This dataset is the fourth 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 forest 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 project proposals. The post-fiscal year 2023 forest connectivity maps serve as an additional time step for comparison from each previous fiscal year into the future.
To create the post FY23 installment of GLRI's Terrestrial Habitats & Connectivity work group's pilot area yearly connectivity maps, we identified the geospatial locations where restoration work benefitting forested habitats was completed throughout FY23. These locations were then assigned the lowest resistance value. Then using the forest habitat resistance layer from Great Lakes Restoration Initiative's Terrestrial Habitats and Connectivity Work group's Pilot Area's post-fiscal year 2022 we overwrote the post FY22 resistance values with the resistance values assigned to the FY23 locations where work was done. 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. These maps provide important information on how restoration efforts from FY21, FY22, and FY23 in the pilot area are affecting forest habitat connectivity.