Conservation Mapping Tools

This selection of user friendly conservation mapping tools provides land trusts and individuals means to identify, view and map key land conservation metrics in order to inform conservation decisions, prioritize sites for conservation, and understand the distribution of resources across the landscape.


Name

 


BioMap


Sponsor

 


MassGIS


URL

 

         

https://biomap-mass-eoeea.hub.arcgis.com/

Recording on how to use BioMap (from Steering Committee meeting of December 9, 2022)

Description

 

BioMap conservation targets are grouped into 2 Elements:
Core Habitat and Critical Natural Landscape. Each Element contains several Components of biodiversity conservation. Protection and stewardship of these Elements are essential to safeguard the diversity and abundance of species and their habitats, as well as resilient natural landscapes across Massachusetts.

 


Name

 


Resilient Land Mapping Tool


Sponsor

 


TNC​ - The Nature Conservancy


URL

 


http://maps.tnc.org/resilientland/

Description

 


Maps locations that will be especially resilient as the climate changes and creates an index of the degree to which sites will be resilient.

The index reveals which sites have characteristics that will make them “more likely to sustain diversity because they offer a wide range of micro-climate options within a connected area.”

Users can see if a location has far above average, above average, slightly above average, average, below average, or far below average climate resilience.

The tool also has a feature which shows priority resilient and connected regional landscapes.

Read the Resilient Sites Report to learn about how the analysis was conducted. 

Unique Feature(s)

 


1. Synthesizes key indicators of climate resilience to show priority areas for conservation for ecosystem function.

2. The analysis has already been done for the user, so the user can go straight to the location of interest and immediately learn the climate resilience potential.

3. Analysis extends beyond Massachusetts for those interested focusing on landscape-scale conservation.

 


Name

 


MAPPR Tool 2.0


Sponsor

 


Mass Audubon

URL

 


https://www.massaudubon.org/our-conservation-work/advocacy/shaping-the-future-of-your-community/current-projects/mappr-project/mappr-tool

Description

 


Stands for Mapping and Prioritization Parcels for Resilience

Identify parcels within an area of interest that are highest priorities for protection based on habitat quality, climate change resilience, and other metrics such as parcel size and adjacency to existing protected parcels.

The higher the number and darker the color, the more critical that parcel is for conservation based on selected inputs.

Click on a parcel to learn why it received that score – each input is scored as 0 (did not exist) to 1, 2, or 3 (very important for this input).

Unique Feature(s)

 


1. Choice to select other models' / tools' data (i.e., TNC's Resilience, BioMap2, UMass Critical Linkages, etc.)

2. "Study area" choice includes multi-town land trust and watershed (in addition to the standard town and county categories)

3. Select by parcel size, block, prime farmland, adjacent protection, surface water protection zones and more, as well as by BioMap2 Core Habitat and BioMap2 Natural Landscapes

4. Resulting model (based on your input) allows user to click on a parcel and see why it was identified as its priority level

 


Name

 


MassMapper
replacement for OLIVER, which was retired Dec. 31, 2021


Sponsor

 


MassGIS


URL

  https://maps.massgis.digital.mass.gov/MassMapper/MassMapper.html

Description

 


MassMapper is MassGIS's online data viewer, enabling organizations and individuals to make their own maps if they don't have access to, or expertise in, GIS and GIS software. It replaces OLIVER, which was retired December 31, 2021.

Quick Start Guide

Unique Feature(s)

 


1. Breadth of data and layers available, especially under Physical Resources

2. Easy to layer conservation-important attributes onto wide range of political / administrative layers 

3. Easy to overlay multiple attributes simultaneously; resulting map is easy to read