Tackling Woody Encroachment Across the Great Plains
Across the Great Plains, the spread of trees and shrubs into historically open grasslands is changing landscapes and creating new challenges for conservation. Learn more in this new Spotlight Story.
September Newsletter for Tribal Community Now Available
The latest Newsletter for Tribal Community Resilience is now available, featuring news, resources, funding opportunities, events, and job openings relevant to Tribal Nations and partners across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain region.
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The Wind River Reservation offers a powerful case study on the historical and contemporary challenges Tribal Nations across the American West face in quantifying and using their water in alignment with their values. On paper, the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes hold some of the most senior water rights in the West — Wyoming didn't become a state until decades after treaties were signed — with a reserved right to roughly 40% of the water flowing through the Reservation in an average year. Yet in practice, the Tribes face significant barriers to using their water. This webinar covers the history and legal context behind today's challenges, including the 37-year legal battle that quantified the Tribes' water right while restricting its use, chronic federal underinvestment, and decades of broken promises. We'll then survey pressing present-day challenges: a severely dilapidated irrigation system, insufficient water storage, and a changing climate reshaping water availability. Most importantly, we’ll conclude with the solutions Tribal water managers and leaders are pursuing to utilize their water in ways that will nourish their communities for seven generations to come.
Did you miss it? Watch the latest NC CASC webinar
Did you miss the latest NC CASC webinar? Watch and learn how researchers, land managers, Tribal Nations, and communities are working together to build more resilient pinyon-juniper woodlands across the West.
El Niño 2026-2027: What Could It Mean for the North Central Region?
A potentially very strong El Niño is developing for 2026-2027, but what might that mean for the North Central region? Explore a new USGS CASC resource to learn what scientists are forecasting.
Shifting Shades of Drought
How do we better track when landscapes are becoming unusually dry? In the latest NC CASC blog, graduate researcher Kelsey Warren shares her work developing a new approach to Consecutive Dry Days (CDD).
Shifting Shades of Drought
I spent the summer of 2026 as a graduate research assistant with the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NC CASC) and this RCAP team, developing a proof of concept for a new approach to an existing drought metric: Consecutive Dry Days (CDD), a way to quantify the occurrence of dry spells.
Bringing back bison to Colorado using plant functional traits
Bison (Bison bison) were the dominant, keystone grazer across the Great Plains, North America’s largest biome, for millennia and shaped prairie ecosystems. However, European settlement in the 1800s across this region led to widespread slaughter and near extinction of this once prolific species.
Bringing back bison to Colorado using plant functional traits
Bison (Bison bison) were the dominant, keystone grazer across the Great Plains, North America’s largest biome, for millennia and shaped prairie ecosystems. However, European settlement in the 1800s across this region led to widespread slaughter and near extinction of this once prolific species.
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