Current Vulnerability
Information about the geographic distribution of cumulative
impacts and resources can be used to identify areas that are most
vulnerable to environmental degradation. For example, areas with
high levels of stress and with high aquatic species diversity might
be considered to have the most vulnerable aquatic populations. Areas
with high levels of stress but low numbers of species are already
degraded.
This map shows the distribution of aquatic native species in
relative terms; i.e. the 25% of watersheds with lowest
species counts up to the 25% with highest counts. This map adds the
normalized values of the stressors and breaks them into four equal
bins with the ones with the most stressors in the right most column
(column 4). The single resource uses the normalized value and breaks
it into 4 equal bins.
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