Potential Land-use Intensity, Aridification Trends, Overlap, and Impact Scenarios, Geospatial Data, Colorado Plateau, USA

These geospatial data characterize the potential for geographic overlap among land-use practices and between land-use and climate change on the Colorado Plateau—a dryland region experiencing rapid changes in land-use and facing aridification. They were used to characterize spatial patterns and temporal trends in aridification, land-use, and recreation at the county and 10-km2 grid scales. Increasing trends and overlapping areas of high intensity for use, including oil and gas development and recreation, and climate drying, suggest areas with high potential to experience detrimental effects to the recreation economy, water availability, vegetation and wildlife habitat, and spiritual and cultural resources. Patterns of overlap in high-intensity land-use and climate drying differ from the past, indicating the potential for novel impacts and suggesting that land managers and planners may require new strategies to adapt to changing conditions. This analytical framework for assessing the potential impacts of overlapping land-use and climate change could be applied with other drivers of change or to other regions to create scenarios at various spatial scales in support of natural resource planning efforts.