- Metric Name:  Multi-stressor Refugia

- Data Vintage:  2021

- Unit Of Measure: This is a dimensionless index that ranges from 1.91 to 3.68 Low values indicate lower resilience to threats. High values indicate significant protection from threats.

This raster dataset represents sites that may provide protection for natural communities from multiple threats including climate, fire, altered river channels, and density of recreational activities.



Creation Method: Domains of Refugia: To consider how refugial conditions from a range of stressors can inform conservation planning and management, we integrated metrics of refugial capacity across different domains, which we define as social, ecological, or physical drivers, processes, or cycles that influence landscape structure, function, or composition. To persist in the Southern California landscape, species and ecosystems may need refugia from shifting climatic conditions, including extremely hot summers and prolonged droughts, but non-climate stressors can also affect conservation outcomes. In this landscape, changes in fire frequency can be a significant stressor affecting plant community structure and persistence. Anthropogenic features that modify hydrologic flows alter the ability of watersheds to sustain functional habitats. And finally, protected areas are often designed to mitigate the impacts of anthropogenic activities; however, recreational activities may alter the refugial capacity of the protected land, affecting the ability of the landscape to sustain species and their habitats. We combined these individual metrics to assess landscape level refugial capacity.

Sites with high refugial capacity (super-refugia sites) have, on average, 30% fewer extremely warm summers, 20% fewer fire events, 10% less exposure to altered river channels and riparian areas, and 50% fewer recreational trails than the surrounding landcape. Our results suggest that super-refugia sites (∼8,200 km2) for some natural communities are underrepresented in the existing protected area network, a finding that can inform efforts to expand protected areas.

- Credits:  San Diego State University CWC Project Team

San Diego State University’s Connecting Wildlands and Communities Project Team: 
Data disclaimer:  
The user accepts sole responsibility for the correct interpretation and use of the data provided.