00:01Good afternoon, everyone. So I'm going to give an extreme Lightning Talk…

00:03…because there's way too much in this for us to go over.

00:06But we'll get to lunch in a moment.

00:09I'm a new assistant professor at the School of Landscape Architecture, University of Arizona.

00:14And I work primarily in conservation planning, and I'm interested in understanding how species move across the landscape…

00:19…and I engage in modeling to those types of things. So let me acquaint you with what we're looking at here.

00:24This is what we utilize in conservation planning to start to model those things…

00:29…and we're looking at a permeability surface for a suite of focal species around the city of Tucson.

00:34There's actually more of a gradient to this dataset than the projector's allowing here.

00:38But we're looking at the city of Tucson, and we're looking at two of our national treasures…

00:41…Saguaro National Park West and Saguaro East.

00:45So as a connectivity model, I'm very interested in understanding what we can do…

00:48…what we can design to connect this separated national park that we have.

00:53So we start to integrate a number of least-cost path modeling approaches…

00:58…and these are the typical greenway plans that you start to see in lots of endeavors.

01:03We can start to apply additional tools and technologies to understand how species might move through this landscape.

01:10Here we're applying aspects of circuit theory to understand that these cells with these very high temperatures…

01:17…are cells throughout the landscape that our models are predicting as being highly utilized for species movement.

01:22This is something very important for us to know as landscape designers and landscape planners.

01:26We can then calibrate our models and run this concept within these model linkages to further refine and give us insight…

01:34…into those critical areas so that these landscape connections may function like we intend.

01:38One of the beauties of models is that we can rerun, reparameterize, run additional focal species…

01:44…new tools, new solutions, new scenarios, and ultimately, utilize these things in an iterative process…

01:51...to come forward with a comprehensive plan for approaching this concept.

01:56So one of the points I want to make early on here is that in my view, a modeled corridor by itself is not a design, OK…

02:02…but, rather, a planning mechanism that can be used and consulted to guide this decision-making process.

02:08It's a very necessary and helpful first step.

02:12Design, however, requires this more specific site characteristics, including aspects of function…

02:19…even qualitative variables, such as aesthetics.

02:21And these variables are not easily captured in traditional corridor modeling.

02:25So some of the things I want to show you from here on out are ways that I propose that we integrate this into these approaches.

02:33So the first thing that my students and I are doing, we're conducting a comprehensive literature search…

02:37…of connectivity modeling efforts being done around the world…

02:40…so we can identify the good, the bad, and the ugly of the current state of connectivity science.

02:45The second thing we're doing is we're casting a wide net and evaluating a series of scientific research…

02:51…from things like landscape ecology, population biodynamics.

02:55And out of these research papers, we're trying to assess those papers that tell us something…

03:00…about how landscape patterns affect how species move.

03:04We're trying to identify those patterns that are optimal and enhance landscape connectivity…

03:10…'cause we want to integrate them into these corridor plans. So here's an example.

03:13Lots of great research out there that shows, for a wide number of taxa, that when species encounter this hard edge of habitat…

03:21…they tend to move along it as opposed to diffusing through it.

03:24That's something we want to know if we're designing these reserve networks, right?

03:27So we know, in these same papers, they can talk about and actually monitor a species moving throughout these things…

03:34…if we can add simple lobes and convolutions.

03:37This isn't rocket science; we're simply translating these papers into aspects that we can integrate in design disciplines.

03:43There's no shortage of these concepts out there.

03:47We're making these translations, we're trying to package it in such a way so that we can disseminate it…

03:51…and, through very simple pattern recognitions, integrate these concepts into landscape planning…

03:57…so that we can ultimately start to work towards more connected landscapes.

04:00So here's Tucson again. Let me bring in Saguaro East and West. We start to run some least-cost path approaches.

04:07This isn't very practical in terms of linking these landscapes because it's 95 percent urban…

04:13…so we start to parameterize these models to give us a more concise solution.

04:18But even when we start to parameterize these things as tightly as we can to give us the most specific and discrete areas of the landscape…

04:26…we still need to do additional refinement.

04:28This is where geodesign comes in.

04:30As land-use planners, we're setting up additional zones, we're realizing from landscape ecology…

04:35…that there are various core areas that we need to be looking at.

04:39There's areas that we can be integrating some of these landscape patterns to discourage movement of species…

04:45…out of these linkages into areas where there may be high mortality in this urban fringe.

04:51And then ultimately we're talking about planning here and how overlays and zoning can ultimately influence land-use pattern…

04:57…so that we can mitigate these negative edge effects of built environments within these areas…

05:03…so that these corridors can actually function and serve the way that they're intended.

05:07So what about automating this process?

05:10So I had one of my graduate research assistants spend the better part of a week populating this design.

05:15That's not very feasible for something, a corridor, that's 20 kilometers wide, so what about automation for this?

05:23Here, I'm proposing what I'm calling an automated design module, an ADM…

05:29…that we can utilize landscape characteristics to develop capability surfaces for native vegetation.

05:35These capability surfaces, then, are parameterized based on vegetation requirements for a particular focal species…

05:43…that we might be interested in moving through this landscape.

05:45These, then, are placed in these modeled corridor characteristics.

05:50The module then generates things like vegetation density, which is species specific…

05:55…heterogeneity, the diversity of the vegetation within the landscape plan…

05:59…and aspects of some of these patterns that we're learning from the literature.

06:03These corridor outputs then can be populated with the results of this ADM module…

06:10…so that the suitable vegetation is arranged in spatial patterns which promote this connectivity…

06:15…is hopefully doing something to mitigate these edge effects in surrounding land uses…

06:20…and is, by the way, promoting the desired landscape patterns that we're observing from our meta-analysis.

06:26So the first step in creating this ADM is creating the massive data library to parameterize…

06:31…the landscape characteristics necessary to support some of our native vegetation.

06:36We're building this library, we're developing unique symbologies that can be inserted into the ArcMap environment…

06:43…so that these then are the surfaces…the characteristics that we parameterize our capability models.

06:50Very simple capability models, standard landscape characteristics and overlay process.

06:55Here I'm showing an example of such 10 of those surfaces.

06:58This continues on and on and on as we populate this library for the native species.

07:03We can then take cells within these modeled corridors…

07:07Imagine that these are cells within that corridor; we're populating them with potential species, native species…

07:15…that are capable of being supported based on the characteristics within those corridors.

07:20We can then apply what we're calling pattern generators and rule-based design arrangements, or filters…

07:28…to determine how dense we want the vegetation to be in certain aspects of these corridors.

07:32So if you recall back to those blue areas in those corridors, those bottlenecks, these would be prime areas…

07:37…for ramping up the rules-based vegetation density within our corridors to mitigate some of these edge effects.

07:44Similarly, we can increase and introduce aspects and rules of linearity…

07:48…where we want to discourage movement throughout this corridor.

07:52We can integrate aspects of cohesion, those types of things, for a stepping-stone approach within these modeled corridors.

07:59And of course, since we have many, many capability layers, we can introduce capable, rule-based sets…

08:06…of mixing vegetation diversity within this as well. OK?

08:10Within the GIS then, it's a simple conversion to make these discrete spatial objects…

08:15…and then, because we've generated this graphic library, within my modeled corridor…

08:19…I can replace these points with the visual graphics library that we're developing with this ADM.

08:28So some examples of how this works--cohesion, simple conversions--and hope you can start to understand how…

08:35…based on the differences of the rules, the difference in configurations that we're looking for…

08:39…that are custom tailored to species-specific parameterization…

08:44…the characteristics that a particular critter needs to move through that landscape…

08:49…we can start to automatically populate these far-reaching corridors with vegetation patterns and a design…

08:55…that's capable of being supported and promotes this landscape connectivity.

08:59So my closing thoughts.

09:01We need to do a better job of translating science into terms and concepts…

09:06…that land-use planners and landscape designers can readily integrate.

09:09That's one of the things we're serving right now with my research team, serving as translators.

09:15Secondly, these modeled corridor outputs require additional specificity within urban landscapes in order to be implemented.

09:22That's more detailed planning and design are needed.

09:26Those modeled voids need to be populated so that a local city planner can integrate this in some rigorous way.

09:32It's all about taking these out of greenway plans and getting them implemented.

09:37And then, finally, we need better ways to design these large swaths of landscape to make this efficient, to make it applicable.

09:45And these large swaths, in my application in conservation planning, are these modeled corridors.

09:50So we believe through maximizing efficiency, integrating data as the foundation upon which these designs are based…

09:57…so that we're increasing landscape function, and through integrating patterns that are known to enhance connectivity…

10:03…we think we can move in this direction.

10:04And we believe tools such as this new ADM that we're developing will be very critical in helping move us forward in that.

10:12So no fancy sponsors or any logos, partnerships to report at this time…

10:17…just a very dedicated and creative group of graduate research assistants who are that.