Riparian climate refugia data in western and central USA for 2040-2069 and 2070-2099

We mapped potential climate change refugia for riparian areas in the central and western USA for 2040-2069 and 2070-2099. Riparian refugia are existing riparian areas that are projected to maintain riparian vegetation and associated ecological function under plausible future climates. Four input variables were included in the riparian refugia index: two landscape variables that represent where existing riparian areas may be more resilient to climatic changes (riparian connectedness and landscape diversity) and two climate variables that reflect projected exposure to climate change (runoff and warm days). For the climate variables, we considered two global circulation models: moderately hot and wet (CNRM-CM5) and hot and dry (IPSL-CM5A-MR) under RCP 8.5. The climate variables represented the projected change from a historical baseline (1971-2000) for two future 30-year time periods, mid-century (2040-2069) and late century (2070-2099). The four input variables of uniform pixel size were assigned equal weights and layered together using ArcGIS Pro’s Suitability Modeler to create an index for riparian refugial quality. Here we provide raster layers for the riparian refugia index and three of the four input variables including riparian connectedness, runoff, and warm days. The fourth input variable, landscape diversity, was produced by The Nature Conservancy and is available online at The Nature Conservancy’s Resilient and Connected Network. The four climate scenarios (CNRM-CM5 2040-2069, CNRM-CM5 2070-2099, IPSL-CM5A-MR 2040-2069, and IPSL-CM5A-MR 2070-209) are included as individual rasters for the riparian refugia index, runoff, and warm days, and are zipped into each base folder. We also provide a geodatabase that contains all the data (riparian refugia index, riparian connectedness, runoff, and warm days).