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  5. An Alert System for Managing At-Risk Species in Cascadia under Climate Change

An Alert System for Managing At-Risk Species in Cascadia under Climate Change

A Northwest CASC Funding Opportunity – Fiscal Year 2019 Project
Principal Investigator
Meade Krosby

Dates

Release Date
2019
Start Date
2020-08-01
End Date
2022-10-31

Summary

A rapidly changing climate and expanding human footprint is driving increased rates of landscape change in the Pacific Northwest. This makes it challenging for managers to know if and to what extent recovery goals and conservation plans for at-risk species need to be modified to account for changing habitat conditions. Addressing this challenge requires accurate, up-to-date information about landscape change and how it affects the habitat and viability of at-risk species. In addition, managers need to be alerted when trends in habitat conditions approach key ecological thresholds, in order to determine if management goals and plans need to be modified in response to these changes. The goal of this project is to provide regional land [...]

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Contacts

Principal Investigator :
Meade Krosby
Funding Agency :
Northwest CASC
CMS Group :
Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASC) Program
Cooperator/Partner :
Andrew Shirk, Jen Watkins, Dave Werntz, Carly Vynne, Greg Kehm, David Thau, Tanya Birch, Bill Gaines, Andrea Lyons, Michael Schroeder, Samuel Cushman

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Grizzlies_GreaterYellowstone_KimKeating_USGS.jpg
“Grizzly Bears in Greater Yellowstone. Credit: Kim Keating - USGS” 		thumbnail 5.65 MB image/jpeg

Project Extension

parts
typeTechnical Summary
valueClimate change and the expanding human footprint in the Pacific Northwest are driving rapid changes in species habitats, making it challenging for managers to know if and to what extent recovery goals and conservation plans for at-risk species need to be modified in response to the changing landscape and climate. We will produce an automated alert system that provides regional land managers with regularly updated information on the status of habitat conditions relative to key ecological thresholds that support recovery goals for five at-risk species in Washington (wolverine, Canada lynx, and fisher in Year 1; grizzly bear and greater sage-grouse in Year 2) as well as their associated climate-sensitive ecosystems (late-seral forests, sagebrush steppe, and montane areas with persistent spring snowpack). An alert system for each species will involve the following five tasks: (1) form a collaborative team of land managers, practitioners, and wildlife biologists for each target species, (2) develop an automated and dynamic cloud-based modeling process to produce habitat and habitat connectivity models each year for target species based on the latest remote-sensing and other data sources, (3) determine ecological thresholds of habitat and connectivity required to support viable populations of target species, (4) create an automated alert system for the target species, and (5) provide training in the use and interpretation of the alert system and products served to the web portal. Importantly, the data manipulation and modeling steps described above will be automated and dynamically linked to required datasets in a cloud-based spatial analysis supercomputing environment, Google Earth Engine. Our team is collaborating with Google to build a dynamic spatial prioritization tool for Cascadia that monitors trends in habitat and connectivity over time, and the alert system we propose for the species and rare habitats above will be housed within this tool. The automation and dynamic links to remote sensing and other data means the models, habitat and connectivity monitoring, and alert system are always kept up-to-date, without continued investments in repeated manual analyses. The massive parallel computing power of the platform also makes it possible to scale up the study area extent to continental scales if desired. Nesting the alert system inside this platform also leverages $132,250 invested in the tool thus far, development of a web portal for users to interact with tool outputs, and significant ongoing investments ($65,000 in 2018-2019) in engaging our audience to co-design the tool around their management information needs. This tool will allow users to define their management area, track trends in habitat and connectivity for at-risk species and habitats inside their area of interest, and be alerted if these trends reach critical thresholds for population viability. This will provide timely information to land and wildlife managers to guide modification of recovery goals and conservation plans in response to dynamic landscape conditions. Ultimately, this will help conserve at-risk species in Cascadia. Moreover, investment in this project builds capacity to deploy alert systems for other species and in other geographies for an even greater impact.
projectStatusIn Progress

Grizzly Bears in Greater Yellowstone. Credit: Kim Keating - USGS
Grizzly Bears in Greater Yellowstone. Credit: Kim Keating - USGS

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Type Scheme Key
RegistrationUUID NCCWSC 65612508-fa1c-4c80-a257-277ed9d7da6a
StampID NCCWSC NW19-KM1667

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