Project Overview A collaborative research team including the North Central CASC, University of Oklahoma, and College of the Muscogee Nation will conduct ethnographic interviews in the Mvskoke Language (Opvnvkv) documenting Mvskoke Indigenous Knowledge (IK) on several culturally significant species relevant to climate adaptation. The findings will support local management efforts by providing educational curricula on wild foods, scientific publications, and resources to support Mvskoke language revitalization efforts. Project Summary Across the United States, climate change and habitat loss threaten species and wild foods that are deeply tied to cultural identity, traditions, and language. Mvskoke Indigenous Knowledge (IK) offers invaluable insights to climate adaptation strategies for culturally and ecologically significant species within the southeastern homelands and current jurisdictions of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. To support conservation efforts, this project seeks to integrate Mvskoke IK into climate adaptation strategies for culturally significant species and wild foods. Jaguars, in particular, are culturally significant as well as apex predators that play a crucial role in maintaining ecosystem structure, and their conservation has wide-ranging benefits for biodiversity. This project aims to document Mvskoke IK to explore culturally appropriate conservation and climate adaptation approaches for local wild foods and culturally significant species, enhance understanding of jaguar historical distributions and inform conservation efforts, and support Mvskoke language and cultural revitalization efforts. To do this, focus group discussions will be hosted to co-design objectives and ensure ethical approaches. Additionally, ethnographic interviews will be conducted with nine Mvskoke elders in the Mvskoke language (Opvnvkv) to document IK on climate-vulnerable species. Collected data will be transcribed, translated, and analyzed to create educational materials on wild foods, a Mvskoke language database for the College of the Muscogee Nation, a management report for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation outlining practical applications of Mvskoke IK, and an ethnobiology manuscript evaluating Mvskoke IK on jaguars as evidence of historical habitation in the southeastern region. By co-developing ethical and effective pathways for integrating Mvskoke IK into climate adaptation efforts, this project will contribute to conservation efforts while strengthening Mvskoke cultural heritage and resilience.  To complement Mvskoke IK insights, a national-scale species distribution model (SDM) will be developed to assess historical and future habitat suitability for the jaguar across the contiguous United States, with emphasis on the Southeast. The model integrates vetted global jaguar presence records with 26 candidate environmental and anthropogenic variables and span both baseline (2000–2014) and mid-century (2055, SSP3–7.0) time periods. This study will test IK-informed hypotheses regarding southeastern jaguar presence and may challenge prevailing assumptions in North American historical ecology, highlighting new opportunities for landscape-scale recovery planning that centers both cultural and ecological restoration.

Project Overview The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation faces challenges in maintaining stream health due to recent extreme weather events, oil and gas development, and row crop expansion. Researchers supported by this North Central CASC project will assess how these changes affect stream health while providing career development for undergraduate researchers from Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College (NHSC) and United Tribes Technical College. The project will inform climate adaptation strategies and support sustainable resource management for the Mandan Arikara Nation. Project Summary The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation has faced many environmental challenges since 2001, including extreme drought and precipitation events, oil and gas development, and row crop expansion. These changes have likely impacted the health of prairie streams, which are important for reducing flood risk, drought risk, and erosion, and for supporting diverse plant and animal communities, cycling nutrients, and providing cultural and recreational value (e.g., angling, nature watching). Clean streams also offer valuable water for human consumption, and provide water, forage, and shelter to wildlife and livestock. This project aims to assess how climate and land-use changes affect the ecological integrity of prairie streams located within the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The project will build on a 2001 assessment of stream health conducted in the region, updating the assessment to consider recent extreme climate events and development. Additionally, the project will provide hands-on training and leadership experiences for undergraduate researchers from Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College (NHSC) and United Tribes Technical College. The project is a collaborative effort with NHSC to develop the workforce and empower young researchers to pursue careers in science. The outcomes of this project will provide information on how regional factors of climate change, oil and gas development, and land-use change have impacted the health of small prairie streams within the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. This information will be invaluable for the Mandan Arikara Nation in identifying areas for climate adaptation and management, as well as supporting community decision-making and sustainable surface water resource management.

As climate change looms large, the Aaniiihnen and Nakoda people of the Fort Belknap Indian Community are undertaking a climate change impact assessment in the Little Rocky Mountains to better prepare for the future. This mountain range is home to numerous food and medicinal species of cultural importance. It is critical to understand how climate change has affected and will affect availability of these species and the cultural implications for the Tribe in order to enhance food sovereignty and cultural resiliency, improve tribal health, and maintain local biodiversity.   The project will assess the presence and distribution of valued species including subalpine fir, juneberry, chokecherry, and others, while engaging the community in discussions around access and community needs. Adopting a holistic approach to climate change assessment, traditional ecological knowledge and the cultural implications of climate change will be an integral and innovative aspect of the project. Community meetings, elder interviews, and youth engagement sessions will contribute to understanding the interconnected issues of protecting significant species and culture in their full complexity. Scenarios of future climate change impacts on the plant species and the community will be explored to inform planning and management decisions and the Fort Belknap Indian Community Climate Adaptation Plan. 

Natural & cultural resource managers are facing a slew of new challenges for managing public lands stemming from climate change and human-driven stressors like invasive species, fragmentation, and new resource uses. In some cases, the very landscapes and species they are managing are changing in significant ways, transforming from one set of conditions to another. As a result, previously successful management strategies may become less effective, or in some cases ineffective. New and transforming conditions leave managers in a bind on how to respond to transforming public lands and natural resources. On the most basic level managers have three choices of how to respond: resist change, accept change, or direct change (RAD). These difficult decisions cannot be fully answered by scientific information. Instead, decisions are influenced by several social factors, both unique to the individual manager and from outside sources. This research project will examine how key institutional and emotional factors shape management decisions about changing resources. Four national parks that are experiencing significant ecological transformation are the focus of the analysis: Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Acadia, Glacier, and North Cascades. The team will use interviews and focus groups to study how the culture and policy of individual parks, and the psychological and emotional experiences of managers responding to landscape changes, influence decisions. This project has four main goals: 1) to increase understanding of how institutional and emotional factors influence manager decision making in the National Park Service in the face of ecological transformation, 2) to provide tailored, actionable products to park managers in each case study location to inform unit-level decisions, 3) to develop examples of how to engage Tribal Nations with ties to park lands in decisions about transforming landscapes and establish connections between parks and Tribal partners, and 4) to contribute to emerging theory on the social science of ecological transformation in public land management.

Atmospheric warming is driving a shift in precipitation from snow to rain, changing precipitation intensity and seasonality, and increasing atmospheric demand for moisture in mountain river watersheds across the western United States. These changes will likely alter the timing and quantity of streamflow in rivers draining from the mountains. The Tongue River flows from the Bighorn mountains in north-central Wyoming into Montana through alpine meadows to sagebrush steppe, prior to its confluence with the Yellowstone River at Miles City, MT. The Tongue River is a little-studied river with hydrologic conditions (e.g. water flow, temperature, quantity) relevant to Tribal water rights and management, fisheries, interstate water rights, irrigation, and reservoir operations. A better understanding of the current and future hydrology of the Tongue River watershed will help Tribal water management professionals make data-driven decisions about how to manage, lease, and utilize their water rights. This project will use future hydrology estimates (2070-2099) from a previously published database containing two future climate scenarios and 32 different climate models. These data will be used in conjunction with a river system model and input from the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, a project partner, and other area stakeholders to produce estimates and analyses of future streamflow throughout the Tongue River watershed. The river system model will account for irrigation withdrawals and reservoir operations, allowing for future streamflow estimates that include these processes. Project researchers will work with Northern Cheyenne Tribal members and resource managers to ensure that the project analyses are useful for their management objectives.

Tribal resource managers in the southwest U.S. are facing a host of challenges related to environmental change, including increasing temperatures, longer periods of drought, and invasive species. These threats are exacerbating the existing challenges of managing complex ecosystems. In a rapidly changing environment, resource managers need powerful tools and the most complete information to make the most effective decisions possible.   Traditional Ecological Knowledge has enabled Indigenous peoples to adaptively manage and thrive in diverse environments for thousands of years, yet it is generally underutilized and undervalued, particularly in the context of western scientific approaches. Traditional Ecological Knowledge and western science offer complementary insights and, together, can facilitate climate change adaptation. This project will use both methods of understanding the environment to provide tribal resource managers cutting edge information about what their environment looked like in the past to better understand it in the present and make more informed decisions for the future.   In particular, this project will work directly with Ute Mountain Ute decision-makers in using a combination of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and paleo-ecological records to explore past vegetation changes relevant to the stakeholder community. This work will then inform a forward-looking assessment of climate change impacts and adaptation options. Tribal youth will be involved in collecting information, and in developing and distributing outreach materials that summarize the work. By utilizing both Traditional Ecological Knowledge and western science techniques, this project will: 1) show how two different methods of understanding the environment can be utilized in a resource management context to assist with decision making, 2) establish how useful these methods are in tandem, and 3) provide southwest resource managers with better historic and holistic information to use in resource management decision making. 

Tribal nations are priority science partners of the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NC CASC) and the center is committed to working with Tribal partners to create usable, and relevant science to build resilience to anthropogenic climate change. The NC CASC recognizes the importance and value of Indigenous Knowledges in addressing environmental challenges and any tribal projects funded through NC CASC follow the Guidelines for Considering Indigenous Knowledges in Climate Change Initiatives to ensure data sovereignty and best practices for working with sovereign Tribal Nations. To better understand, support, and facilitate climate resilience in Tribal communities, the NC CASC co-hosts a regional Tribal Resilience Liaison. This position supports capacity building for addressing climate change impacts on specific to Tribal groups and assists Tribal resource managers in developing a variety of resources including climate vulnerability assessments, adaptation plans, proposals and grant applications. Additionally, the NC CASC has initiated a Tribal Climate Leaders Program (TCLP) to support Native American graduate students in becoming the next generation of tribal environmental leaders. The TCLP currently provides fully-funded fellowships to pursue a graduate degree at the University of Colorado Boulder in fields related to climate adaptation science. This a pilot program that began in 2020; new applications are not being accepted at this time. To learn more about the work the NC CASC conducts with tribal partners visit the Tribal Climate Leaders Program and the Tribal Partners webpages.  

Climate change is poised to alter natural systems, the frequency of extreme weather, and human health and livelihoods. In order to effectively prepare for and respond to these challenges in the north-central region of the U.S., people must have the knowledge and tools to develop plans and adaptation strategies. The objective of this project was to build stakeholders’ capacity to respond to climate change in the north-central U.S., filling in gaps not covered by other projects in the region. During the course of this project, researchers focused on three major activities:   Tribal Capacity Building: Researchers provided tribal colleges and universities with mini-grants to develop student projects to document climate-related changes in weather and culturally or traditionally significant plants. These efforts, carried out in collaboration with other organizations, contributed to building the Indigenous Geography Phenology Network, a locally grounded, national network for documenting the impacts of climate change on plants and animals. Researchers also helped the Intertribal Council On Utility Policy determine how climate science could be integrated into management decisions in the resource-rich Missouri River Basin.   Climate Training for Resource Managers: Researchers offered two climate change vulnerability assessment courses – one in Jackson, Wyoming and another in La Crosse, Wisconsin – designed to build the knowledge and skills of resource managers. Additional trainings on climate-smart conservation are being planned.   PhenoCam Deployment: Researchers co-supported the deployment of PhenoCams (streaming cameras) in locations throughout Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Observations collected by the PhenoCams will help scientists track seasonal changes across the region and better understand how climate impacts living things.

The Wind River Indian Reservation in west-central Wyoming is home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes, who reside near and depend on water from the streams that feed into the Wind River. In recent years, however, the region has experienced frequent severe droughts, which have impacted tribal livelihoods and cultural activities.   Scientists with the North Central Climate Science Center at Colorado State University, the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and several other university and agency partners are working closely with tribal water managers to assess how drought affects the reservation, integrating social, ecological, and hydro-climatological sciences with local knowledge. The findings were intended to help inform the creation of a climate monitoring system and drought management plan, which are being supported with additional technical and financial support from the High Plains Regional Climate Center and NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System. The drought plan integrated climate science with hydrologic, social, and ecological vulnerabilities and risks, and identify response capacities and strategies to support the Tribal Water Code and related resources management. Ultimately, the plan was designed to help the tribes ensure that agricultural and other societal needs are met during times of drought.   As part of the project, tribal water managers and the public were engaged in educational activities related to water resources and drought preparedness through joint activities with Wyoming Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research to build the tribes’ ability to respond to future drought. Additionally, the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado-Boulder and the project team evaluated team processes and outputs to document “lessons learned” from the collaborative process to support the transfer of knowledge to other tribes and non-tribal entities in the region and beyond.

This capacity-building activity supported three tribal college and university (TCU) mini-­grants to initiate student phenological and meteorological observation projects in support of climate change research, to document impacts of climate change and development of indigenous geography curriculum.  Students made observations of culturally and/or traditionally significant plants to generate data sets for use in climate change impact assessment of these plants and plant communities. The activity contributed to the larger national efforts of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian’s “Indigenous  Geography” curricula, by engaging with students at tribal colleges to explore the linkage between the “seasonality” and “living world” themes. The program promoted the education of the students by introducing them to two national observation networks: the USA National Phenology Network  and the  Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network. Data collected as part of these fellowships followed the protocol of these networks and, as such, contribute high-­quality data to the networks.