This dataset is the first installment of a yearly connectivity update for forested habitat within the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative's (GLRI) Terrestrial Habitats & Connectivity (TH&C) work group's Pilot Area. The Pilot Area is a region of the northern Great Lakes Basin between Ashland, WI and the Keweenaw Peninsula and is bounded by Lake Superior in the north and the basin boundary in the south, including a 70 km buffer. Each year the TH&C selects project proposals for funding within the pilot area. These proposals involve either restoration, research, or land acquisition aimed at improving or increasing connectivity in this area. The intended purpose of each year’s update is to understand the effects of funded projects on the ground work and help inform the location and purpose of future projects proposals. These pre-fiscal year 2021 forest connectivity maps serve as a baseline for comparison from each future fiscal year through FY25.
To create these connectivity maps, we used the GAP/Landfire landcover dataset and identified all forested landcover grid cells. Forests were assigned a low movement resistance; land cover categories were assigned higher movement resistance values the more they deviated from forest characteristics. High intensity development was assigned the highest resistance as it was least similar to forested habitat. This analysis produced two connectivity maps: a cumulative current map and a normalized current map. The cumulative current map shows where potential movement pathways between forests are located within the pilot area, while the normalized current map shows where obstructed movement, diffuse movement, and channelized movement occurs within the pilot area.