The dataset was origianlly created to provide an index for identifying managed land in the State of Hawaii based on guidelines provied by the National Gap Program.
Introduction: Gap analysis compares an overlay of land cover types and vertebrate species distribution to land management practices in order to provide an indication of the biodiversity protection status in the study area. Hawaii GAP Analysis Program (HI-GAP) has developed a stewardship dataset in GIS format, indicating areas which are managed and/or protected for biodiversity conservation. The dataset includes entries for each managed or protected land area in the State of Hawaii. To facilitate the evaluation of biodiversity protection, HI-GAP assigned all parcels in the state into one of four categories of management status indicating the land managers' investment or involvement in biodiversity protection. In many cases, management status could be established through review of a landowners' and the management area's written management plan. Federal lands such as National Parks have a mandated management plan in place to prevent the conversion of natural habitat to anthropogenic habitats and to insure the long-term survival of indigenous flora and fauna. It is recognized under Gap analysis protocol that private land is generally grouped into a homogeneous category of "general" or "unprotected" and does not distinguish small landowners unless they indicate a permanent commitment to biodiversity management. In some cases, private lands are established as permanently protected natural areas with on-going management actions designed to sustain natural diversity. These lands area indicated as managed lands in the stewardship dataset.
A distinction is made between land manager and landowner in the stewardship layer. For example, the State of Hawaii owns several forest reserves used and managed by the federal government for military training. In this case the landowner is not the entity responsible for managing the land. In other cases, land owners have allowed for the incorporation of their parcels within management boundaries, but have not establish "permanence" to the management distinction. HI-GAP incorporated one attribute to identify the agency responsible for managing each parcel of land. However, ownership information is also tracked. To complete the stewardship layer for Hawaii a large number of data sources in different projections and with varied levels of accuracy were used in conjunction with digital parcel layers for the state.
Methods: HI-GAP has established a land stewardship and management status dataset. The stewardship layers are a combination of management status and land ownership. Management areas such as state natural area reserves, state forest reserves, national military training areas, and national military reservations are composed of federal, state, and private lands. The stewardship status assigned to each parcel was based on national gap standards (Edwards et al. 2000), which were redefined to accommodate the Hawaiian setting while seeking to maintain consistency of intent across GAP projects. The following definitions were employed:
Land designated as "status 1" is associated with permanent protection and actively managed for biodiversity value. Areas in status 1 are understood to be permanently dedicated to biodiversity conservation and have an institutional mandate to protect the biota for long-term viability. Land managed in status 1 have a management plan in place and threats to biodiversity are addressed with on the ground management efforts. For example, Fish and Wildlife Refuges, National Parks, and Nature Conservancy Preserves generally are categorized as status 1.
Status 2 lands are associated with active management in conjunction with multiple-use: areas in status 2 are protected from conversion to a non-natural state and have a management plan in place. These management areas accommodate multiple-use and may be managed both for extractive purposes and biodiversity value.
Land managed as status 3 is protected from conversion of natural land cover to a non-natural state. For example, watershed partnership protection zones and forest reserves are often categorized as status 3. Unlike status 2, these lands are not managed to abate threats to biodiversity value but are protected as conservation areas.
Land not managed for biodiversity is categorized as status 4. For example, urban/suburban areas and commercial zones are placed into this category. Land Ownership
Information of Hawaii's land ownership was obtained from State of Hawaii and City and County of Honolulu. Land ownership information was provided in digital parcel layers digitized from public records. The stewardship layers for the state used the most recent data available to the public. The digital parcel layers for the county of Honolulu have a positional accuracy value of +/- 6 feet. The parcel layers have a source scale denominator of 1200. All other islands used parcel data provided by the State of Hawaii were digitized from paper plat maps provided by the Hawaii Tax Office. The horizontal accuracy varies between 1:48000 to 1:60000 depending on the scale of the original paper plat map. The source scale denominator for the data varies due to varied accuracy scales.
Management Areas
Boundaries for administrative areas under the jurisdiction of the State of Hawaii were derived from the office of planning's reserve layer. The boundaries of the reserve layer were defined based on City and County parcel data with input from state foresters and others familiar with the reserve boundaries. To maintain consistency in the stewardship layer between various sources of management area boundaries HI-GAP used the legal boundary of a management area. If the difference between a management area boundary and a parcel boundary were equal to or greater than 80 acres the parcel layer was split to fit the boundary set by the reserve layer from the State Planning Office.
In the State of Hawaii some reserves have areas within the larger reserve that receive more management for biodiversity integrity. In these areas the management area was divided into smaller units of management based on information provided by various sources including Hawaii National Guard, National Park Service, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and the State of Hawaii.
Management Status
Management status was assigned to an area based on the areas' stewardship and management plan. Management areas without a set management plan were classified during various stewardship working groups that were attended by representatives of all major lands managed for biodiversity.
In some cases, management areas could not be assigned to a single management status category because the area contained parcels of different ownership within the larger management area. For example, private lands occur within the boundaries of state forest reserves. These private lands are not bound by the management guidelines established for each forest reserve, making the private parcel's stewardship rating lower than the surrounding forest reserve. Management areas were evaluated on a case by case basis by local conservation practitioners familiar with management practices on a given parcel.
The State of Hawaii contains several watershed management areas. The watershed management areas were created to bring various land owners together under one management plan to protect biodiversity throughout the watershed. These management plans increase the level of management on private land making areas generally considered a status 4 increase to a higher status of 3 or 2 because the land is being actively managed in various ways to maintain biodiversity.
During the process of creating the stewardship layers the HI-GAP established several attributes for the stewardship layers that would increase the usefulness of the data. The additions to the layers included creating attributes of military lands, area management name, land manager, and secondary land use. The addition of these attributes to the final layers makes querying data easier and suites a larger user group. Some lands owned and managed by one land manager serve two or more purposes. For example, the Department of Land and Natural Resources manages some state forest reserves while the land is used for military training and also serves as a public hunting area. The multiple uses of these lands is accounted for in the stewardship layers.
This dataset was created using parcel layers provided by the State of Hawaii and the City and County of Honolulu. Land management information was obtained from National Park Service, The Nature Conservancy, State Office of Planning, Hawaii National Guard, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, The Hawaii Natural Heritage Program, and United States Marine Corp. The various layers were used to classify each parcel in the state into one of four gap management status categories. Individual parcels were divided if the land manager could provide information that would classify half the property as managed to a higher level than the remaining of the property.