Priority Bird Conservation Areas - Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta - Point Blue [ds3066]

This dataset was developed by Point Blue Conservation Science for a project funded through the Proposition 1 Delta Water Quality and Ecosystem Restoration Program administered by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife titled "Trade-offs and Co-benefits of Landscape Change Scenarios on Bird Communities and Ecosystem Services in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (Grant Agreement Number Q1996022). Priority Bird Conservation Areas were defined as the top 5% highest priority pixels resulting from spatial prioritization analyses conducted on the predicted distributions of 9 species of riparian landbirds during the breeding season and 6 groups of waterbirds during the fall and winter portions of the non-breeding season (see related dataset: "Spatial prioritization for bird conservation in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta"), based on a recent representation of the land cover and land use in the Delta in 2018 (see related dataset: "Baseline and projected future land use and land cover in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta"). These Priority Bird Conservation Areas are encoded as those in the top 5% for waterbirds during either season (value = 1), for riparian landbirds (value = 2), or both (value = 3). See Dybala et al. (In review) for additional details on the development, assumptions, and limitations of these analyses and the underlying species distribution models. In particular, the decisions to give each species equal weight and to use the top 5% as a threshold for inclusion as a Priority Bird Conservation Area were arbitrary, and could be further refined by establishing clearer target species and conservation objectives for birds in the Delta. To explore other threshold values, see the related dataset "Baseline and projected future land use and land cover in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta" which provides the underlying priority ranks resulting from each analysis.

Disclaimer: The State makes no claims, promises, or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, reliability, or adequacy of these data and expressly disclaims liability for errors and omissions in these data. No warranty of any kind, implied, expressed, or statutory, including but not limited to the warranties of non-infringement of third party rights, title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and freedom from computer virus, is given with respect to these data.