Case Study 3: Fort Huachuca Sentinel Landscape

Water Shapes Everything

Water is the defining resource of the Fort Huachuca Sentinel Landscape.

Situated within the arid and semi-arid ecosystems of southeastern Arizona, the landscape depends on groundwater, mountain-front recharge, springs, cienegas, and the San Pedro River to sustain ecosystems, communities, agriculture, and military operations. Rather than measuring resilience as simply the absence of hazards, this assessment asks a different question:

Which parts of the landscape are best able to continue functioning as water becomes increasingly limited?

Across every hazard evaluated, water repeatedly emerged as a strong driver of resilience. Parcels associated with groundwater-dependent ecosystems, recharge landscapes, riparian corridors, and persistent water sources consistently supported higher resilience than surrounding landscapes, particularly under drought and extreme heat. The drought assessment makes this pattern especially visible, with higher resilience concentrated around water-dependent systems and landscapes that support water capture and storage. See drought map

What the Landscape Reveals

Several clear spatial patterns emerged across the assessment.

1. Resilience concentrates around water. Higher resilience is consistently associated with the San Pedro River corridor, Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, spring complexes, mountain-front recharge zones, and groundwater-dependent ecosystems. These areas function as ecological refugia, maintaining water availability, moderating temperatures, supporting wildlife movement, and sustaining ecosystem function during prolonged drought. This pattern is particularly evident in the drought resilience assessment. See drought map
2. Mountains and persistent waterways provide thermal refugia. Higher elevations within the Coronado National Forest consistently scored higher for extreme temperature resilience, where cooler temperatures, greater vegetation cover, and topographic complexity provide refuge from increasing heat across the basin floor. Persistent waterways also create localized thermal refugia, with areas along perennial and seasonally persistent streams demonstrating greater resilience than surrounding landscapes where surface water is limited. Together, these features stand out against the lower thermal resilience that characterizes much of the basin floor. See extreme heat map
3. Fire is part of a resilient landscape. Unlike many regions, wildfire is not inherently a sign of low resilience. Much of southeastern Arizona evolved with frequent, low-intensity fire. The assessment found that many grassland, shrubland, and woodland systems retain moderate wildfire resilience because they remain adapted to periodic burning. Lower resilience occurs where repeated wildfire exposure and other stressors reduce the landscape's capacity to absorb future disturbance, as well as where wildfire intersects with development, infrastructure, and expanding wildland-urban interface communities. The resulting pattern differs substantially from drought and extreme heat, reflecting the region's fire-adapted ecosystems as well as areas with a history of repeated wildfire. See wildfire map
4. Stress accumulates where multiple pressures overlap. Lower resilience is concentrated where groundwater decline, increasing well density, development pressure, altered hydrology, and fragmented habitats coincide. These locations represent areas where strategic conservation and restoration efforts may provide the greatest long-term benefit.

These patterns identify where resilience is already functioning at landscape scale and where intervention may have the highest strategic return. (Explore the resilience maps.)

From Maps to Decisions

Every parcel received a resilience score for each hazard along with a composite resilience index that identifies areas performing consistently well across multiple environmental stressors. Comparing the individual hazard maps also reveals an important feature of landscape resilience: the same parcel may be highly resilient to one stressor while remaining vulnerable to another.

Rather than identifying where hazards occur, the framework identifies where landscapes are best equipped to withstand them. Viewed together, the maps show where resilience is consistently strong, where vulnerabilities overlap, and where management strategies may need to respond to a specific hazard. Explore the maps below

The scorecard helps partners:

• Identify landscape-scale resilience anchors
• Protect critical groundwater recharge areas
• Prioritize watershed and riparian restoration
• Support compatible land-use planning
• Target fuels management and wildfire preparedness
• Guide conservation easements and land protection
• Strengthen long-term military readiness through natural infrastructure

Why It Matters

Military readiness at Fort Huachuca depends on more than the installation boundary.

Groundwater sustains communities and training operations. Riparian corridors support biodiversity and moderate extreme temperatures. Mountain recharge areas replenish aquifers that maintain water availability throughout the basin. Healthy fire-adapted ecosystems reduce catastrophic wildfire risk while maintaining ecological function.

Together, these systems form the natural infrastructure that supports both mission readiness and landscape resilience.

By translating these interconnected processes into parcel-level scores, the Resilience Scorecard helps partners make informed decisions about where conservation, restoration, and compatible land use can have the greatest long-term impact.

Maps

Explore the Resilience Assessment

The maps below show parcel-level resilience to each of the three hazards evaluated at Fort Huachuca. Scores represent relative resilience within the assessment area, from Very Low to Very High. Comparing the maps illustrates how different landscape characteristics influence resilience to different environmental stressors.

Drought Resilience

Water availability, groundwater-dependent ecosystems, recharge landscapes, and riparian systems contribute to higher drought resilience across portions of the Sentinel Landscape.

Open Drought Map

Extreme Heat Resilience

Thermal resilience is generally lower across the basin floor, while higher elevations, vegetation, topographic complexity, and persistent waterways create important thermal refugia.

Open Extreme Heat Map

Wildfire Resilience

Wildfire resilience reflects the region's fire-adapted ecosystems, while areas with repeated wildfire exposure show lower resilience, producing a spatial pattern distinct from drought and extreme heat.

Open Wildfire Map

A Living Framework

The Fort Huachuca Resilience Scorecard represents a first assessment of landscape resilience using nationally, regionally, and locally available datasets. Rather than providing a final answer, it establishes a transparent and repeatable framework that can be refined through partner expertise, improved datasets, and continued collaboration.

As new information becomes available, the framework can evolve alongside the landscape it is designed to support, ensuring resilience assessments remain relevant for conservation planning, military readiness, and long-term climate adaptation.

Downloads and supporting files are available in the panel to the right.