• What is MassCAPS
• Massachusetts Ecological Integrity Maps
• MassDEP Important Habitat Maps
• CAPS home page

What is MassCAPS?

MassCAPS is a website devoted to the dissemination of CAPS (Conservation Assessment and Prioritization System) information for the state of Massachusetts. This website is merely a portal to the CAPS information maintained on Dr. Kevin McGarigal's University of Massachusetts Landscape Ecology Program website.

Briefly, CAPS is a natural community-based approach for assessing the ecological integrity of lands and waters and prioritizing land for habitat and biodiversity conservation. We define ecological integrity as the ability of an area to support biodiversity and the ecosystem processes necessary to sustain biodiversity over the long term. Our approach assumes that by conserving intact, ecologically-defined communities of high integrity, we can conserve most species and ecosystems.

The first step in our assessment of ecological integrity involves mapping natural communities (e.g. conifer forest, grassland, shrub swamp, first-order cascading stream). We then apply "landscape metrics" to each point and patch in the landscape. A metric may, for example, take into account the size of a natural community patch, its proximity to streams and rivers, the diversity of soil units in the patch, or the intensity of roads in the vicinity. Several metrics are applied to the landscape and then integrated in a weighted linear model specifically developed for each natural community. This process results in a final "Index of Ecological Integrity" (IEI) for each point in the landscape.

The IEI is calculated by the CAPS computer program developed at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The Index of Ecological Integrity depicts the relative wildlife habitat and biodiversity value of any point on the landscape based on landscape ecology principles and expert opinion.

Our approach, piloted in the Housatonic watershed and the Highlands Communities region of Massachusetts, is landscape-oriented and focused on a comprehensive valuation of the entire landscape, not just local occurrences. It attempts to combine many complex spatial relationships in the landscape that drive ecological processes.

Massachusetts Ecological Integrity Maps:

Currently, Index of Ecological Integrity maps have been completed for some or all of 59 communities in the Highlands and Housatonic Regions of Western Massachusetts (see status map). It is estimated that statewide assessment and mapping of Ecological Integrity value will be completed by the end of 2008.

Click here for more information on the Mass Ecological Integrity maps and GIS data.
[Ecological Integrity Maps]

Mass DEP Important Habitat Maps:

MassDEP recently adopted a new approach to wildlife habitat management via assessment and mapping of important wildlife habitat for use in wetland protection review and permitting. This approach utilizes CAPS to create a set of maps that depict "Habitat of Potential Regional or Statewide Importance."

Click here for more information on the "Important Habitat" maps for purposes of implementing the wildlife habitat provisions of the MA Wetlands Protection Act. [DEP Important Habitat Maps]

CAPS Website:

CAPS is being developed by a team of scientists and extension specialists at the Unversity of Massachusetts, Amherst. For more detailed information about CAPS and its applications go to the CAPS home page. [CAPS Home Page]

Funding support for CAPS was provided by the University of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affair and The Trustees of Reservations. Data sources include the Office of Geographic and Environmental Information (MassGIS).