The North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center’s (NC CASC) Rapid Climate Assessment Program (RCAP) is an initiative designed to accelerate actionable climate adaptation science across the region. Since launching in 2023, RCAP has supported short-term, high-impact projects that pair graduate researchers with scientists, land managers, Tribal partners, and decision-makers to tackle pressing climate challenges.

The goal of the program is to create Rapid Climate Assessments (RCAs): focused syntheses of scientific information that provide a foundation for future research, stakeholder engagement, and adaptation planning. These syntheses bring together core elements of climate adaptation science, including co-production between researchers and practitioners, evaluation of vulnerabilities, and identification of practical pathways forward.

This year’s RCAP portfolio spans ecosystems, species conservation, drought monitoring, watershed resilience, restoration ecology, and climate-informed land management across the North Central region. One project, led by Imtiaz Rangwala, Kyra Clark-Wolf, and Caitlin White, supports the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s need to plan for uncertain ecological futures. Graduate researcher Airy Peralta will help refine methods that combine climate projections and ecological analysis to inform Species Status Assessments and refuge planning across USFWS Region 6. By improving how future habitat conditions are evaluated, the work aims to strengthen long-term conservation planning and support more resilient wildlife refuges.

Another team is addressing a challenge visible across much of the Great Plains: the spread of woody vegetation into grasslands. Led by Marissa Ahlering, Kimberly Hall, Terri Schulz, and Meagan Oldfather, this project explores how land managers make decisions about woody encroachment treatments and how those choices may need to evolve under changing climate conditions. Through interviews with conservation planners and federal, Tribal, and state land managers, Social Science Lead Heather Yocum and graduate researcher Em Wright will help build a decision framework grounded in both climate science and management realities.

In Colorado’s grasslands, another RCAP effort focuses on building a practical tool for restoration and wildlife management. Led by Katie Suding, Sarah Weiskopf, and Emma Galofré García, graduate researcher Sam Ahler will be compiling a plant trait database that links species characteristics such as drought tolerance, rooting depth, forage quality, and ease of establishment to management outcomes. The resulting resource could help guide restoration efforts, support carbon sequestration goals, and improve forage planning for Colorado’s bison herds.

Elsewhere, teams are developing adaptation resources for eastern sagebrush ecosystems, evaluating whether low-tech freshwater restoration techniques such as beaver-dam analogues truly function as effective climate adaptation strategies, and creating new drought indicators based on tracking consecutive dry days. One of the most novel efforts this year comes from a collaboration led by the University of Wyoming, which applies a “signals” approach to watershed resilience. Graduate researcher Priscilla Corbett will combine environmental datasets with local decision-making and lived experience to identify measurable indicators or signals that can trigger adaptive responses before ecological thresholds are crossed. The pilot work is designed to support future resilience planning in Wyoming watersheds and potentially inform broader applications across the region.

By pairing students with interdisciplinary teams and real-world decision contexts, RCAP creates opportunities to test ideas quickly, build partnerships, and translate climate science into tools that support communities, ecosystems, and resource managers faced with making management decisions under rapid environmental change. As climate impacts continue to unfold, programs like RCAP help ensure adaptation efforts are not only scientifically robust but practical, collaborative, and ready to inform action.

Learn more about the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center and its work supporting climate adaptation across the region here.