Natural Landcover In Floodplains (SECAS Goal Trends)

<p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><span style='background-attachment:initial; background-clip:initial; background-image:initial; background-origin:initial; background-position:initial; background-repeat:initial; background-size:initial;'><b>Yearly trend</b></span></p><p style='margin:0in;'><span style='background-attachment:initial; background-clip:initial; background-image:initial; background-origin:initial; background-position:initial; background-repeat:initial; background-size:initial;'>Natural landcover in floodplains declined by about 0.008% per year in the SECAS region (not including the Caribbean). That is a loss of approximately 23,400 acres per year. There were declines in most states.</span></p><p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>On track to meet SECAS goal</b></p><p style='margin:0in;'>No. The decline of about 0.03% every 4 years is not enough to meet the SECAS goal of a 1% increase every 4 years.</p><p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>Data source</b></p><p style='margin:0in;'><a href='https://www.mrlc.gov/data' target='_blank' rel='nofollow ugc noopener noreferrer'>National Land Cover Database (NLCD)</a></p><p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>Confidence in trend</b></p><p style='margin:0in;'>Low. The decline was not statistically significant across the region. There are major issues with NLCD classification errors in floodplain areas—especially when separating non-natural habitats like pasture and row crop from natural habitats like shrublands, grasslands, and wetlands. These classification errors seem to be impacted by yearly climate variations and add significant noise to the trend data.In addition to yearly noise due to misclassification, the consistent incorrect classification of grasslands as pasture results in an overall underestimate of natural landcover in areas where grasslands occur in floodplains.</p><p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>Interpretation</b></p><p style='margin:0in;'>This is an indicator of the health of freshwater and nearby wetland ecosystems. Despite extensive conservation investments in protecting and restoring natural landcover in floodplains, this indicator does not appear to be improving since 2011. While increases in this indicator for some states are positives signs of progress, recent wetland policy changes will likely make it particularly challenging to meet the SECAS goal in future years.</p><p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>Other information available</b></p><p style='margin:0in;'>A table of state-level summaries is available in Appendix I of the pdf report: <a href='https://secassoutheast.org/pdf/SECAS-goal-report-2024.pdf' target='_blank' rel='nofollow ugc noopener noreferrer'>https://secassoutheast.org/pdf/SECAS-goal-report-2024.pdf</a>.</p>