LUCAS can also be used to assess the impact of land cover change on certain ecological variables as outlined in Section1.1. Currently only the impact on species' habitat is modeled. Figure 7 shows the GRASS monitor which appears before and after a simulation of Scenario 4 from Table 5, displaying both the changes in land cover and in the habitat region for the European Starling.
Although most of the scenarios mentioned earlier are for the Little Tennessee River Basin, other domains are also supported. Figure 8 shows the same scenario run on the Hoh Watershed on the Olympic Peninsula with impacts on the habitat of the Red Squirrel. Notice that different impacts are available in different watersheds (Table 1).
Figure 7: GRASS Monitor: Little Tennessee River Basin.
Figure 8: GRASS Monitor: Hoh Watershed on the Olympic Peninsula.