This dataset is the fourth installment of a yearly connectivity update for open habitat within the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative's (GLRI) Terrestrial Habitats & Connectivity (TH&C) work group's Pilot Area. The Pilot Area is a region of the northern Great Lakes Basin between Ashland, WI and the Keweenaw Peninsula and is bounded by Lake Superior in the north and the basin boundary in the south, including a 70 km buffer. Each year the TH&C selects project proposals for funding within the pilot area. These proposals involve either restoration, research, or land acquisition aimed at improving or increasing open connectivity in this area. The intended purpose of each year’s update is to understand the effects of funded projects on the ground work and help inform the ___location and purpose of future projects proposals. The 2023 open habitat connectivity maps serve as a fourth time step for comparison for each fiscal year from pre 2021 into the future.
To create the post FY23 installment of GLRI's Terrestrial Habitats & Connectivity work group's pilot area yearly connectivity maps, we identified the geospatial locations where restoration work benefitting open habitats was completed throughout FY22. These locations were then assigned the lowest resistance value. Then using the open habitat resistance layer from Great Lakes Restoration Initiative's Terrestrial Habitats and Connectivity Work group's Pilot Area's post-fiscal year 2022 we overwrote the post FY22 resistance values with the resistance values assigned to the FY23 locations where work was done. This analysis produced two connectivity maps: a cumulative current map and a normalized current map. The cumulative current map shows where potential movement pathways between open habitat are located within the pilot area, while the normalized current map shows where obstructed movement, diffuse movement, and channelized movement occurs within the pilot area. These maps provide important information on how restoration efforts in the pilot area from both FY21, FY22, and FY23 are affecting open habitat connectivity.