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LandScope Chesapeake
The shared conservation priority system for the Chesapeake Bay watershed
Chesapeake Bay
Goal

LandScope Chesapeake provides a publicly accessible, watershed-wide land conservation priority system to support and monitor progress toward the goals established under the Chesapeake Bay Executive Order. Signed in 2009, Executive Order 13508 called for a renewed effort to restore and protect the Bay and its watershed.

The resulting multi-agency strategy established several specific conservation and restoration goals for 2025, including two that LandScope Chesapeake will support:

  • the protection of two million acres of high-priority conservation lands
  • the creation of 300 new public access points

Those using LandScope Chesapeake can view and see how multiple sets of conservation priority maps relate to each other in a single view. For example, an application user may view state Wildlife Action Plans, agricultural priority preservation areas, rural legacy programs, and regional greenprints to see how they relate to each other. In addition to robust mapping capabilities, partners using LandScope Chesapeake can also share place-based narrative content, photos, and videos. This allows them to share success stories and inspire users.

The values they support include:

  • Working lands and waters
  • Recreational priorities
  • Historic and cultural areas
  • Scenic vistas
  • Wildlife habitat
  • Clean water
  • Protected lands

The partners are also working together to improve and advance LandScope's functionality, both to serve the Chesapeake land conservation community's needs and to enhance their ability to report progress toward watershed-wide land protection goals.

 

 

Significance

NatureServe, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the National Park Service, working with lead partners in each Bay state, agreed to establish a dedicated section for the Chesapeake watershed within the existing LandScope America application.

By using LandScope Chesapeake, partners can share a carefully curated collection of conservation priority and other maps across the watershed. LandScope Chesapeake also provides an accurate baseline for tracking progress and supporting watershed-wide collaboration toward the Executive Order goals.

LandScope Chesapeake leverages several million dollars of public and private investment that, in addition to serving practitioners and policy-makers, offers an educational resource capable of improving landowners’ and citizens’ understanding of how local land protection contributes to broader conservation efforts.

 

 

Additional Resources