I am running InVEST HQ model to map the habitat quality across the forested lands in the US. I have few questions about the model:
Since I have different forest classes I want to assign different weight ranging from 0.5 to 1. Should the suitability weights be 0 or 1 , or I can have continuous range (e.g., 0.5, .06, .07, etc. )?
Do you suggest any good sources for threats, sensitivity and importance in the US?
Yes, the suitability weights can have a continuous range.
The threat layers can be sourced from any spatial data that you have that are relevant to your species. Perhaps roads from Open Street Map, agriculture or urban areas extracted from the land use/land cover map, etc.
I don’t know of specific sources for sensitivity, but you could try looking for studies that were done in the US in the libraries linked to on the Publications page our web site. There are links to studies done by NatCap, as well as studies done by the larger community, which includes information on which models were used.