Skip to main content

Andrea Woodward

thumbnail
Moving from Awareness to Action: Informing Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments and Adaptation Planning for Idaho and Montana National Forests
The rugged landscapes of northern Idaho and western Montana support biodiverse ecosystems, and provide a variety of natural resources and services for human communities. However, the benefits provided by these ecosystems may be at risk as changing climate magnifies existing stressors and allows new stressors to emerge. Preparation for and response to these potential changes can be most effectively addressed through multi-stakeholder partnerships, evaluating vulnerability of important resources to climate change, and developing response and preparation strategies for managing key natural resources in a changing world. This project supports climate-smart conservation and management across forests of northern Idaho...
Climate change vulnerability assessments and associated adaptation strategies and actions connect existing climate science with possible effects on natural resources and highlight potential responses. However, these assessments, which are commonly generated for large regional areas, suggest management options in general terms without guidance for choosing among strategies and actions under specific circumstances. Meanwhile, land and resource management plans1 often address smaller geographies, and management actions must address specific rather than general situations. Thus, there is a need for tools that enable managers to bridge the gap by downscaling assessments, plans, and data generated at regional scales to...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
thumbnail
Beschta and Ripple (2012) assert that increased elk populations in the Olympic National Park due to extirpation of wolves in the 1920’s has led to a reduction in riparian vegetation. They hypothesize that a decrease in this vegetation has led to an increase in erosion and undercutting of large conifer trees along the river banks, causing woody debris in the river, which in turn impacts channel morphology. Using imagery dating from 1939 and a set of digitized channel margins for each year, we classified vegetation changes that have occurred along the Hoh, Queets, and Quinault Rivers. We focused on identifying large conifers near the river that could impact water flow and channel morphology if undercut and classified...
Changes in the distribution of sub-alpine tree species in western North America have been attributed to climatic change and other environmental stresses. These changes include tree-line fluctuations throughout the Holocene and recent invasion of sub-alpine meadows by forest. Most palaeoecological studies suggest that the tree-line was higher during a period of warmer climate approximately 9000 to 5000 BP and lower during the last 5000 years, with short periods of local tree-line advance. Recent advances in sub-alpine tree distribution can be compared with weather records, allowing an examination of relationships between tree advance and climate at a finer resolution. In general, recent sub-alpine forest advances...
View more...
ScienceBase brings together the best information it can find about USGS researchers and offices to show connections to publications, projects, and data. We are still working to improve this process and information is by no means complete. If you don't see everything you know is associated with you, a colleague, or your office, please be patient while we work to connect the dots. Feel free to contact sciencebase@usgs.gov.