Identifying riparian climate corridors to inform climate adaptation planning
Fig 2
Using Flow Direction, Flow Accumulation, Flow Length tools to calculate the riparian climate-corridor index for a potential riparian corridor.
a) For all potential riparian cells draining into a given cell in the streamline (outlined in bold, with it and all cells draining into it shown in the same color), we calculate, for each variable (C, R, L), the average value across the cells that contribute (accumulate) to the stream flow cell, and attribute this average value to the streamline cell (or the midline cell, for larger water bodies) using the Flow Direction and Flow Accumulation tools in ArcGIS. We calculate A as the number of potential riparian cells draining into the streamline cell. b) We then calculate, for each variable (C, R, L, A), the average value across all streamline cells from the outlet (O) to the headwater (H), and attribute this average value to the headwater using the Flow Length tool in ArcGIS. We also attribute a value for T, calculated as the absolute difference in temperature between the outlet and headwater cells. We then standardize (0–1) the average value for each variable (for equal weighting) and calculate the index, attributing this index value to the headwater cell. This is repeated for each downstream outlet until reaching the ocean, each time attributing the index value to the headwater cell. Each streamline cell is then given the average index value attributed to its upstream headwaters.