Filtering by
- All Subjects: Regional planning
- Creators: Fonseca, Julia
- Creators: Melnick, Rob
To facilitate discussion about which species might be considered for protection, a series of in-depth interviews were conducted with members of the local science community who have expertise in the areas of birds, fish, invertebrates, mammals, plants and plant communities, and reptiles and amphibians.
Compiles information on plants and animals that are already recognized by the federal government as imperiled species, species which have been extirpated, and a much larger number of species that are in decline either locally or nationally. Descriptions of status, location, distribution, and habitat needs are presented for each species proposed. The report also considers vegetative communities, their history of decline and modification, and recommends priorities for their protection.
Two studies that describe the progress of riparian mapping that is being developed as part of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
If one species had to be chosen to preserve and restore, perhaps it should be cottonwood. Cottonwood-willow forests, where they exist and are healthy, indicated the presence of a viable riparian area, which is in turn the key to conserving great proportions of our native species. A reflection of the dire status of our riparian systems is that the Sonoran cottonwood-willow and Sonoran mesquite-cottonwood forests.
Chronicles how the intention to conserve a relic population of Gila topminnow under current resource conditions is generally insufficient. We have let the resource base degrade too far to expect project and site specific responses to stem losses, much less lead to recovery. The Gila topminnow was considered to be among the most common of fishes in the Santa Cruz River system in the early 1940s. Three decades later is was considered endangered; and in another three decades time, its recovery is not foreseeable, given the piecemeal approach to protection efforts.
Develops the methods for using the National Land Cover Dataset to report change by jurisdictions and land ownership by utilizing an existing dataset. Local GIS-based measures of development based on tax assessor records do not provide direct measures of habitat loss.
The purpose of this study is to provide the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service with an analysis that identifies anticipated impacts to each of the covered species and asks the question: How effectively will the County's mitigation lands include the specific habitats of covered species under the Multi-Species Conservation Plan?
This report examines how effectively Pima County’s natural open-space acquisitions have addressed priorities for conserving species’ habitats and landscape features identified in the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. The scope of this study is beyond the County's Multi-Species Conservation Plan, which is a subset of the overall Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
Arizona is one of the nation’s most urban states, and now it includes one of 20 “megapolitan” areas in the U.S. People have predicted for 50 years that Phoenix and Tucson would grow together into a giant desert conglomerate. That possibility has been seen as exciting, intriguing, and distressing. While a solid city along Interstate 10 is unlikely given the diverse land ownership in central and southern Arizona, the two metro economies are already merging.
Megapolitan: Arizona’s Sun Corridor, one of the first reports on a single megapolitan area, recognizes a more sophisticated technique for analyzing urban growth—that shared economic and quality of life interests are more important than physically growing together.
Scholars at Virginia Tech defined the megapolitans based on economic and growth patterns.
The Sun Corridor, which cuts across six counties from the border with Mexico to the center of Yavapai County, is the home of eight out of 10 Arizonans. In the next several decades, two out of three Americans will live in a megapolitan accounting for 60% of the population on only 10% of U.S. land.
Megapolitan offers a bold new picture of Arizona’s geography and its future opportunities and “megaton” challenges. This report presents a scenario for 2035 based on current trends. It analyzes the Sun Corridor and provides insights into the region’s global potential, water, governance, sustainability, and “trillion dollar questions.” It discusses the “tragedy of the sunshine” and asks the indispensable question: In 2035, do you want to live in the Sun Corridor?