Conceptual Habitat Fragmentation Decision Guide Flow Chart

The Conceptual Framework for a Habitat Fragmentation Decision Guide (Figure 5) is described in this section. The premise of the conceptual Decision Guide is that the project impacts will dictate the types of mitigation solutions available, and that the solutions need to be tailored to the project. The Decision Guide is a series of basic questions to categorize habitat fragmentation impacts for a project during the NEPA Alternatives Analysis process. The Decision Guide leads to a series of potential solutions based on an affirmative answer to the sequence of questions. The questions require the practitioners to address whether the project alternative will impact a terrestrial habitat network, an aquatic resource network, or habitat patch. The process can be repeated for each alternative.  The information is then summarized in a final matrix to assist in the selection of a preferred alternative based on several factors.

There are several prerequisites that support the use of the decision guide, namely:

  1. the habitat network within the study area has been defined;
  2. target species have been defined;
  3. the minimum patch size for target species have been defined;
  4. habitat cores, islands and corridors are mapped.
  5. habitat fragmentation analysis has been completed.

Figure 5 - Full size PDF  |  JPEG

Each question in the guide requires the user to consider potential project impacts (both direct impacts and impairments to functions) to habitat cores, islands and connectivity (corridors). The analysis will require specific project information (as defined in the project scoping phase) which should be developed on a per project basis for specific project settings and target species. The process can also be used in an iterative process to compare alternatives and refine alignments.  A description of each main element within each numbered box on the flow chart (Figure 5) is provided on the following links:

Box 1.0 Connectivity  |  Box 2.0 Patch (Habitat)  |  Box 3.0 Habitat Fragmentation Summary Chart