climatic changes
• Models of effects to complex to translate to
  human influence map

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What factors reduce the wilderness quality of the
oceans?

• Reduction of biological integrity due to fishing
  ?
• Biological, chemical, and solid waste
  contamination ?
• Productivity changes due to nitrogen inputs
  x
• Physical alteration and habitat destruction
  /-
• Human-induced atmospheric and climatic changes
  x

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Pilot study area
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Steps for creating a wilderness map

• Define wilderness ?
• Identify factors that reduce wilderness quality ?
• Search for available data ?
• Determine indicators of wilderness quality from
  available data
• Determine translation and spatial extent of
  effects
• Determine total human influence from all factors

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Indicators of wilderness quality

• Contamination
• Land-based sources
• People---population density
• Industry---EPA listed waters
• Toxic waste---Superfund sites
• Mitigated by protected wetlands
• Ocean-based sources
• Ship pollution (exhaust, thermal,
  noise)---shipping routes
• Physical alteration/habitat destruction
• Off-shore petroleum drilling---active lease sites

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Is this a valid wilderness map?
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Problems with wilderness mapping of marine
environments

• A simple composite of these variables does not
  tell us much about the human influence in the
  oceans
• Looking at each variable independently would
  probably be more useful for conservation science
  and advocacy
• Large increase in complexity for small increase
  in accuracy/usefulness
• But
• GIS and remote sensing technologies are very new
  and are only beginning to be used for marine
  studies
• New data and methods of analysis could help us to
  create a more accurate representation of human
  influence in the future

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Conclusions

• Although the mapping of human effects on the
  oceans has great potential for future
  environmental research, the methods employed
  previously for wilderness mapping of terrestrial
  landscapes will fail to produce useful
  information for marine conservation or
  environmental policy
• Making the best scientific and political use of
  GIS technology will require further theoretical
  exploration of geographic analysis techniques and
  their efficacy for modeling the relationships
  between human and environmental variables
• Collaboration between scientists working in
  various fields is essential for this task