Climate change has contributed to unprecedented shifts in ecological patterns and processes. Altered ecological properties may lead to changes in ecosystem structure, function, and composition and impact ecosystem services and relationships among people and natural communities. When compounded by existing stressors and threats such as wildfire, pests, disease, invasive species, and human development, ecological change may become irreversible. Ecological transformation, or the emergence of new ecosystem states that differ from known historical conditions, makes it difficult for land stewards and partners to delineate management goals and adhere to current management strategies. Growing concern and recognition that traditional or familiar stewardship strategies may no longer support resilient ecological communities has driven land stewards and their partners to seek alternative solutions to address complex problems under climate change.
User guide to highlight how to generate and extract quantitative climate scenario information from ClimateToolbox.org for Scenario Planning and Impact Assessment. This guide will showcase how the tools on ClimateToolbox.org can help identify divergent climate future scenarios relevant to a region and resource management and extract quantitative climate summaries and spatial and time series data for applications related to climate change vulnerability assessments and scenario planning. More specifically guidance is provided on: Future Climate Scatter tool - for scenario selection; Future Climate Scenarios tool - for generating climate change summaries and spatial data for selected scenarios; and Future Time Series tool - for generating time series of different climate variables for a selected climate scenario.
The frequency, magnitude and extent of stream drying is increasing due to climate change and human water demand. Fish vulnerability to increased stream drying is a combination of sensitivity (innate tolerance to low streamflow) and exposure to stream drying. To understand fish tolerance to low flow and susceptibility to decline under changing streamflow conditions, we estimated species-specific measures of sensitivity to low streamflow, determined relationships to species traits and evaluated vulnerability to future reductions in streamflow for 60 species. We found that sensitivity varied across species, and some variation was explained by life history strategy, spawning strategy and body size. Periodic life history strategy, pelagic spawning and larger size corresponded to an increased sensitivity to stream drying. Under future projections of August streamflow, 90% of sites were predicted to decrease in flow magnitude. Vulnerability to changes in streamflow, the combination of sensitivity and exposure, varied slightly across the study species, with the percent of inhospitable sites under future climate scenarios increasing for 87% of the species. Despite being relatively insensitive to low streamflow, vulnerability was high for multiple species dominant in mountainous areas, driven by high levels of exposure to stream drying. Our results illustrate the potential for species traits to predict sensitivity to low streamflow and demonstrate that exposure may play a large role when defining species vulnerability to stream drying. The ability to predict species tolerances and susceptibility to decline will become increasingly important in prioritising conservation efforts under changing environmental conditions.
Increasing wildfire area burned has left millions of hectares in the western United States (US) in need of reforestation. Recent federal legislation allows for increased investments in tree planting to address the backlog of planting needs in previously burned areas. To support post-fire planning and assessment, we developed Regenmapper, a web-based decision support system (DSS) that provides spatial information on natural regeneration potential within post-fire environments. The program is freely available from a web browser (https://alpheus.dbs.umt.edu/regenmapper) and is designed to function across all land ownership categories for the 11 western States.
Climate change is causing a range of changes that can affect the natural, cultural, and built resources of the Nation’s protected areas and affect opportunities to visit and recreate in these spaces. Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns also affect species and habitats, leading to ecological transformation. This report describes findings from pilot research conducted in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah (hereinafter referred to as “Capitol Reef” or “the Park”) as part of a larger interagency study of how National Park Service (NPS) staff are considering management of transforming ecosystems. Semi-structured interviews were used to assess how Capitol Reef employees (n=9) understand the challenge of ecological transformation, including their perceptions of how climate change is affecting the Park’s natural and cultural resources, the multiple timeframes over which employees respond to climate change impacts, and their awareness and understanding of ecological transformation and the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework, which was developed to address ecological transformation, that is, ecosystems changing in response to changes in climate conditions (Schuurman and others, 2020, 2022). The interviews also solicited employee perceptions about constraints and enabling factors that allow Capitol Reef to effectively respond to ecological transformation. The report uses a conceptual framework that has been used by the National Park Service Climate Change Response Program (Clifford and others, 2022) to structure the reporting of the data about constraints and enabling factors, with sections describing the role of factors internal to an individual employee (culture, worldviews, and understanding of an ecological system) and contextual factors external to an individual (institutional context, social feasibility and scientific uncertainty as influenced by available scientific information). Participating Capitol Reef staff perceived the most pressing climate impacts in the Park as increasing air temperatures, aridity, and flash floods, which are impacting natural and cultural resources, public safety, and infrastructure. Staff mostly agreed on what the future landscape (approximately 50 years into the future) may look like at Capitol Reef in terms of changes in vegetation and future temperature and precipitation conditions. However, staff had more divergent views or were uncertain about how specific species will adapt to future conditions (for example, how endemic plants might shift their ranges) and are grappling with which management strategies to take at which times. Staff also had differing opinions about how much data is needed to prompt action. Interviewees agreed that leadership in the Park had made climate change a priority and created a climate-attuned culture among staff. Participating employees described the park culture at Capitol Reef as collaborative, with frequent communication and work across divisions, which, as an example, shapes responses to flash floods and other events (for example, working across divisions on search and rescue, or repairing fencing that is washed out by storms). This collaborative, climate-attuned culture may help Capitol Reef in future problem-solving as it grapples with how to respond to climate change and ecological transformation in the Park.
The menu is structured around six broad strategies, each encompassing a range of detailed approaches tailored to current and anticipated challenges in PJ woodlands across the Colorado Plateau and elsewhere (Fig. 1). Rather than offering specific tactical recommendations, it is designed to encourage open exploration of the diverse management options available. Ultimately, it is up to resource managers and community partners to determine the most suitable strategies to achieve their goals and objectives.
This project created a set of easy-to-use online tools that help natural resource managers plan for a future shaped by climate change. Managers, such as those working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, need to understand how temperature, rainfall, and drought might change in the coming decades to protect wildlife and their habitats. Our project developed the "Future Climate Scenarios Tool," which allows users to select any location or wildlife refuge in the contiguous United States and instantly get a detailed report on future climate conditions. The tool provides information on numerous climate factors, from seasonal temperatures to water availability and drought risk, under different future scenarios. This helps managers answer critical questions: Will droughts become more severe? How might snowpack change? This information is vital for writing species recovery plans, managing water resources, and preparing for future challenges. The tools are hosted on the public-friendly ClimateToolbox.org website, ensuring they are freely accessible and will be maintained for the long term. Through workshops and webinars, we have trained hundreds of resource professionals nationwide on how to use these tools to make more informed and forward-looking decisions.
This project helped wildlife managers understand how future snow conditions are expected to change in the Rocky Mountains. Snow is a critical habitat for animals like the wolverine, which needs deep, lasting snowpack to build dens and raise its young. Many previous modeling efforts were not detailed enough for mountain regions, where conditions can change dramatically over short distances. This research created highly detailed (1-kilometer) maps of future snowpack, showing where snow will likely persist and where it might disappear under different scenarios. This new, high-resolution information was provided directly to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and was used in their 2023 Species Status Assessment for the North American wolverine, helping them make informed decisions about the species' future. The project also shared its findings widely, from local high school students to international scientific conferences, ensuring the knowledge benefits the public.
These data cover Devils Lake Basin of Northern Great Plains (NGP) region, North Dakota. We aimed to understand the mechanism of the Devils Lake responses and basin-wide hydrologic change under a wet-climatic regime using a process-based and cold region hydrologic model. The data include areal measurements (km2) of each of the Hydrological Response Units (HRUs) that were modeled.