According to the NCA5, Colorado is part of the Southwest region. 

Here are applicable Key Messages for the Southwest related to Communities and Management. 

Key: blue highlight = historical trends, yellow highlight = projected trends, and green highlight = both historical and projected trends. 

Summary 

“A portion of observed increases in inland flood damages can be attributed to changes in precipitation” (2)

Figure 4.12: "Cumulative inland flood damages (in 2021 dollars) across the contiguous US (gray) and estimated portion due to changes in precipitation (green) are shown for 1988-2021. Over this period, heavy precipitation has increased over most of the US due to climate change (see Figure 2.8 for heavy precipitation changes over the 1958-2021 period). Error bars (in green) show the plausible range of cumulative damages in 2021, calculating a 95% confidence level. Roughly 20-46% of increases in observed flood damages can be attributed to increasing precipitation (assuming the same historical development patterns over the period 1988-2021). Other important contributors to flood damage include urbanization and land-use change, which can exacerbate runoff, and growth in the number and value of flood-affected buildings and other assets. Adapted from Davenport et al. 2021" (2).

“Food security is an outcome of the food system, which influences and is influenced by the climate system, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems” (13)

Figure 11.9: "A food system is a complex network that encompasses all inputs and outputs involved food production, foraging, harvesting, transport, processing, retailing, consumption, and food loss and waste. There can be different types of food systems, each having impacts on and being impacted by climate, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems. Interactions between these systems influence human well-being through food security outcomes, such as food availability, access, utilization, and stability. Interventions, such as mitigation and adaptation, can reduce risks to food systems, which improves food security and well-being within socioeconomic systems. Adapted with permission from Figure 5.1 in Mbow et al. 2019" (13).

As of the 2023 release of the NCA5, “approximately 38 million people in the United States live in food-insecure households” (13). As climate change results in “increasingly frequent and severe extreme events… food system disruptions… will disproportionately affect food accessibility, nutrition, and health,” particularly in low-income and underserved communities, who already face many of these risks due to their rural location (13, 14). Additionally, communities who rely on hunting, foraging, and subsistence farming - whether for cultural, recreational, financial, or other reasons - may be at increased risk of food insecurity (13). 

“Ecosystems provide a broad range of relational benefits, from the material to the spiritual” (10)

Figure 8.17: "Ecosystem services, also called "nature's contributions to people," are the benefits that humans receive or derive from ecosystems. These are both material (e.g., energy sources) and non-material (e.g., sense of place), and contribute to the regulation of ecosystem processes. The broad categories of benefits pictured are fluid and overlapping. People value nature in multiple ways, such as "living as" nature (Figure 16.3) or "living from" nature (e.g., people's dependency on key services). Adapted from O'Connor and Kenter 2019" (10).

“Climate and non-climate stressors together affect biodiversity, ecosystems, and the services they provide” (7)

Figure 8.1: "Species and ecosystems respond to pressures in different ways, such as shifting their locations or transforming into new, often degraded systems less able to provide ecosystem services. Adaptation measures can help species and ecosystems cope with some climate impacts but are not always going ot be effective or feasible, requiring increasingly difficult decisions on what resources to prioritize and what changes to accept. Adapted from Lipton et al. 2018" (7).

“Losses due to floods are projected to increase disproportionately in US Census tracts with higher percentages of Black residents” (2)

Figure 4.14: "Average annual losses - economic damages in a typical year - due to floods in census tracts with a Black population of at least 20% are projected to increase at roughly twice the rate of that in tracts where Black residents make up less than 1% of the population. Black bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Adapted from Wing et al. 2022" (2).

“Indigenous holistic worldviews offer diverse and complex expressions of climate change” (15) 

Figure 16.3: "As an intentionally non-exhaustive example by particular Indigenous designers, the "Indigenous holistic worldview" image demonstrates interconnected drivers of sustenance, climate change impacts, and future aspirations. Illustrations connecting human social systems and the environment, including the relationship between social justice (e.g., colonialism, racism) and environmental change (e.g., ecological degradation, pollution), represent certain Indigenous approaches to climate change. Figure credit: © STACCWG 2021. Used with permission" (15).

The present and projected effects of climate change “disrupt the conditions for critical Indigenous subsistence practices… [which] Indigenous livelihoods and economies often rely on,” along with “natural resource management, small businesses, nonprofit organizations, community development corporations and financial institutions, Tribal government employment and contracts, Tribal enterprises, and multinational corporations” (16). 

Tribal communities have expressed the “need for climate impact assessments as a first step to resilience planning and identified information about climate change impacts to water as a top priority” (3). Lack of data, and lack of data sovereignty, are major barriers to Tribal and Indigenous response to climate change (3). Other priorities include “food security, protection of Traditional Knowledge, and Tribal capacity to implement adaptation plans, monitor and collect data, and conduct climate vulnerability assessments are also high priorities” (3). While federal assistance is available for some Tribes, barriers include “access to limited resources, including agency requirements (e.g., funding matches); lack of Tribal capacity; and navigating interagency processes” (3). 

Similarly, the “lack of [Indigenous communities’] capacity to transition toward renewable energy can be considered a vulnerability to climate change - that is, vulnerability to being excluded from unlocking the capacity to enact mitigation measures” (16). Indigenous self-determination in renewable energy includes “barriers to infrastructure ownership, access to financing tax initiatives, the navigation of regulations and jurisdictions, and income opportunities from renewables” (16). 

Additionally, effects of climate change on culturally-significant ecosystems “exacerbat[e] environmental injustices affecting Indigenous and Tribal food sovereignty, health, cultural practices, and knowledge transmission” (5). This is because “Indigenous concepts of health and well-being often remain closely tied to the health of the environment, waters, and more-than-human relatives that provide for subsistence and cultural needs” (16). In addition to impacts from food insecurity and more widespread climate-related health concerns (such as heat-related stress), Indigenous Peoples are also experiencing “post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, suicide, and other mental, spiritual, and socio-emotional health challenges” (16). 

Ultimately, self-determination is central to Indigenous Peoples’ “decisions about how to respond to climate change in ways that meet community-defined needs and aspirations. Indigenous climate resilience requires having adequate options for deciding how to adapt to and mitigate climate change and the capacity to implement decisions and make strategic decisions upon evaluation” (17). However, “Indigenous self-determination has been limited by institutions and policies, colonial in their organizational structure, that enable federal, state, and local governments and private industry to make decisions for Indigenous Peoples and to maintain low levels of funding and administrative support for implementation” (17). Therefore, “many Tribes have called for Indigenous-led management, as well as comanagement of lands, waters, and other resources currently under federal or state management… [which] represents opportunities to assert Tribal resource-management practices that address climate change” (17). 

“Natural hydrologic variability can promote urgency or complacency in long-term planning” (3) 

Figure 4.18: "The figure shows hydrologic variability in both space and time: (a, b) runoff variability (a surrogate for streamflow variability) across the country between two decades, with the boundary of the Upper Colorado River Basin shown; and streamflow variability across time with (c) estimates of Colorado River flows from historical observations and (d) reconstructed flows from ancient tree rings (blue line), with data from (c) showin in orange. Wedges point to two negotiated policy events. Figure credit: Lynker and University of Colorado Boulder" (3).

How are communities addressing these changes?

“Nature-based solutions buffer the effects of climate change” (10)

Figure 8.18: "Nature-based solutions (NBS) are actions to protect, manage, and restore ecosystems to address societal challenges such as climate change. Examples in the US include (a) oyster restoration; (b) cover cropping; (c) stormwater management; and (d) urban agriculture. These not only help buffer the impacts of climate change, such as through physical barriers or improved local microclimates, but also provide additional benefits like food and habitat provisioning. Figure credit: Rutgers University and NPS. See figure metadata for additional contributors. Photo credits: (a) Linda Walters, NPS; (b) David Bosch, USDA; (c) Alisha Goldstein, EPA; (d) Bob Nichols, USDA" (10).

“Decision frameworks can help plan for the potential transformation of ecosystems,” (8)

Figure 8.9: "Two examples of adaptive decision frameworks are the Corals and Climate Adaptation Planning cycle (a) and the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework (b). In (a), users are guided through assessment and design considerations to adjust climate-smart management interventions. In (b), the current ecosystem (gray) is affected by either moderate or strong transformational forcing that drives decisions (black dots) to resist (red time periods), accept (yellow time periods), and direct (green time periods) the trajectory of change. (a) Adapted from West et al. 2017, 2018; (b) adapted from Lynch et al. 2022" (8).

“Monitoring programs are critically important for observing and projecting trends in resilience, species invasions, range shifts, declines, and extinctions” (8)

Figure 8.8: "Federally operated networks (NPS I&M, NERR) and other long-term networks (LTER, LTAR, NEON, MBON, AmeriFlux) provide consistent and permanent observations at limited sites, whereas volunteer networks (USA-NPN, Indigenous Sentinels) offer more oportunistic observations across a wider landscape. Together, these networks provide critical data for understanding species and ecosystem changes, although gaps in coverage remain. Figure credit: Lynker and USGS" (8).

According to the NCA5, Kansas is part of the Southern Great Plains region. 

Here are applicable Key Messages for the Southern Great Plains related to Communities and Management. 

Key: blue highlight = historical trends, yellow highlight = projected trends, and green highlight = both historical and projected trends. 

The Southern Great Plains is known for its “food, fiber, and energy production, in addition to recreational activities”; however, climate change impacts have “harmed all communities, damaging infrastructure and agricultural production, disruption commerce and price stability, and amplifying social inequities” (19). 

Summary 

“A portion of observed increases in inland flood damages can be attributed to changes in precipitation” (2)

Figure 4.12: "Cumulative inland flood damages (in 2021 dollars) across the contiguous US (gray) and estimated portion due to changes in precipitation (green) are shown for 1988-2021. Over this period, heavy precipitation has increased over most of the US due to climate change (see Figure 2.8 for heavy precipitation changes over the 1958-2021 period). Error bars (in green) show the plausible range of cumulative damages in 2021, calculating a 95% confidence level. Roughly 20-46% of increases in observed flood damages can be attributed to increasing precipitation (assuming the same historical development patterns over the period 1988-2021). Other important contributors to flood damage include urbanization and land-use change, which can exacerbate runoff, and growth in the number and value of flood-affected buildings and other assets. Adapted from Davenport et al. 2021" (2).

“Food security is an outcome of the food system, which influences and is influenced by the climate system, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems” (13)

Figure 11.9: "A food system is a complex network that encompasses all inputs and outputs involved food production, foraging, harvesting, transport, processing, retailing, consumption, and food loss and waste. There can be different types of food systems, each having impacts on and being impacted by climate, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems. Interactions between these systems influence human well-being through food security outcomes, such as food availability, access, utilization, and stability. Interventions, such as mitigation and adaptation, can reduce risks to food systems, which improves food security and well-being within socioeconomic systems. Adapted with permission from Figure 5.1 in Mbow et al. 2019" (13).

As of the 2023 release of the NCA5, “approximately 38 million people in the United States live in food-insecure households” (13). As climate change results in “increasingly frequent and severe extreme events… food system disruptions… will disproportionately affect food accessibility, nutrition, and health,” particularly in low-income and underserved communities, who already face many of these risks due to their rural location (13, 14). Additionally, communities who rely on hunting, foraging, and subsistence farming - whether for cultural, recreational, financial, or other reasons - may be at increased risk of food insecurity (13). 

“Ecosystems provide a broad range of relational benefits, from the material to the spiritual” (10)

Figure 8.17: "Ecosystem services, also called "nature's contributions to people," are the benefits that humans receive or derive from ecosystems. These are both material (e.g., energy sources) and non-material (e.g., sense of place), and contribute to the regulation of ecosystem processes. The broad categories of benefits pictured are fluid and overlapping. People value nature in multiple ways, such as "living as" nature (Figure 16.3) or "living from" nature (e.g., people's dependency on key services). Adapted from O'Connor and Kenter 2019" (10).

“Climate and non-climate stressors together affect biodiversity, ecosystems, and the services they provide” (7)

Figure 8.1: "Species and ecosystems respond to pressures in different ways, such as shifting their locations or transforming into new, often degraded systems less able to provide ecosystem services. Adaptation measures can help species and ecosystems cope with some climate impacts but are not always going ot be effective or feasible, requiring increasingly difficult decisions on what resources to prioritize and what changes to accept. Adapted from Lipton et al. 2018" (7).

“Losses due to floods are projected to increase disproportionately in US Census tracts with higher percentages of Black residents” (2)

Figure 4.14: "Average annual losses - economic damages in a typical year - due to floods in census tracts with a Black population of at least 20% are projected to increase at roughly twice the rate of that in tracts where Black residents make up less than 1% of the population. Black bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Adapted from Wing et al. 2022" (2).

“Indigenous holistic worldviews offer diverse and complex expressions of climate change” (15) 

Figure 16.3: "As an intentionally non-exhaustive example by particular Indigenous designers, the "Indigenous holistic worldview" image demonstrates interconnected drivers of sustenance, climate change impacts, and future aspirations. Illustrations connecting human social systems and the environment, including the relationship between social justice (e.g., colonialism, racism) and environmental change (e.g., ecological degradation, pollution), represent certain Indigenous approaches to climate change. Figure credit: © STACCWG 2021. Used with permission" (15).

The present and projected effects of climate change “disrupt the conditions for critical Indigenous subsistence practices… [which] Indigenous livelihoods and economies often rely on,” along with “natural resource management, small businesses, nonprofit organizations, community development corporations and financial institutions, Tribal government employment and contracts, Tribal enterprises, and multinational corporations” (16). 

Tribal communities have expressed the “need for climate impact assessments as a first step to resilience planning and identified information about climate change impacts to water as a top priority” (3). Lack of data, and lack of data sovereignty, are major barriers to Tribal and Indigenous response to climate change (3). Other priorities include “food security, protection of Traditional Knowledge, and Tribal capacity to implement adaptation plans, monitor and collect data, and conduct climate vulnerability assessments are also high priorities” (3). While federal assistance is available for some Tribes, barriers include “access to limited resources, including agency requirements (e.g., funding matches); lack of Tribal capacity; and navigating interagency processes” (3). 

Similarly, the “lack of [Indigenous communities’] capacity to transition toward renewable energy can be considered a vulnerability to climate change - that is, vulnerability to being excluded from unlocking the capacity to enact mitigation measures” (16). Indigenous self-determination in renewable energy includes “barriers to infrastructure ownership, access to financing tax initiatives, the navigation of regulations and jurisdictions, and income opportunities from renewables” (16). 

Additionally, effects of climate change on culturally-significant ecosystems “exacerbat[e] environmental injustices affecting Indigenous and Tribal food sovereignty, health, cultural practices, and knowledge transmission” (5, 20). This is because “Indigenous concepts of health and well-being often remain closely tied to the health of the environment, waters, and more-than-human relatives that provide for subsistence and cultural needs” (16). In addition to impacts from food insecurity and more widespread climate-related health concerns (such as heat-related stress), Indigenous Peoples are also experiencing “post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, suicide, and other mental, spiritual, and socio-emotional health challenges” (16). 

Ultimately, self-determination is central to Indigenous Peoples’ “decisions about how to respond to climate change in ways that meet community-defined needs and aspirations. Indigenous climate resilience requires having adequate options for deciding how to adapt to and mitigate climate change and the capacity to implement decisions and make strategic decisions upon evaluation” (17). However, “Indigenous self-determination has been limited by institutions and policies, colonial in their organizational structure, that enable federal, state, and local governments and private industry to make decisions for Indigenous Peoples and to maintain low levels of funding and administrative support for implementation” (17). Therefore, “many Tribes have called for Indigenous-led management, as well as comanagement of lands, waters, and other resources currently under federal or state management… [which] represents opportunities to assert Tribal resource-management practices that address climate change” (17). 

“Natural hydrologic variability can promote urgency or complacency in long-term planning” (3) 

Figure 4.18: "The figure shows hydrologic variability in both space and time: (a, b) runoff variability (a surrogate for streamflow variability) across the country between two decades, with the boundary of the Upper Colorado River Basin shown; and streamflow variability across time with (c) estimates of Colorado River flows from historical observations and (d) reconstructed flows from ancient tree rings (blue line), with data from (c) showin in orange. Wedges point to two negotiated policy events. Figure credit: Lynker and University of Colorado Boulder" (3).

How are communities addressing these changes?

“Nature-based solutions buffer the effects of climate change” (10)

Figure 8.18: "Nature-based solutions (NBS) are actions to protect, manage, and restore ecosystems to address societal challenges such as climate change. Examples in the US include (a) oyster restoration; (b) cover cropping; (c) stormwater management; and (d) urban agriculture. These not only help buffer the impacts of climate change, such as through physical barriers or improved local microclimates, but also provide additional benefits like food and habitat provisioning. Figure credit: Rutgers University and NPS. See figure metadata for additional contributors. Photo credits: (a) Linda Walters, NPS; (b) David Bosch, USDA; (c) Alisha Goldstein, EPA; (d) Bob Nichols, USDA" (10).

“Decision frameworks can help plan for the potential transformation of ecosystems,” (8)

Figure 8.9: "Two examples of adaptive decision frameworks are the Corals and Climate Adaptation Planning cycle (a) and the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework (b). In (a), users are guided through assessment and design considerations to adjust climate-smart management interventions. In (b), the current ecosystem (gray) is affected by either moderate or strong transformational forcing that drives decisions (black dots) to resist (red time periods), accept (yellow time periods), and direct (green time periods) the trajectory of change. (a) Adapted from West et al. 2017, 2018; (b) adapted from Lynch et al. 2022" (8).

“Monitoring programs are critically important for observing and projecting trends in resilience, species invasions, range shifts, declines, and extinctions” (8)

Figure 8.8: "Federally operated networks (NPS I&M, NERR) and other long-term networks (LTER, LTAR, NEON, MBON, AmeriFlux) provide consistent and permanent observations at limited sites, whereas volunteer networks (USA-NPN, Indigenous Sentinels) offer more oportunistic observations across a wider landscape. Together, these networks provide critical data for understanding species and ecosystem changes, although gaps in coverage remain. Figure credit: Lynker and USGS" (8).

According to the NCA5, Nebraska is part of the Northern Great Plains region. 

Here are applicable Key Messages for the Northern Great Plains related to Communities and Management. 

Key: blue highlight = historical trends, yellow highlight = projected trends, and green highlight = both historical and projected trends. 

Summary 

“A portion of observed increases in inland flood damages can be attributed to changes in precipitation” (2)

Figure 4.12: "Cumulative inland flood damages (in 2021 dollars) across the contiguous US (gray) and estimated portion due to changes in precipitation (green) are shown for 1988-2021. Over this period, heavy precipitation has increased over most of the US due to climate change (see Figure 2.8 for heavy precipitation changes over the 1958-2021 period). Error bars (in green) show the plausible range of cumulative damages in 2021, calculating a 95% confidence level. Roughly 20-46% of increases in observed flood damages can be attributed to increasing precipitation (assuming the same historical development patterns over the period 1988-2021). Other important contributors to flood damage include urbanization and land-use change, which can exacerbate runoff, and growth in the number and value of flood-affected buildings and other assets. Adapted from Davenport et al. 2021" (2).

“Food security is an outcome of the food system, which influences and is influenced by the climate system, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems” (13)

Figure 11.9: "A food system is a complex network that encompasses all inputs and outputs involved food production, foraging, harvesting, transport, processing, retailing, consumption, and food loss and waste. There can be different types of food systems, each having impacts on and being impacted by climate, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems. Interactions between these systems influence human well-being through food security outcomes, such as food availability, access, utilization, and stability. Interventions, such as mitigation and adaptation, can reduce risks to food systems, which improves food security and well-being within socioeconomic systems. Adapted with permission from Figure 5.1 in Mbow et al. 2019" (13).

As of the 2023 release of the NCA5, “approximately 38 million people in the United States live in food-insecure households” (13). As climate change results in “increasingly frequent and severe extreme events… food system disruptions… will disproportionately affect food accessibility, nutrition, and health,” particularly in low-income and underserved communities, who already face many of these risks due to their rural location (13, 14). Additionally, communities who rely on hunting, foraging, and subsistence farming - whether for cultural, recreational, financial, or other reasons - may be at increased risk of food insecurity (13). 

“Ecosystems provide a broad range of relational benefits, from the material to the spiritual” (10)

Figure 8.17: "Ecosystem services, also called "nature's contributions to people," are the benefits that humans receive or derive from ecosystems. These are both material (e.g., energy sources) and non-material (e.g., sense of place), and contribute to the regulation of ecosystem processes. The broad categories of benefits pictured are fluid and overlapping. People value nature in multiple ways, such as "living as" nature (Figure 16.3) or "living from" nature (e.g., people's dependency on key services). Adapted from O'Connor and Kenter 2019" (10).

“Climate and non-climate stressors together affect biodiversity, ecosystems, and the services they provide” (7)

Figure 8.1: "Species and ecosystems respond to pressures in different ways, such as shifting their locations or transforming into new, often degraded systems less able to provide ecosystem services. Adaptation measures can help species and ecosystems cope with some climate impacts but are not always going ot be effective or feasible, requiring increasingly difficult decisions on what resources to prioritize and what changes to accept. Adapted from Lipton et al. 2018" (7).

“Losses due to floods are projected to increase disproportionately in US Census tracts with higher percentages of Black residents” (2)

Figure 4.14: "Average annual losses - economic damages in a typical year - due to floods in census tracts with a Black population of at least 20% are projected to increase at roughly twice the rate of that in tracts where Black residents make up less than 1% of the population. Black bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Adapted from Wing et al. 2022" (2).

“Indigenous holistic worldviews offer diverse and complex expressions of climate change” (15) 

Figure 16.3: "As an intentionally non-exhaustive example by particular Indigenous designers, the "Indigenous holistic worldview" image demonstrates interconnected drivers of sustenance, climate change impacts, and future aspirations. Illustrations connecting human social systems and the environment, including the relationship between social justice (e.g., colonialism, racism) and environmental change (e.g., ecological degradation, pollution), represent certain Indigenous approaches to climate change. Figure credit: © STACCWG 2021. Used with permission" (15).

The present and projected effects of climate change “disrupt the conditions for critical Indigenous subsistence practices… [which] Indigenous livelihoods and economies often rely on,” along with “natural resource management, small businesses, nonprofit organizations, community development corporations and financial institutions, Tribal government employment and contracts, Tribal enterprises, and multinational corporations” (16). 

Tribal communities have expressed the “need for climate impact assessments as a first step to resilience planning and identified information about climate change impacts to water as a top priority” (3). Lack of data, and lack of data sovereignty, are major barriers to Tribal and Indigenous response to climate change (3). Other priorities include “food security, protection of Traditional Knowledge, and Tribal capacity to implement adaptation plans, monitor and collect data, and conduct climate vulnerability assessments are also high priorities” (3). While federal assistance is available for some Tribes, barriers include “access to limited resources, including agency requirements (e.g., funding matches); lack of Tribal capacity; and navigating interagency processes” (3). 

Similarly, the “lack of [Indigenous communities’] capacity to transition toward renewable energy can be considered a vulnerability to climate change - that is, vulnerability to being excluded from unlocking the capacity to enact mitigation measures” (16). Indigenous self-determination in renewable energy includes “barriers to infrastructure ownership, access to financing tax initiatives, the navigation of regulations and jurisdictions, and income opportunities from renewables” (16). 

Additionally, effects of climate change on culturally-significant ecosystems “exacerbat[e] environmental injustices affecting Indigenous and Tribal food sovereignty, health, cultural practices, and knowledge transmission” (5). This is because “Indigenous concepts of health and well-being often remain closely tied to the health of the environment, waters, and more-than-human relatives that provide for subsistence and cultural needs” (16). In addition to impacts from food insecurity and more widespread climate-related health concerns (such as heat-related stress), Indigenous Peoples are also experiencing “post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, suicide, and other mental, spiritual, and socio-emotional health challenges” (16). 

Ultimately, self-determination is central to Indigenous Peoples’ “decisions about how to respond to climate change in ways that meet community-defined needs and aspirations. Indigenous climate resilience requires having adequate options for deciding how to adapt to and mitigate climate change and the capacity to implement decisions and make strategic decisions upon evaluation” (17). However, “Indigenous self-determination has been limited by institutions and policies, colonial in their organizational structure, that enable federal, state, and local governments and private industry to make decisions for Indigenous Peoples and to maintain low levels of funding and administrative support for implementation” (17). Therefore, “many Tribes have called for Indigenous-led management, as well as comanagement of lands, waters, and other resources currently under federal or state management… [which] represents opportunities to assert Tribal resource-management practices that address climate change” (17). 

“Natural hydrologic variability can promote urgency or complacency in long-term planning” (3) 

Figure 4.18: "The figure shows hydrologic variability in both space and time: (a, b) runoff variability (a surrogate for streamflow variability) across the country between two decades, with the boundary of the Upper Colorado River Basin shown; and streamflow variability across time with (c) estimates of Colorado River flows from historical observations and (d) reconstructed flows from ancient tree rings (blue line), with data from (c) showin in orange. Wedges point to two negotiated policy events. Figure credit: Lynker and University of Colorado Boulder" (3).

How are communities addressing these changes?

“Nature-based solutions buffer the effects of climate change” (10)

Figure 8.18: "Nature-based solutions (NBS) are actions to protect, manage, and restore ecosystems to address societal challenges such as climate change. Examples in the US include (a) oyster restoration; (b) cover cropping; (c) stormwater management; and (d) urban agriculture. These not only help buffer the impacts of climate change, such as through physical barriers or improved local microclimates, but also provide additional benefits like food and habitat provisioning. Figure credit: Rutgers University and NPS. See figure metadata for additional contributors. Photo credits: (a) Linda Walters, NPS; (b) David Bosch, USDA; (c) Alisha Goldstein, EPA; (d) Bob Nichols, USDA" (10).

The “Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework helps identify conditions where ecosystem management can resist a trajectory of change, accept change, or direct change toward desired future conditions” (8). The NC CASC is contributing to an ongoing Cross-Park RAD project with resource managers at the Glacier National Park and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes - learn more here! 

“Decision frameworks can help plan for the potential transformation of ecosystems,” (8) 

Figure 8.9: "Two examples of adaptive decision frameworks are the Corals and Climate Adaptation Planning cycle (a) and the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework (b). In (a), users are guided through assessment and design considerations to adjust climate-smart management interventions. In (b), the current ecosystem (gray) is affected by either moderate or strong transformational forcing that drives decisions (black dots) to resist (red time periods), accept (yellow time periods), and direct (green time periods) the trajectory of change. (a) Adapted from West et al. 2017, 2018; (b) adapted from Lynch et al. 2022" (8).

“Monitoring programs are critically important for observing and projecting trends in resilience, species invasions, range shifts, declines, and extinctions” (8)

Figure 8.8: "Federally operated networks (NPS I&M, NERR) and other long-term networks (LTER, LTAR, NEON, MBON, AmeriFlux) provide consistent and permanent observations at limited sites, whereas volunteer networks (USA-NPN, Indigenous Sentinels) offer more oportunistic observations across a wider landscape. Together, these networks provide critical data for understanding species and ecosystem changes, although gaps in coverage remain. Figure credit: Lynker and USGS" (8).

According to the NCA5, South Dakota is part of the Northern Great Plains region. 

Here are applicable Key Messages for the Northern Great Plains related to Communities and Management. 

Key: blue highlight = historical trends, yellow highlight = projected trends, and green highlight = both historical and projected trends. 

Summary 

“A portion of observed increases in inland flood damages can be attributed to changes in precipitation” (2)

Figure 4.12: "Cumulative inland flood damages (in 2021 dollars) across the contiguous US (gray) and estimated portion due to changes in precipitation (green) are shown for 1988-2021. Over this period, heavy precipitation has increased over most of the US due to climate change (see Figure 2.8 for heavy precipitation changes over the 1958-2021 period). Error bars (in green) show the plausible range of cumulative damages in 2021, calculating a 95% confidence level. Roughly 20-46% of increases in observed flood damages can be attributed to increasing precipitation (assuming the same historical development patterns over the period 1988-2021). Other important contributors to flood damage include urbanization and land-use change, which can exacerbate runoff, and growth in the number and value of flood-affected buildings and other assets. Adapted from Davenport et al. 2021" (2).

“Food security is an outcome of the food system, which influences and is influenced by the climate system, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems” (13)

Figure 11.9: "A food system is a complex network that encompasses all inputs and outputs involved food production, foraging, harvesting, transport, processing, retailing, consumption, and food loss and waste. There can be different types of food systems, each having impacts on and being impacted by climate, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems. Interactions between these systems influence human well-being through food security outcomes, such as food availability, access, utilization, and stability. Interventions, such as mitigation and adaptation, can reduce risks to food systems, which improves food security and well-being within socioeconomic systems. Adapted with permission from Figure 5.1 in Mbow et al. 2019" (13).

As of the 2023 release of the NCA5, “approximately 38 million people in the United States live in food-insecure households” (13). As climate change results in “increasingly frequent and severe extreme events… food system disruptions… will disproportionately affect food accessibility, nutrition, and health,” particularly in low-income and underserved communities, who already face many of these risks due to their rural location (13, 14). Additionally, communities who rely on hunting, foraging, and subsistence farming - whether for cultural, recreational, financial, or other reasons - may be at increased risk of food insecurity (13). 

“Ecosystems provide a broad range of relational benefits, from the material to the spiritual” (10)

Figure 8.17: "Ecosystem services, also called "nature's contributions to people," are the benefits that humans receive or derive from ecosystems. These are both material (e.g., energy sources) and non-material (e.g., sense of place), and contribute to the regulation of ecosystem processes. The broad categories of benefits pictured are fluid and overlapping. People value nature in multiple ways, such as "living as" nature (Figure 16.3) or "living from" nature (e.g., people's dependency on key services). Adapted from O'Connor and Kenter 2019" (10).

“Climate and non-climate stressors together affect biodiversity, ecosystems, and the services they provide” (7)

Figure 8.1: "Species and ecosystems respond to pressures in different ways, such as shifting their locations or transforming into new, often degraded systems less able to provide ecosystem services. Adaptation measures can help species and ecosystems cope with some climate impacts but are not always going ot be effective or feasible, requiring increasingly difficult decisions on what resources to prioritize and what changes to accept. Adapted from Lipton et al. 2018" (7).

“Losses due to floods are projected to increase disproportionately in US Census tracts with higher percentages of Black residents” (2)

Figure 4.14: "Average annual losses - economic damages in a typical year - due to floods in census tracts with a Black population of at least 20% are projected to increase at roughly twice the rate of that in tracts where Black residents make up less than 1% of the population. Black bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Adapted from Wing et al. 2022" (2).

“Indigenous holistic worldviews offer diverse and complex expressions of climate change” (15) 

Figure 16.3: "As an intentionally non-exhaustive example by particular Indigenous designers, the "Indigenous holistic worldview" image demonstrates interconnected drivers of sustenance, climate change impacts, and future aspirations. Illustrations connecting human social systems and the environment, including the relationship between social justice (e.g., colonialism, racism) and environmental change (e.g., ecological degradation, pollution), represent certain Indigenous approaches to climate change. Figure credit: © STACCWG 2021. Used with permission" (15).

The present and projected effects of climate change “disrupt the conditions for critical Indigenous subsistence practices… [which] Indigenous livelihoods and economies often rely on,” along with “natural resource management, small businesses, nonprofit organizations, community development corporations and financial institutions, Tribal government employment and contracts, Tribal enterprises, and multinational corporations” (16). 

Tribal communities have expressed the “need for climate impact assessments as a first step to resilience planning and identified information about climate change impacts to water as a top priority” (3). Lack of data, and lack of data sovereignty, are major barriers to Tribal and Indigenous response to climate change (3). Other priorities include “food security, protection of Traditional Knowledge, and Tribal capacity to implement adaptation plans, monitor and collect data, and conduct climate vulnerability assessments are also high priorities” (3). While federal assistance is available for some Tribes, barriers include “access to limited resources, including agency requirements (e.g., funding matches); lack of Tribal capacity; and navigating interagency processes” (3). 

Similarly, the “lack of [Indigenous communities’] capacity to transition toward renewable energy can be considered a vulnerability to climate change - that is, vulnerability to being excluded from unlocking the capacity to enact mitigation measures” (16). Indigenous self-determination in renewable energy includes “barriers to infrastructure ownership, access to financing tax initiatives, the navigation of regulations and jurisdictions, and income opportunities from renewables” (16). 

Additionally, effects of climate change on culturally-significant ecosystems “exacerbat[e] environmental injustices affecting Indigenous and Tribal food sovereignty, health, cultural practices, and knowledge transmission” (5). This is because “Indigenous concepts of health and well-being often remain closely tied to the health of the environment, waters, and more-than-human relatives that provide for subsistence and cultural needs” (16). In addition to impacts from food insecurity and more widespread climate-related health concerns (such as heat-related stress), Indigenous Peoples are also experiencing “post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, suicide, and other mental, spiritual, and socio-emotional health challenges” (16). 

Ultimately, self-determination is central to Indigenous Peoples’ “decisions about how to respond to climate change in ways that meet community-defined needs and aspirations. Indigenous climate resilience requires having adequate options for deciding how to adapt to and mitigate climate change and the capacity to implement decisions and make strategic decisions upon evaluation” (17). However, “Indigenous self-determination has been limited by institutions and policies, colonial in their organizational structure, that enable federal, state, and local governments and private industry to make decisions for Indigenous Peoples and to maintain low levels of funding and administrative support for implementation” (17). Therefore, “many Tribes have called for Indigenous-led management, as well as comanagement of lands, waters, and other resources currently under federal or state management… [which] represents opportunities to assert Tribal resource-management practices that address climate change” (17). 

“Natural hydrologic variability can promote urgency or complacency in long-term planning” (3) 

Figure 4.18: "The figure shows hydrologic variability in both space and time: (a, b) runoff variability (a surrogate for streamflow variability) across the country between two decades, with the boundary of the Upper Colorado River Basin shown; and streamflow variability across time with (c) estimates of Colorado River flows from historical observations and (d) reconstructed flows from ancient tree rings (blue line), with data from (c) showin in orange. Wedges point to two negotiated policy events. Figure credit: Lynker and University of Colorado Boulder" (3).

How are communities addressing these changes?

“Nature-based solutions buffer the effects of climate change” (10)

Figure 8.18: "Nature-based solutions (NBS) are actions to protect, manage, and restore ecosystems to address societal challenges such as climate change. Examples in the US include (a) oyster restoration; (b) cover cropping; (c) stormwater management; and (d) urban agriculture. These not only help buffer the impacts of climate change, such as through physical barriers or improved local microclimates, but also provide additional benefits like food and habitat provisioning. Figure credit: Rutgers University and NPS. See figure metadata for additional contributors. Photo credits: (a) Linda Walters, NPS; (b) David Bosch, USDA; (c) Alisha Goldstein, EPA; (d) Bob Nichols, USDA" (10).

“Decision frameworks can help plan for the potential transformation of ecosystems,” (8) 

Figure 8.9: "Two examples of adaptive decision frameworks are the Corals and Climate Adaptation Planning cycle (a) and the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework (b). In (a), users are guided through assessment and design considerations to adjust climate-smart management interventions. In (b), the current ecosystem (gray) is affected by either moderate or strong transformational forcing that drives decisions (black dots) to resist (red time periods), accept (yellow time periods), and direct (green time periods) the trajectory of change. (a) Adapted from West et al. 2017, 2018; (b) adapted from Lynch et al. 2022" (8).

“Monitoring programs are critically important for observing and projecting trends in resilience, species invasions, range shifts, declines, and extinctions” (8)

Figure 8.8: "Federally operated networks (NPS I&M, NERR) and other long-term networks (LTER, LTAR, NEON, MBON, AmeriFlux) provide consistent and permanent observations at limited sites, whereas volunteer networks (USA-NPN, Indigenous Sentinels) offer more oportunistic observations across a wider landscape. Together, these networks provide critical data for understanding species and ecosystem changes, although gaps in coverage remain. Figure credit: Lynker and USGS" (8).

According to the NCA5, North Dakota is part of the Northern Great Plains region. 

Here are applicable Key Messages for the Northern Great Plains related to Communities and Management. 

Key: blue highlight = historical trends, yellow highlight = projected trends, and green highlight = both historical and projected trends. 

Summary 

“A portion of observed increases in inland flood damages can be attributed to changes in precipitation” (2)

Figure 4.12: "Cumulative inland flood damages (in 2021 dollars) across the contiguous US (gray) and estimated portion due to changes in precipitation (green) are shown for 1988-2021. Over this period, heavy precipitation has increased over most of the US due to climate change (see Figure 2.8 for heavy precipitation changes over the 1958-2021 period). Error bars (in green) show the plausible range of cumulative damages in 2021, calculating a 95% confidence level. Roughly 20-46% of increases in observed flood damages can be attributed to increasing precipitation (assuming the same historical development patterns over the period 1988-2021). Other important contributors to flood damage include urbanization and land-use change, which can exacerbate runoff, and growth in the number and value of flood-affected buildings and other assets. Adapted from Davenport et al. 2021" (2).

“Food security is an outcome of the food system, which influences and is influenced by the climate system, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems” (13)

Figure 11.9: "A food system is a complex network that encompasses all inputs and outputs involved food production, foraging, harvesting, transport, processing, retailing, consumption, and food loss and waste. There can be different types of food systems, each having impacts on and being impacted by climate, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems. Interactions between these systems influence human well-being through food security outcomes, such as food availability, access, utilization, and stability. Interventions, such as mitigation and adaptation, can reduce risks to food systems, which improves food security and well-being within socioeconomic systems. Adapted with permission from Figure 5.1 in Mbow et al. 2019" (13).

As of the 2023 release of the NCA5, “approximately 38 million people in the United States live in food-insecure households” (13). As climate change results in “increasingly frequent and severe extreme events… food system disruptions… will disproportionately affect food accessibility, nutrition, and health,” particularly in low-income and underserved communities, who already face many of these risks due to their rural location (13, 14). Additionally, communities who rely on hunting, foraging, and subsistence farming - whether for cultural, recreational, financial, or other reasons - may be at increased risk of food insecurity (13). 

“Ecosystems provide a broad range of relational benefits, from the material to the spiritual” (10)

Figure 8.17: "Ecosystem services, also called "nature's contributions to people," are the benefits that humans receive or derive from ecosystems. These are both material (e.g., energy sources) and non-material (e.g., sense of place), and contribute to the regulation of ecosystem processes. The broad categories of benefits pictured are fluid and overlapping. People value nature in multiple ways, such as "living as" nature (Figure 16.3) or "living from" nature (e.g., people's dependency on key services). Adapted from O'Connor and Kenter 2019" (10).

“Climate and non-climate stressors together affect biodiversity, ecosystems, and the services they provide” (7)

Figure 8.1: "Species and ecosystems respond to pressures in different ways, such as shifting their locations or transforming into new, often degraded systems less able to provide ecosystem services. Adaptation measures can help species and ecosystems cope with some climate impacts but are not always going ot be effective or feasible, requiring increasingly difficult decisions on what resources to prioritize and what changes to accept. Adapted from Lipton et al. 2018" (7).

“Losses due to floods are projected to increase disproportionately in US Census tracts with higher percentages of Black residents” (2)

Figure 4.14: "Average annual losses - economic damages in a typical year - due to floods in census tracts with a Black population of at least 20% are projected to increase at roughly twice the rate of that in tracts where Black residents make up less than 1% of the population. Black bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Adapted from Wing et al. 2022" (2).

“Indigenous holistic worldviews offer diverse and complex expressions of climate change” (15) 

Figure 16.3: "As an intentionally non-exhaustive example by particular Indigenous designers, the "Indigenous holistic worldview" image demonstrates interconnected drivers of sustenance, climate change impacts, and future aspirations. Illustrations connecting human social systems and the environment, including the relationship between social justice (e.g., colonialism, racism) and environmental change (e.g., ecological degradation, pollution), represent certain Indigenous approaches to climate change. Figure credit: © STACCWG 2021. Used with permission" (15).

The present and projected effects of climate change “disrupt the conditions for critical Indigenous subsistence practices… [which] Indigenous livelihoods and economies often rely on,” along with “natural resource management, small businesses, nonprofit organizations, community development corporations and financial institutions, Tribal government employment and contracts, Tribal enterprises, and multinational corporations” (16). 

Tribal communities have expressed the “need for climate impact assessments as a first step to resilience planning and identified information about climate change impacts to water as a top priority” (3). Lack of data, and lack of data sovereignty, are major barriers to Tribal and Indigenous response to climate change (3). Other priorities include “food security, protection of Traditional Knowledge, and Tribal capacity to implement adaptation plans, monitor and collect data, and conduct climate vulnerability assessments are also high priorities” (3). While federal assistance is available for some Tribes, barriers include “access to limited resources, including agency requirements (e.g., funding matches); lack of Tribal capacity; and navigating interagency processes” (3). 

Similarly, the “lack of [Indigenous communities’] capacity to transition toward renewable energy can be considered a vulnerability to climate change - that is, vulnerability to being excluded from unlocking the capacity to enact mitigation measures” (16). Indigenous self-determination in renewable energy includes “barriers to infrastructure ownership, access to financing tax initiatives, the navigation of regulations and jurisdictions, and income opportunities from renewables” (16). 

Additionally, effects of climate change on culturally-significant ecosystems “exacerbat[e] environmental injustices affecting Indigenous and Tribal food sovereignty, health, cultural practices, and knowledge transmission” (5). This is because “Indigenous concepts of health and well-being often remain closely tied to the health of the environment, waters, and more-than-human relatives that provide for subsistence and cultural needs” (16). In addition to impacts from food insecurity and more widespread climate-related health concerns (such as heat-related stress), Indigenous Peoples are also experiencing “post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, suicide, and other mental, spiritual, and socio-emotional health challenges” (16). 

Ultimately, self-determination is central to Indigenous Peoples’ “decisions about how to respond to climate change in ways that meet community-defined needs and aspirations. Indigenous climate resilience requires having adequate options for deciding how to adapt to and mitigate climate change and the capacity to implement decisions and make strategic decisions upon evaluation” (17). However, “Indigenous self-determination has been limited by institutions and policies, colonial in their organizational structure, that enable federal, state, and local governments and private industry to make decisions for Indigenous Peoples and to maintain low levels of funding and administrative support for implementation” (17). Therefore, “many Tribes have called for Indigenous-led management, as well as comanagement of lands, waters, and other resources currently under federal or state management… [which] represents opportunities to assert Tribal resource-management practices that address climate change” (17). 

“Natural hydrologic variability can promote urgency or complacency in long-term planning” (3) 

Figure 4.18: "The figure shows hydrologic variability in both space and time: (a, b) runoff variability (a surrogate for streamflow variability) across the country between two decades, with the boundary of the Upper Colorado River Basin shown; and streamflow variability across time with (c) estimates of Colorado River flows from historical observations and (d) reconstructed flows from ancient tree rings (blue line), with data from (c) showin in orange. Wedges point to two negotiated policy events. Figure credit: Lynker and University of Colorado Boulder" (3).

How are communities addressing these changes?

“Nature-based solutions buffer the effects of climate change” (10)

Figure 8.18: "Nature-based solutions (NBS) are actions to protect, manage, and restore ecosystems to address societal challenges such as climate change. Examples in the US include (a) oyster restoration; (b) cover cropping; (c) stormwater management; and (d) urban agriculture. These not only help buffer the impacts of climate change, such as through physical barriers or improved local microclimates, but also provide additional benefits like food and habitat provisioning. Figure credit: Rutgers University and NPS. See figure metadata for additional contributors. Photo credits: (a) Linda Walters, NPS; (b) David Bosch, USDA; (c) Alisha Goldstein, EPA; (d) Bob Nichols, USDA" (10).

“Decision frameworks can help plan for the potential transformation of ecosystems,” (8) 

Figure 8.9: "Two examples of adaptive decision frameworks are the Corals and Climate Adaptation Planning cycle (a) and the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework (b). In (a), users are guided through assessment and design considerations to adjust climate-smart management interventions. In (b), the current ecosystem (gray) is affected by either moderate or strong transformational forcing that drives decisions (black dots) to resist (red time periods), accept (yellow time periods), and direct (green time periods) the trajectory of change. (a) Adapted from West et al. 2017, 2018; (b) adapted from Lynch et al. 2022" (8).

“Monitoring programs are critically important for observing and projecting trends in resilience, species invasions, range shifts, declines, and extinctions” (8)

Figure 8.8: "Federally operated networks (NPS I&M, NERR) and other long-term networks (LTER, LTAR, NEON, MBON, AmeriFlux) provide consistent and permanent observations at limited sites, whereas volunteer networks (USA-NPN, Indigenous Sentinels) offer more oportunistic observations across a wider landscape. Together, these networks provide critical data for understanding species and ecosystem changes, although gaps in coverage remain. Figure credit: Lynker and USGS" (8).

According to the NCA5, Montana is part of the Northern Great Plains region. 

Here are applicable Key Messages for the Northern Great Plains related to Communities and Management. 

Key: blue highlight = historical trends, yellow highlight = projected trends, and green highlight = both historical and projected trends. 

Summary 

“A portion of observed increases in inland flood damages can be attributed to changes in precipitation” (2)

Figure 4.12: "Cumulative inland flood damages (in 2021 dollars) across the contiguous US (gray) and estimated portion due to changes in precipitation (green) are shown for 1988-2021. Over this period, heavy precipitation has increased over most of the US due to climate change (see Figure 2.8 for heavy precipitation changes over the 1958-2021 period). Error bars (in green) show the plausible range of cumulative damages in 2021, calculating a 95% confidence level. Roughly 20-46% of increases in observed flood damages can be attributed to increasing precipitation (assuming the same historical development patterns over the period 1988-2021). Other important contributors to flood damage include urbanization and land-use change, which can exacerbate runoff, and growth in the number and value of flood-affected buildings and other assets. Adapted from Davenport et al. 2021" (2).

“Food security is an outcome of the food system, which influences and is influenced by the climate system, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems” (13)

Figure 11.9: "A food system is a complex network that encompasses all inputs and outputs involved food production, foraging, harvesting, transport, processing, retailing, consumption, and food loss and waste. There can be different types of food systems, each having impacts on and being impacted by climate, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems. Interactions between these systems influence human well-being through food security outcomes, such as food availability, access, utilization, and stability. Interventions, such as mitigation and adaptation, can reduce risks to food systems, which improves food security and well-being within socioeconomic systems. Adapted with permission from Figure 5.1 in Mbow et al. 2019" (13).

As of the 2023 release of the NCA5, “approximately 38 million people in the United States live in food-insecure households” (13). As climate change results in “increasingly frequent and severe extreme events… food system disruptions… will disproportionately affect food accessibility, nutrition, and health,” particularly in low-income and underserved communities, who already face many of these risks due to their rural location (13, 14). Additionally, communities who rely on hunting, foraging, and subsistence farming - whether for cultural, recreational, financial, or other reasons - may be at increased risk of food insecurity (13). 

“Ecosystems provide a broad range of relational benefits, from the material to the spiritual” (10)

Figure 8.17: "Ecosystem services, also called "nature's contributions to people," are the benefits that humans receive or derive from ecosystems. These are both material (e.g., energy sources) and non-material (e.g., sense of place), and contribute to the regulation of ecosystem processes. The broad categories of benefits pictured are fluid and overlapping. People value nature in multiple ways, such as "living as" nature (Figure 16.3) or "living from" nature (e.g., people's dependency on key services). Adapted from O'Connor and Kenter 2019" (10).

“Climate and non-climate stressors together affect biodiversity, ecosystems, and the services they provide” (7)

Figure 8.1: "Species and ecosystems respond to pressures in different ways, such as shifting their locations or transforming into new, often degraded systems less able to provide ecosystem services. Adaptation measures can help species and ecosystems cope with some climate impacts but are not always going ot be effective or feasible, requiring increasingly difficult decisions on what resources to prioritize and what changes to accept. Adapted from Lipton et al. 2018" (7).

“Losses due to floods are projected to increase disproportionately in US Census tracts with higher percentages of Black residents” (2) 

Figure 4.14: "Average annual losses - economic damages in a typical year - due to floods in census tracts with a Black population of at least 20% are projected to increase at roughly twice the rate of that in tracts where Black residents make up less than 1% of the population. Black bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Adapted from Wing et al. 2022" (2).

“Indigenous holistic worldviews offer diverse and complex expressions of climate change” (15)

Figure 16.3: "As an intentionally non-exhaustive example by particular Indigenous designers, the "Indigenous holistic worldview" image demonstrates interconnected drivers of sustenance, climate change impacts, and future aspirations. Illustrations connecting human social systems and the environment, including the relationship between social justice (e.g., colonialism, racism) and environmental change (e.g., ecological degradation, pollution), represent certain Indigenous approaches to climate change. Figure credit: © STACCWG 2021. Used with permission" (15). 

The present and projected effects of climate change “disrupt the conditions for critical Indigenous subsistence practices… [which] Indigenous livelihoods and economies often rely on,” along with “natural resource management, small businesses, nonprofit organizations, community development corporations and financial institutions, Tribal government employment and contracts, Tribal enterprises, and multinational corporations” (16). 

Tribal communities have expressed the “need for climate impact assessments as a first step to resilience planning and identified information about climate change impacts to water as a top priority” (3). Lack of data, and lack of data sovereignty, are major barriers to Tribal and Indigenous response to climate change (3). Other priorities include “food security, protection of Traditional Knowledge, and Tribal capacity to implement adaptation plans, monitor and collect data, and conduct climate vulnerability assessments are also high priorities” (3). While federal assistance is available for some Tribes, barriers include “access to limited resources, including agency requirements (e.g., funding matches); lack of Tribal capacity; and navigating interagency processes” (3). 

Similarly, the “lack of [Indigenous communities’] capacity to transition toward renewable energy can be considered a vulnerability to climate change - that is, vulnerability to being excluded from unlocking the capacity to enact mitigation measures” (16). Indigenous self-determination in renewable energy includes “barriers to infrastructure ownership, access to financing tax initiatives, the navigation of regulations and jurisdictions, and income opportunities from renewables” (16). 

Additionally, effects of climate change on culturally-significant ecosystems “exacerbat[e] environmental injustices affecting Indigenous and Tribal food sovereignty, health, cultural practices, and knowledge transmission” (5). This is because “Indigenous concepts of health and well-being often remain closely tied to the health of the environment, waters, and more-than-human relatives that provide for subsistence and cultural needs” (16). In addition to impacts from food insecurity and more widespread climate-related health concerns (such as heat-related stress), Indigenous Peoples are also experiencing “post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, suicide, and other mental, spiritual, and socio-emotional health challenges” (16). 

Ultimately, self-determination is central to Indigenous Peoples’ “decisions about how to respond to climate change in ways that meet community-defined needs and aspirations. Indigenous climate resilience requires having adequate options for deciding how to adapt to and mitigate climate change and the capacity to implement decisions and make strategic decisions upon evaluation” (17). However, “Indigenous self-determination has been limited by institutions and policies, colonial in their organizational structure, that enable federal, state, and local governments and private industry to make decisions for Indigenous Peoples and to maintain low levels of funding and administrative support for implementation” (17). Therefore, “many Tribes have called for Indigenous-led management, as well as comanagement of lands, waters, and other resources currently under federal or state management… [which] represents opportunities to assert Tribal resource-management practices that address climate change” (17). 

“Natural hydrological variability can promote urgency or complacency in long-term planning" (3)

Figure 4.18: "The figure shows hydrologic variability in both space and time: (a, b) runoff variability (a surrogate for streamflow variability) across the country between two decades, with the boundary of the Upper Colorado River Basin shown; and streamflow variability across time with (c) estimates of Colorado River flows from historical observations and (d) reconstructed flows from ancient tree rings (blue line), with data from (c) showin in orange. Wedges point to two negotiated policy events. Figure credit: Lynker and University of Colorado Boulder" (3).

How are communities addressing these changes?

“Nature-based solutions buffer the effects of climate change” (10)

Figure 8.18: "Nature-based solutions (NBS) are actions to protect, manage, and restore ecosystems to address societal challenges such as climate change. Examples in the US include (a) oyster restoration; (b) cover cropping; (c) stormwater management; and (d) urban agriculture. These not only help buffer the impacts of climate change, such as through physical barriers or improved local microclimates, but also provide additional benefits like food and habitat provisioning. Figure credit: Rutgers University and NPS. See figure metadata for additional contributors. Photo credits: (a) Linda Walters, NPS; (b) David Bosch, USDA; (c) Alisha Goldstein, EPA; (d) Bob Nichols, USDA" (10).

The “Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework helps identify conditions where ecosystem management can resist a trajectory of change, accept change, or direct change toward desired future conditions” (8). The NC CASC is contributing to an ongoing Cross-Park RAD project with resource managers at the Glacier National Park and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes - learn more here! 

“Decision frameworks can help plan for the potential transformation of ecosystems,” (8)

Figure 8.9: "Two examples of adaptive decision frameworks are the Corals and Climate Adaptation Planning cycle (a) and the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework (b). In (a), users are guided through assessment and design considerations to adjust climate-smart management interventions. In (b), the current ecosystem (gray) is affected by either moderate or strong transformational forcing that drives decisions (black dots) to resist (red time periods), accept (yellow time periods), and direct (green time periods) the trajectory of change. (a) Adapted from West et al. 2017, 2018; (b) adapted from Lynch et al. 2022" (8).

“Monitoring programs are critically important for observing and projecting trends in resilience, species invasions, range shifts, declines, and extinctions” (8)

Figure 8.8: "Federally operated networks (NPS I&M, NERR) and other long-term networks (LTER, LTAR, NEON, MBON, AmeriFlux) provide consistent and permanent observations at limited sites, whereas volunteer networks (USA-NPN, Indigenous Sentinels) offer more oportunistic observations across a wider landscape. Together, these networks provide critical data for understanding species and ecosystem changes, although gaps in coverage remain. Figure credit: Lynker and USGS" (8).

According to the NCA5, Wyoming is part of the Northern Great Plains region. 

Here are applicable Key Messages for the Northern Great Plains related to Communities and Management. 

Key: blue highlight = historical trends, yellow highlight = projected trends, and green highlight = both historical and projected trends. 

Summary 

“A portion of observed increases in inland flood damages can be attributed to changes in precipitation” (2)

Figure 4.12: "Cumulative inland flood damages (in 2021 dollars) across the contiguous US (gray) and estimated portion due to changes in precipitation (green) are shown for 1988-2021. Over this period, heavy precipitation has increased over most of the US due to climate change (see Figure 2.8 for heavy precipitation changes over the 1958-2021 period). Error bars (in green) show the plausible range of cumulative damages in 2021, calculating a 95% confidence level. Roughly 20-46% of increases in observed flood damages can be attributed to increasing precipitation (assuming the same historical development patterns over the period 1988-2021). Other important contributors to flood damage include urbanization and land-use change, which can exacerbate runoff, and growth in the number and value of flood-affected buildings and other assets. Adapted from Davenport et al. 2021" (2).

“Food security is an outcome of the food system, which influences and is influenced by the climate system, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems” (13)

Figure 11.9: "A food system is a complex network that encompasses all inputs and outputs involved food production, foraging, harvesting, transport, processing, retailing, consumption, and food loss and waste. There can be different types of food systems, each having impacts on and being impacted by climate, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems. Interactions between these systems influence human well-being through food security outcomes, such as food availability, access, utilization, and stability. Interventions, such as mitigation and adaptation, can reduce risks to food systems, which improves food security and well-being within socioeconomic systems. Adapted with permission from Figure 5.1 in Mbow et al. 2019" (13).

As of the 2023 release of the NCA5, “approximately 38 million people in the United States live in food-insecure households” (13). As climate change results in “increasingly frequent and severe extreme events… food system disruptions… will disproportionately affect food accessibility, nutrition, and health,” particularly in low-income and underserved communities, who already face many of these risks due to their rural location (13, 14). Additionally, communities who rely on hunting, foraging, and subsistence farming - whether for cultural, recreational, financial, or other reasons - may be at increased risk of food insecurity (13). 

“Ecosystems provide a broad range of relational benefits, from the material to the spiritual” (10)

Figure 8.17: "Ecosystem services, also called "nature's contributions to people," are the benefits that humans receive or derive from ecosystems. These are both material (e.g., energy sources) and non-material (e.g., sense of place), and contribute to the regulation of ecosystem processes. The broad categories of benefits pictured are fluid and overlapping. People value nature in multiple ways, such as "living as" nature (Figure 16.3) or "living from" nature (e.g., people's dependency on key services). Adapted from O'Connor and Kenter 2019" (10).

“Climate and non-climate stressors together affect biodiversity, ecosystems, and the services they provide” (7)

Figure 8.1: "Species and ecosystems respond to pressures in different ways, such as shifting their locations or transforming into new, often degraded systems less able to provide ecosystem services. Adaptation measures can help species and ecosystems cope with some climate impacts but are not always going ot be effective or feasible, requiring increasingly difficult decisions on what resources to prioritize and what changes to accept. Adapted from Lipton et al. 2018" (7).

“Losses due to floods are projected to increase disproportionately in US Census tracts with higher percentages of Black residents” (2)

Figure 4.14: "Average annual losses - economic damages in a typical year - due to floods in census tracts with a Black population of at least 20% are projected to increase at roughly twice the rate of that in tracts where Black residents make up less than 1% of the population. Black bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Adapted from Wing et al. 2022" (2).

“Indigenous holistic worldviews offer diverse and complex expressions of climate change” (15) 

Figure 16.3: "As an intentionally non-exhaustive example by particular Indigenous designers, the "Indigenous holistic worldview" image demonstrates interconnected drivers of sustenance, climate change impacts, and future aspirations. Illustrations connecting human social systems and the environment, including the relationship between social justice (e.g., colonialism, racism) and environmental change (e.g., ecological degradation, pollution), represent certain Indigenous approaches to climate change. Figure credit: © STACCWG 2021. Used with permission" (15).

The present and projected effects of climate change “disrupt the conditions for critical Indigenous subsistence practices… [which] Indigenous livelihoods and economies often rely on,” along with “natural resource management, small businesses, nonprofit organizations, community development corporations and financial institutions, Tribal government employment and contracts, Tribal enterprises, and multinational corporations” (16). 

Tribal communities have expressed the “need for climate impact assessments as a first step to resilience planning and identified information about climate change impacts to water as a top priority” (3). Lack of data, and lack of data sovereignty, are major barriers to Tribal and Indigenous response to climate change (3). Other priorities include “food security, protection of Traditional Knowledge, and Tribal capacity to implement adaptation plans, monitor and collect data, and conduct climate vulnerability assessments are also high priorities” (3). While federal assistance is available for some Tribes, barriers include “access to limited resources, including agency requirements (e.g., funding matches); lack of Tribal capacity; and navigating interagency processes” (3). 

Similarly, the “lack of [Indigenous communities’] capacity to transition toward renewable energy can be considered a vulnerability to climate change - that is, vulnerability to being excluded from unlocking the capacity to enact mitigation measures” (16). Indigenous self-determination in renewable energy includes “barriers to infrastructure ownership, access to financing tax initiatives, the navigation of regulations and jurisdictions, and income opportunities from renewables” (16). 

Additionally, effects of climate change on culturally-significant ecosystems “exacerbat[e] environmental injustices affecting Indigenous and Tribal food sovereignty, health, cultural practices, and knowledge transmission” (5). This is because “Indigenous concepts of health and well-being often remain closely tied to the health of the environment, waters, and more-than-human relatives that provide for subsistence and cultural needs” (16). In addition to impacts from food insecurity and more widespread climate-related health concerns (such as heat-related stress), Indigenous Peoples are also experiencing “post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, suicide, and other mental, spiritual, and socio-emotional health challenges” (16). 

Ultimately, self-determination is central to Indigenous Peoples’ “decisions about how to respond to climate change in ways that meet community-defined needs and aspirations. Indigenous climate resilience requires having adequate options for deciding how to adapt to and mitigate climate change and the capacity to implement decisions and make strategic decisions upon evaluation” (17). However, “Indigenous self-determination has been limited by institutions and policies, colonial in their organizational structure, that enable federal, state, and local governments and private industry to make decisions for Indigenous Peoples and to maintain low levels of funding and administrative support for implementation” (17). Therefore, “many Tribes have called for Indigenous-led management, as well as comanagement of lands, waters, and other resources currently under federal or state management… [which] represents opportunities to assert Tribal resource-management practices that address climate change” (17). 

“Natural hydrologic variability can promote urgency or complacency in long-term planning” (3) 

Figure 4.18: "The figure shows hydrologic variability in both space and time: (a, b) runoff variability (a surrogate for streamflow variability) across the country between two decades, with the boundary of the Upper Colorado River Basin shown; and streamflow variability across time with (c) estimates of Colorado River flows from historical observations and (d) reconstructed flows from ancient tree rings (blue line), with data from (c) showin in orange. Wedges point to two negotiated policy events. Figure credit: Lynker and University of Colorado Boulder" (3).

How are communities addressing these changes?

“Nature-based solutions buffer the effects of climate change” (10)

Figure 8.18: "Nature-based solutions (NBS) are actions to protect, manage, and restore ecosystems to address societal challenges such as climate change. Examples in the US include (a) oyster restoration; (b) cover cropping; (c) stormwater management; and (d) urban agriculture. These not only help buffer the impacts of climate change, such as through physical barriers or improved local microclimates, but also provide additional benefits like food and habitat provisioning. Figure credit: Rutgers University and NPS. See figure metadata for additional contributors. Photo credits: (a) Linda Walters, NPS; (b) David Bosch, USDA; (c) Alisha Goldstein, EPA; (d) Bob Nichols, USDA" (10).

“Decision frameworks can help plan for the potential transformation of ecosystems,” (8) 

Figure 8.9: "Two examples of adaptive decision frameworks are the Corals and Climate Adaptation Planning cycle (a) and the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework (b). In (a), users are guided through assessment and design considerations to adjust climate-smart management interventions. In (b), the current ecosystem (gray) is affected by either moderate or strong transformational forcing that drives decisions (black dots) to resist (red time periods), accept (yellow time periods), and direct (green time periods) the trajectory of change. (a) Adapted from West et al. 2017, 2018; (b) adapted from Lynch et al. 2022" (8).

“Monitoring programs are critically important for observing and projecting trends in resilience, species invasions, range shifts, declines, and extinctions” (8)

Figure 8.8: "Federally operated networks (NPS I&M, NERR) and other long-term networks (LTER, LTAR, NEON, MBON, AmeriFlux) provide consistent and permanent observations at limited sites, whereas volunteer networks (USA-NPN, Indigenous Sentinels) offer more oportunistic observations across a wider landscape. Together, these networks provide critical data for understanding species and ecosystem changes, although gaps in coverage remain. Figure credit: Lynker and USGS" (8).

According to the NCA5, Colorado is part of the Southwest region. 

Here are applicable Key Messages for the Southwest related to Agriculture and Land Use. 

Key: blue highlight = historical trends, yellow highlight = projected trends, and green highlight = both historical and projected trends. 

Summary

The Southwestern region of the United States is “among the fastest growing and most economically productive areas of the country… provid[ing] society with food, energy, and water” (18). However, the Southwest is currently experiencing increasing temperatures, as well as changes in timing, form, and amount of precipitation - which is expected to continue as the climate changes (2, 18). The long-term aridification and episodic drying in the western US has contributed to extended droughts, along with compounding events, that affect agriculture, forestry, and other land-based industries and activities (2). 

“Monitoring indicators of climate impacts on agriculture can improve understanding and help with adaptation efforts” (20)

Figure 28.6: "Climate change impacts to the Southwest's agriculture include longer growing seasons, a northward shift in plant hardiness zones, expanded areas of heat stress, and higher rates of evapotranspiration, increasing demand for fresh water for irrigation. Monitoring the indicators helps us understand how impacts are experienced and how to adapt to risks. Figure credit: New Mexico State University and Utah State University" (20).

"Climate effects on watersheds exemplify the amplifying impacts of gradual and episodic stressors" (9) 

Figure 8.4: "Both gradual and episodic (short-lived) climatic drivers alter the transport of water, nutrients, and sediments from terrestrial watersheds to downstream water bodies. These drivers affect aquatic ecology and ecosystem services throughout the hydrological system, even in areas distant from drivers of change (e.g., more intense rainfall leading to leaching of fertilizers that stimulate harmful algal blooms downstream). The frequency and intensity of episodic extreme events is projected to increase (KM2.2), raising risks for many species (Figure 8.10). Figure credit: Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies" (9).

"Ecosystems provide a broad range of relational benefits, from the material to the spiritual" (11) 

Figure 8.17: "Ecosystem services, also called "nature's contributions to people," are the benefits that humans receive or derive from ecosystems. These are both material (e.g., energy sources) and non-material (e.g., sense of place), and contribute to the regulation of ecosystem processes. The broad categories of benefits pictured are fluid and overlapping. People value nature in multiple ways, such as "living as" nature (Figure 16.3) or "living from" nature (e.g., people's dependency on key services). Adapted from O'Connor and Kenter 2019" (11).

"Climate change interacts with other stressors to cause synergistic effects, and resulting ecosystem changes can be abrupt and difficult to reverse" (9). 

Figure 8.6: "In western US, drought and longer, hotter growing seasons combined with invasive grasses and overgrazing have transformed sagebrush shrublands past a tipping point into annual grasslands that experience more frequent wildfires and no longer support native biodiversity and livestock grazing. Removing invasive grasses and seeding with native plants often does not restore the original shrubland ecosystem. Adapted from Foley et al. 2015" (9).

"Climate refugia are locations where environmental conditions are changing more slowly than the surrounding region" (10). 

Figure 8.12: "Refugia help populations survive extreme events, and when connected via dispersal currents and corridors can serve as rescue sites. Understanding variations in environmental exposures and organism sensitivities to extreme conditions helps forecast climate impacts and inform management strategies. Adapted from Morelli et al. 2016" (10).

“Climate change is leading to larger and hotter fires and resulting in shifts in vegetation” (21). 

Figure 28.9: "Data from the states of California, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico show that approximately half (about 50%) of vegetation type change (e.g., forests transiting to shrublands or grasslands) is a function of high-severity fire. Adapted from Guiterman et al. 2022" (21).

Wildfires will impact human structures and property as well, such as the 2021 Marshall Fire in Colorado, which “burned more than 1,000 homes in just a few hours” (21). Wildfires are expected to affect most, if not all, land-based industries in the Southwest; however, particularly vulnerable industries “include wineries, tourism, forest products, and legal cannabis cultivation” (21).  

“Climate change has cascading and compounding effects on all stages of the food supply chain” (14)

Figure 11.10: "Extreme events fueled by climate change (first row, icons) can affect each stage of the food supply chain (second row, dark blue), resulting in compounding and cascading effects on the food system (third row, light blue). Adapted with permission from Davis et al. 2021" (14).

How are communities addressing these changes?

"Agroecological approaches seek to achieve beneficial agricultural outcomes while promoting ecosystem services and rural livelihoods" (13) 

Figure 11.5: "Science-based application of agroecological approaches results in outcomes that balance agricultural productivity and profitability with ecosystem services and societal well-being. Figure credit: USDA" (13).

“Greenhouse gas emissions from protein production vary greatly according to protein type” (13)

Figure 11.8: "Estimated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from protein production vary widely depending on food type. Global median emissions (in kg of carbon dioxide [CO2] equivalents for every 100g of protein produced) are shown here for 11 major protein sources. Although cereal grains have lower protein content, they are included here because they contribute 41% to global protein intake. While US emissions values may differ slightly from global values, the relative differences in GHG emissions by protein intake. Figure credit: USDA, NOAA NCEI, and CISESS NC" (13).

“The breadth of project type and funding amounts have increased for federally funded renewable energy projects” (17)

Figure 16.4: "The figure shows federally funded Tribal renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects between 1994 and 2022. The size of the circles indicates the number of projects: the larger the circle, the more projects of that energy type were funded that year. Historically, projects like retrofitting to improve energy efficiency, as well as renewable energy projects including solar, wind, and biomass, often received funding. The more recent trend toward microgrid and solar projects mirrors efforts to build Tribal energy sovereignty. Figure credit: DOI, NOAA NCEI, and CISESS NC" (17).

According to the NCA5, Kansas is part of the Southern Great Plains region. 

Here are applicable Key Messages for the Southern Great Plains related to Agriculture and Land Use. 

Key: blue highlight = historical trends, yellow highlight = projected trends, and green highlight = both historical and projected trends. 

Summary

The Southern Great Plains (SGP) consists of twenty distinct ecoregions, including forests, grasslands, rangelands, croplands, and more (15). Rural communities in this region support agriculture, fiber production, energy industries, and recreation (15). 

Annual average temperatures in Kansas have increased from 1.5 F from 1900-2020, and the Southern Great Plains are expected to increase to “historically unprecedented” levels (15). The number of extremely hot days will increase, while the number of extremely cold days will decrease (15). 

“Air temperatures for Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas are projected to be historically unprecedented by the end of the century” (15)

Figure 26.2: "These graphs show observed and projected changes (compared to the 1901-1960 average; thick black line) in near-surface air temperature for (a) Kansas, (b) Oklahoma, and (c) Texas. Annual average temperature observations (orange line) are plotted with the range of temperatures from climate model output (light gray shading) for the historical period. The overlap of observed and modeled temperatures indicates that the models represent the region's climate reasonably well. Climate projections out to 2100 use an intermediate scenario (RCP4.5; green shading) and a very high scenario (RCP8.5; red shading), showing a range of possible future temperatures. Results from both scenarios indicate substantial warming in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas by midcentury and historically unprecedented warming by the end of the century. (a, b) Adapted from Frankson et al. 2022 and Frankson et al. 2022; (c) adapted from Runkle et al. 2022" (15).

Additionally, annual precipitation has increased across Kansas; precipitation is lower in the western SGP region and significantly increases on the eastern border (15). 

“Slightly drier conditions are projected for much of the western and southern portions of the region by the end of the century” (17)

Figure 26.10: "In the future, drier conditions threaten agriculture and water supplies in parts of the Southern Great Plains (brown), while more precipitation is projected near the northern and eastern boundaries of the region (green). Under an intermediate scenario (SSP2-4.5), total annual precipitation is projected to decrease by 4% or more (as compared to the 1991-2020 average) in southern Texas by midcentury (a), with smaller differences expected by century's end (b). Under a very high scenario (SSP5-8.5), annual precipitation is projected to decline slightly in western portions of the region by midcentury (c) and by 4% or more in southeast and far northwest Texas by the century's end (d)" (17).

These factors will have severe impacts on agriculture and land use across the region, including “loss of livestock and crops, reduced income, and negative public health outcomes;” for example, compound events that combine “hot, dry, and windy conditions have increased in southwest Kansas… reducing wheat yields proportionally” to the number of these events (17). Other specific impacts include: 

“The Southern Great Plains contributes a large share to total US wind-generated electricity” (17)

Figure 26.6: "US producers in the 50 states generated 435 million megawatt-hours of electricity from wind power in 2022. Together, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas contributed 159 million megawatt-hours, or 42% of total US production. Data were not available for the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands or the US Caribbean" (17)