With 233 and 150 species, the carolinas (north and south carolina, respectively) house one of the richest freshwater fish faunas in the US

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) awarded a $430,682 Competitive State Wildlife Grant (CFDA 15.634) to the Natural Resources South Carolina Department to build an Aquatic Planning Tool (APT) to support conservation of 65 freshwater fish species of greatest conservation need (SGCN) in South Carolina. The project will: (1) compile and integrate data on SGCN distributions, land use, and climate to predict current and future SGCN habitat suitability, (2) develop the web-based APT to visualize SGCN occurrence probabilities and allow users to explore impacts of future development and climate scenarios, and (3) conduct stakeholder outreach to promote APT use for SGCN prioritization, surveys, restoration, and urban planning. The APT will be maintained by the agency and ESRI staff beyond the 3-year project period to guide long-term SGCN conservation in the region.

Unfortunately, 114 of these species are in urgent need of conservation. These species of greatest conservation need (sgcns) are increasingly threatened by factors associated with human encroachment. This problem is particularly urgent as the carolinas are experiencing some of the fastest human population growth in the US. As a result, natural forests and low-intensity agricultural lands are rapidly being converted to roads, housing, and businesses. This dramatic increase in impervious surfaces changes the natural hydrological cycle, with excess surface runoff degrading the critical stream habitats that support sgcns. In fact, many watersheds in the carolinas are expected to be covered by over 30 impervious surface by 2050WELL over critical tipping point thresholds beyond which sgcns cannot recover. As such, proactive conservation is vital for conserving freshwater fish sgcns in the carolinas. Our proposed project will enable (a) better prioritization and survey efforts for sgcns, (b) more effective sgcn restoration and reintroduction, and (c) smart development to minimize impacts to sgcns in this rapidly changing region. Our goal is to increase capacity for proactive conservation of all freshwater fish sgcns in the four atlantic slope river basins shared between north and south carolina by building a web-based aquatic planning tool (APT). The APT will allow practitioners to better manage sgcns by providing predictive maps of the effects of proposed future development and restoration. To build the APT, we will accomplish three key projects. In project 1, we will compile three transboundary datasets of freshwater fish distributions and current future land cover and climate variables to inform two investigations. We will then use innovative species distribution models to predict current distributions of sgcns across the carolinas. Based on these models, we will next use future land use, temperature, and precipitation data to predict future sgcn distributions under changing land use and climate scenarios. These model results will form the foundation for project 2: building the APT. The APT will have two primary functions, the first being an application to visualize current occurrence probabilities of sgcns and their relationships with land use and climate across the project area. The apts second function will be an interactive online tool allowing users to explore predicted impacts of future land management and climate scenarios on sgcns at any stream segment the project area. The APT will be maintained indefinitely by scdnr and esri staff well beyond the timeline of this project. In project 3, we will conduct a variety of outreach events and stakeholder engagement to promote the conservation and management of sgcns through use of the APT. The APT will be used by numerous and diverse conservation practitioners to guide future sgcn prioritization and surveys, restoration and reintroduction, and smart city development to prevent the worst impacts of urbanization on 65 freshwater fish sgcns.