Modeling the Effects of Climate Change on Wetlands in the Pacific Northwest

Start Date

2012-09-21

End Date

2014-12-20

Release Date

2012

Wetlands are widely recognized as important ecosystems that provide critical services for natural communities and human society, including nutrient cycling, wildlife habitat and provisioning, water storage and filtration, carbon sequestration, and agriculture and recreation. Wetlands challenge our current scientific capacity because of their sheer number, their wide range of sizes, and their dynamic nature. As a result, wetlands are understudied compared to other ecosystem types. However, wetlands are thought to be among the most sensitive ecosystems to climate change, so the lack of dedicated scientific resources has accelerating consequences going forward. Our goal in this project was to address the deficiency in wetland resources by developing new approaches and technical tools to better understand wetlands in general and to more effectively manage and conserve wetlands under a changing climate. By focusing our efforts on a range of wetland types, our goal was to better characterize landscape-scale climate change impacts to wetlands across the Pacific Northwest region in support of ongoing assessment and adaptation efforts. Our approach was designed in collaboration with natural resource managers, and involved three methodological advances. First, using remote sensing approaches, we developed new methods for mapping wetlands and reconstructing historical wetland hydrologic dynamics. Second, we used the Variable Infiltration Capacity model, a regional-scale hydrologic model, to hindcast historical wetland dynamics and project the future impacts of climate change on wetlands. Third, we linked these approaches with ecological data to evaluate the impacts and risk of climate change to several classes of wetlands across three ecoregions of Washington state. In the process we developed or collected multiple new datasets on wetland distributions, dynamics, and species occupancy. This work has broad societal value in deepening our understanding of wetland dynamics over time; creating new tools that enable better management and conservation of wetlands and the ecological services that they provide; and enriching conservation and climate adaptation planning efforts with resource and evidence-based decision power.

ScienceBase WMS

• National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers
• Northwest CASC