The escalating climate and wildfire crises have generated worldwide interest in using proactive forest management (e.g. forest thinning, prescribed fire, cultural burning) to mitigate the risk of wildfire-caused carbon loss in forests. To estimate the risk of wildfire-caused carbon loss in western United States (US) conifer forests, we used a generalizable framework to evaluate interactions among wildfire hazard and carbon exposure and vulnerability. By evaluating where high social adaptive capacity for proactive forest management overlaps with carbon most vulnerable to wildfire-caused carbon loss, we identified opportunity hot spots for reducing the risk of wildfire-caused carbon loss. We found that relative to their total forest area, California, New Mexico, and Arizona contained the greatest proportion of carbon highly vulnerable to wildfire-caused loss. We also observed widespread opportunities in the western US for using proactive forest management to reduce the risk of wildfire-caused carbon loss, with many areas containing opportunities for simultaneously mitigating the greatest risk from wildfire to carbon and human communities. Finally, we highlighted collaborative and equitable processes that provide pathways to achieving timely climate- and wildfire-mitigation goals at opportunity hot spots.

As climate change facilitates significant and persistent ecological transformations, managing ecosystems according to historical baseline conditions may no longer be feasible. The Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework can guide climate-informed management interventions, but in its current implementations RAD has not yet fully accounted for potential tradeoffs between multiple – sometimes incompatible – ecological and societal goals. Key scientific challenges for informing climate-adapted ecosystem management include (i) advancing our predictive understanding of transformations and their socioecological impacts under novel climate conditions, and (ii) incorporating uncertainty around trajectories of ecological change and the potential success of RAD interventions into management decisions. To promote the implementation of RAD, practitioners can account for diverse objectives within just and equitable participatory decision-making processes.  

Utilizing Cultural Intelligence to Advance Tribal Engagement and Partnerships

Interested in learning more about Cultural Intelligence? Come hear NC CASC's James Rattling Leaf at CU Boulder on January 24. The hybrid session will provide recommendations for working with Tribal communities based on the knowledge that long-term relationship building with these communities is the foundation upon which educational programs, research collaborations, and other initiatives must be co-created.

NC CASC presents at AGU 2023

The NC CASC was represented at the 2023 American Geophysical Union fall meeting by Aparna Bamzai-Dodson (USGS Assistant Regional Administrator) and Meagan Oldfather (USGS Climate Adaptation Specialist). Read more about their contributions.

New R-Shiny Apps Now Available

Two new R-shiny apps are now available for analysis of large-scale drivers of regional precipitation to inform regional water availability. These apps were developed as part of the 2023 Rapid Climate Assessment Program (RCAP).

Balancing Management Objectives in a Time of Climate Change

New NC CASC-funded research is now out, in a paper discussing the challenges of ecosystem management in the face of climate change. It suggests that traditional methods based on historical conditions may be inadequate due to ongoing ecological transformations.

The Science to Action Fellowship Program

The Science to Action Fellowship program supports graduate students in directly applying scientific research related to climate change impacts on fish, wildlife, or ecosystems to decision making about natural resources.

NC CASC contributes to drought assessment report

Aparna Bamzai-Dodson, Imtiaz Rangwala, and James Rattling Leaf, Sr. from the NC CASC contributed to the NOAA/NIDIS report, "Drought Assessment in a Changing Climate: Priority Actions and Research Needs." Learn more and read the report here!