Habitat protection distance guidance

Software Support
1

Good morning,

I was reviewing the user guide and some articles where the coastal vulnerability tool is used but it is not clear to me how to define or find the protection distance of each of the habitats, how to do to get that measure, I do not know what methodology I could use Do you know any methodological guide, article, page or another to guide me a bit?

Thanks a lot! :v:

2

Hi @Juanmi_Jurado_C , I don’t have much to offer here beyond what is in the User’s Guide in this section: Coastal Vulnerability Model — InVEST documentation

1 Like
3

Hi,

I also have a doubt about this topic. The guide explains how to calculate the protective distance using ArcGIS, but is this method valid for terrestrial habitats too? How can I measure the distance of shoreline if my habitat is inside my landmass?

4

Hi @gabbmdn -

The protective distance information usually comes from published studies, other literature or expert opinion. It is a single value that is assigned to each habitat type, so you don’t need to create any geospatial data for it. The model will use the protective distance values, along with the location of habitat, to calculate whether each shoreline segment receives protection from each habitat pixel or not.

~ Stacie

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Hi @swolny

Thanks for answering me :slightly_smiling_face: but I’m still having trouble with this. I’m working at city scale and is difficult to find published studies of some habitats, so I followed the User’s Guide, which recommend to use ArcGis in these situations:

“View habitat layers in GIS along with the Landmass in your study area. Using a “distance” or “measurement” tool, measure the distance between the shoreline and habitats that you judge to be close enough to have an effect on nearshore coastal processes. It is best to take multiple measurements and develop a sense of an average acceptable distance across your region that can serve as input”

But habitats such as dunes, lagoons and forests are actually inside the landmass, so I don’t think measuring the distance between the shoreline and these habitats to calculate the protective distance makes much sense… It is like something beyond the urban type would be protecting this urban type. Got me? :sweat_smile:

Also, I have tried to run the model approaching the values found in the literature, but when I visualize the column “R_hab” in ArcGis I found some values that do not represent my area. For example, areas with only urbanized soil are classified as “1,___”, the lowest rank. I think that is because the protective distance is too high.

Can you help me again?