A riparian wildlife habitat evaluation scheme developed using GIS

To evaluate riparian habitat for wildlife, we used a geographic information system (GIS) that prioritized individual streams (for acquisition or manag ement) by habitat ranking. We demonstrate this methodology for the Vermilio n River basin in east-central Illinois, USA. Three data sets were used to e valuate land cover encompassing 300 m on either side of the streams: (1) th e US Geological Survey's land use and land cover information (LUDA), (2) la nd cover manually digitized from the National High Altitude Photography (NH AP) program, and (3) Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data classified into land cover. Each of 30 tributaries in the study area was ranked for habitat acc ording to the data contained in each data set, and results were compared. H abitat ranking schemes were devised and analysis performed for three specle s guilds: forest, grassland, and mixed successional species, TM and NHAP ea ch differentiated habitat scores (for forest, grassland, and mixed successi onal guilds) among tributaries in a similar and suitable way, while LUDA wa s not suitable, due to the coarse resolution of the data. Overall, it was s hown that the methodology is suitable to rank streams based on riparian hab itat quality. Even though more work is needed to test and verify the method , the project has shown the potential for such techniques to assist in eval uating, tracking, and improving the management of riparian wildlife resourc es. The method can easily be applied over large areas such as states if TM- based land cover and stream data are available.