Waterfowl Molting Habitat Selection Scenarios for Teshekpuk Lake, Alaska, 2020

Vijay P. Patil of the United States Geological Survey created a polygon shapefile representing habitat selection scenarios for molting waterfowl in the Goose Molting Area of the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area in northern Alaska. The dataset includes polygons with 1-mile or 3-mile buffers designed to achieve specific population coverage levels for Pacific Black Brant and Canada Geese, incorporating existing Bureau of Land Management restriction areas. It was generated for the NPR-A Integrated Activity Plan/Environmental Impact Statement in 2020.

Use Cases

• Modeling disturbance impacts on molting waterfowl based on buffer distances around lakes
• Planning surface occupancy restrictions for oil and gas development based on habitat polygons
• Assessing population coverage for Pacific Black Brant and Canada Geese based on selected molt units
• Integrating habitat conservation scenarios into environmental impact statements

Strengths

• Dataset is based on the formally defined Goose Molting Area boundaries from the 2013 Record of Decision
• Polygons incorporate specific 1-mile and 3-mile buffers along the Beaufort Sea coastline and Teshekpuk Lake
• Scenarios reflect two buffer widths to account for uncertainty in disturbance mitigation distances

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified

Provenance

Source

United States Geological Survey

Collection Method

Polygons were generated using buffer widths around interconnected lakes (molt units) within a defined area.

Time Range

2020

Geography

Goose Molting Area of the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area, northern Alaska