Santa Barbara County is a special place with unmatched scenery, a remarkable diversity of plants and animals, and productive ranching and agricultural lands — all of which contribute to County’s economy and quality of life.   A deep agricultural and ranching tradition and strong conservation values have contributed to more open landscape than many other California counties. Despite a long history of land and resource protection, threats to agriculture, open spaces and wildlands are on the rise.  In this time of population growth and need for more housing, global markets and climate change, Santa Barbara County’s citizens must together address the question of how to conserve the landscapes and biodiversity that make this County special, while also making it an economically feasible and vibrant place to live, work and visit.

The Santa Barbara County Conservation Blueprint was developed under the guidance of the project partners and Steering Committee with over two years of research, data collection, interviews, focus groups and public meetings.  This culminated in the Blueprint Report and interactive online Atlas and resource tool available for anyone to use.

The Blueprint Report and Atlas provides a common language and platform for publicly available data to support in depth conversations and informed decisions about the Santa Barbara County landscape. This collaborative project aims to describe the current landscape, natural resources, and community values about land in Santa Barbara County.

The Report

The Blueprint focuses on land base and terrestrial natural resources.  It is broken down into four main chapters. The first two chapters focus on the physical and biological features of the landscape with chapters on Waters Resources and Flora and Fauna in the County.  With the belief that human interaction with the land is an essential component, the remaining two chapters focus on Agricultural Lands and Community and the Land. Each chapter also addresses climate change, interconnections with other theme areas, common values around each theme and multi-benefit solutions to shared resource challenges.

The Atlas

An easy-to-use online interactive Atlas that allows users to view and analyze spatial data about resources and land uses in the County. This mapping portal is comprised of nearly 500 publicly available, science-based datasets distilled into dozens of interactive maps based on five theme areas: water resources, flora and fauna, agricultural and ranch lands, flora and fauna, climate, and community and the land, and climate. Users can also create their own maps and view data to help address their own interest areas or questions.