Landscape Condition (SECAS Goal Trends)

<p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>Yearly trend </b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;'>Landscape condition decreased by about 0.02% per year from 2011-2021. All states had statistically significant declines except Oklahoma and Mississippi. These two states had declines that were not statistically significant. </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 0.08% every 4 years is not enough to reach 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' rel='nofollow ugc'>National Land Cover Database (NLCD)</a></p>
<p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>Confidence in trend </b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;'>Medium. The trend is statistically significant, but yearly weather changes can have a major impact on classification accuracy. NLCD is also not good at separating pasture from more natural grassland. That means this indicator is likely underestimating landscape condition improvements resulting from grassland restoration.</p>
<p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>Interpretation </b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;'>This is an indicator of landscape condition at multiple scales relevant to species and ecosystems. It looks at naturalness of land cover within <span style='background-image:initial; background-position:initial; background-size:initial; background-repeat:initial; background-attachment:initial; background-origin:initial; background-clip:initial;'>0.22 acres (one 30 m pixel)</span>, 10 acres, 100 acres, 1,000 acres, and 10,000 acres. While there are some issues with classification accuracy, the overall declines in landscape condition likely reflect ongoing issues with habitat fragmentation and alteration throughout the Southeast. The overall declines in this indicator, however, are overestimated in areas with significant grassland restoration because the indicator often misclassifies natural grasslands as pasture.</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>