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Natural resource managers planning for increased incidence of droughts, floods, and other climate change impacts in the North Central region are in charge of management strategies that can impact the well-being of rural communities in the region. Gaining a better understanding of how resource management decisions may impact rural communities can allow for better consideration of the costs and benefits of resource management decisions. Identifying these impacts is especially important as these communities are often already unfairly disadvantaged and more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This project will focus on exploring the ways in which natural resource management decisions affect rural and tribal...
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Forests in the western U.S. are increasingly impacted by climate change. Warmer and drier conditions both increase fire activity in western forests and make it more difficult for forests to recover after wildfires. If forests fail to recover, they may shift to non-forest ecosystems like grasslands or shrublands. It is important to understand where fires may result in the loss of forests because forests provide a variety of ecosystem services that human communities rely on, including carbon storage, water regulation and supply, and biodiversity. Western forests are also integral for the timber industry and valued for their recreation opportunities. Anticipating future changes to forest ecosystems, particularly at...
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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...
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Tribal Partnership Science (TPS) is a rapidly growing field that brings together biophysical and social scientists, federally recognized tribes, and federal land management agencies. TPS is essential for addressing complex environmental challenges facing tribes and their homelands. In recent years, a proliferation of methods, frameworks, and guidance for TPS has emerged from diverse scientific disciplines, geographies, and management contexts. This has made it difficult for scientists to keep up with the latest developments and to apply them effectively. This project will synthesize, pragmatize, and tailor the science-to-date for TPS in the contiguous United States (CONUS). Specifically, we will produce a cohesive...
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Drought events have cost the U.S. nearly $245 billion since 1980, with costs ranging from $2 to $44 billion in any given year. However, these socio-economic losses are not the only impacts of drought. Ecosystems, fish, wildlife, and plants also suffer, and these types of drought impacts are becoming more commonplace. Further, ecosystems that recover from drought are now doing so under different climate conditions than they have experienced in the past few centuries. As temperature and precipitation patterns change, “transformational drought”, or drought events that can permanently and irreversibly alter ecosystems – such as forests converting to grasslands – are a growing threat. This type of drought has cascading...
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Changing climate conditions can make water management planning and drought preparedness decisions more complicated than ever before. Resource managers can no longer rely solely on historical data and trends to base their actions, and are in need of science that is relevant to their specific needs and can directly inform important planning decisions. Questions remain, however, regarding the most effective and efficient methods for extending scientific knowledge and products into management and decision-making. This study analyzed two unique cases of water management to better understand how science can be translated into resource management actions and decision-making. In particular, this project sought to understand...
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The 2019 Tribal Climate Camp, hosted by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, took place June 16-21, 2019 at the Flathead Lake Biological Station in Polson, Montana. The Tribal Climate Camp was designed to support teams of tribal leaders, climate change coordinators, planners and program managers to build skills, gather information and develop tribal policy needed to address climate change impacts. This week-long program helped build individual and team capacity to lead and manage for climate change and adaptation across departments within a tribe, and between tribes and partner agencies and organizations. Participants included tribal climate change staff, policy leaders, Tribal Council, natural resource...
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The National Park Service is responsible for managing livestock grazing on 94 locations across the country and several grazing management planning efforts for this work are underway. However, there is a recognized need to update grazing management plans to address potential future effects of climate change on related resources and practices. This is the second phase of a project that is using scenario planning (a strategic planning technique used to inform decision-making in the face of uncertain future conditions) to support grazing management at Dinosaur National Monument. In the first phase of the project (Integrating Climate Considerations into Grazing Management Programs in National Parks), the research team...
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The North American Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is an expansive region that covers parts of five Midwestern states and three Canadian provinces. This region contains millions of wetlands in which waterfowl breed and from which 50-80% of the continent's migratory ducks originate each year. Previous modeling efforts indicated that climate change would result in a shift of suitable waterfowl breeding habitat from the central PPR to the southeastern portion of the region, an area where the majority of wetlands have been drained. If this future scenario were to materialize, a significant restoration effort would be needed in the southeastern PPR to support waterfowl production. However, more recent research has revealed...
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Land and water managers often rely on hydrological models to make informed management decisions. Understanding water availability in streams, rivers, and reservoirs during high demand periods that coincide with seasonal low flows can affect how water managers plan for its distribution for human consumption while sustaining aquatic ecosystems. Substantial advancement in hydrological modeling has occurred in the last several decades resulting in models that range widely in complexity and outputs. However, managers can still struggle to make informed decisions with these models for a variety of reasons, including misalignments between model outputs and the specific decision they are intended to inform, limitations...
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The long-term success of management efforts in sagebrush habitats are increasingly complicated by the impacts of a changing climate throughout the western United States. These complications are most evident in the ongoing challenges of drought and altered rangeland fire regimes resulting from the establishment of nonnative annual grasses. The Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy recognized these growing threats to sagebrush habitat and initiated the development of an Actionable Science Plan to help the scientific and management communities address the highest priority science needs to help improve rangeland management efficacy in the West. Since the establishment of the original Integrated Rangeland Fire...
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The NC CASC supports co-produced actionable science, data-intensive discovery, and open science to support tribal, federal, state, and local natural resource managers and decision-makers in the North Central region, which serves Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska. NC CASC is hosted by the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) within the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences , and is a partnership between CU Boulder, the U.S. Geological Survey, and five consortium partners: University of Montana; South Dakota State University; Conservation Science Partners; Wildlife Conservation Society; and Great Plains Tribal Water Alliance. During the period...
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The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages the largest area of public lands in the United States. Decision-making on BLM lands is complex because managers have to balance diverse, sometimes conflicting, resources, uses, and values. Land managers are more likely to achieve long-term land management goals and balance multiple desired uses and values across public landscapes when their decisions are informed by the best available science, including climate science. Strengthening the use of science and climate information in federal decision making is a priority for the current administration and for federal agencies, including the BLM. The Climate Adaptation Science Centers are committed to developing climate science...
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Even when faced with uncertainty about future climate conditions, resource managers are tasked with making planning and adaptation decisions that impact important natural and cultural resources. Species distribution models are widely used by both researchers and managers to estimate species responses to climate change. These models combine data on environmental variables (e.g., temperature, precipitation) with field samples of a species’ presence, absence, and/or abundance to project and visualize potential habitat of the species across space and time. However, species distribution modeling software previously developed and supported by USGS (the Software for Assisted Habitat Modeling [SAHM] package for VisTrails)...
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Dry stream sections are characteristic of most prairie streams. Native fish are highly adapted to variable environments, using refuge habitats (e.g., remaining wet stream fragments) to recolonize areas after seasonal drying. However, dams and other barriers can prevent recolonization of seasonally-dry stream sections habitats known to be critical spawning and rearing areas for many species. This phenomenon will likely become more common as climate change causes increasingly severe droughts, and larger sections of streams become seasonally dry. This could lead to local loss of native prairie fishes, an already at-risk group. Fisheries managers in Wyoming and Montana have limited data on climate impacts to prairie...
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Changing climate conditions could have significant impacts on wildlife health. Shifts in temperature and precipitation may directly affect the occurrence of disease in fish and wildlife by altering their interactions with pathogens (such as the bacterium that causes Lyme disease), helping vectors like mosquitoes and ticks expand their range, or speeding up the time it takes for a parasite to develop from an egg to an adult. Climate change can also indirectly affect the health of fish and wildlife as their habitats change. For example, reduced food availability could lead to overcrowding and increased disease transmission, or warmer temperatures might increase stress levels, weakening immune systems and making animals...
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A rapidly changing climate during this century poses a high risk for impacts to ecosystems, biodiversity and traditional livelihoods. A better understanding of how climate change might alter temperature, precipitation, heat stress, water availability and other extreme weather metrics in the coming century would be useful to natural resource managers at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in the North Central region. Particularly, when they prepare to conduct Species Status Assessments to better evaluate risk to ecosystems, biodiversity and traditional livelihoods resulting from a changing climate. Scientists have traditionally gone through the time intensive process of extracting and analyzing different climate datasets...
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Tribes and tribal lands in the Northern Rockies/Northern Plains region are already experiencing the effects of climate change, and tribal managers are also already responding to and preparing for the impacts of those changes. However, these managers face many challenges and obstacles to either completing and/or implementing their adaptation plans. The overall goal of this project is to provide tribal managers in this region the opportunity to share experiences, challenges, and successes with each other in order to support climate adaptation efforts. The project researchers will plan and conduct a workshop for tribes in the north central region that are in some stage of climate adaptation planning or implementation....
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Improving the quality of habitat for western big-game species, such as elk and mule deer, was identified as a priority by the Department of the Interior in 2018. Maintaining healthy herds not only supports the ecosystems where these species are found, but also the hunting and wildlife watching communities. For example, in Wyoming, big game hunting contributed over $300 million to the state’s economy in 2015. Yet as climate conditions change, the quantity, quality, and timing of vegetation available to mule deer, elk, and other ungulates, known as forage, could shift. It’s possible that these changes could have cascading impacts on the behavior and population sizes of many species. A key strategy used by managers...
map background search result map search result map Predicting Future Forage Conditions for Elk and Mule Deer in Montana and Wyoming Climate-Driven Shifts in Prairie Pothole Wetlands: Assessing Future Impacts to Critical Waterfowl Habitats Identifying Characteristics of Actionable Science for Drought Planning and Adaptation Supporting Tribal Climate Adaptation in the Northern Rockies and Northern Plains Region Synthesizing Climate Change Impacts on Wildlife Health and Identifying Adaptation Strategies Support for the 2019 Tribal Climate Camp Anticipating Forest Vulnerability to Fire-Catalyzed Ecosystem Change in the Northern Rocky Mountains State of the Science Synthesis on Transformational Drought: Understanding Drought’s Potential to Transform Ecosystems Across the Country North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center Consortium - Hosted by The University of Colorado Boulder (2018-2023) Modeling to Support Grazing Management Planning in U.S. National Parks: A Case Study from Dinosaur National Monument Developing A New Software Package to Enhance Species Distribution Model Functionality Supporting U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Species Status Assessments Efforts with Climate Scenario Planning Tools Future Streamflow Estimates for Tongue River to Enable Northern Cheyenne Data Driven Water Management and Planning State of the Science in Streamflow Modeling in the North Central Region to Address Partner Needs for Water Availability Under Drought Conditions The Implications of Stream Fragmentation for Climate Change Resilience of Northern Prairie Fishes Providing a Climate Science Foundation for Updating the Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy Actionable Science Plan Understanding the Intersection of Climate Vulnerability and Resource Management in Rural Communities Short Science Syntheses and NEPA Analyses for Climate-Informed Land Management Decisions in Sagebrush Rangelands Developing Resources for Tribal Partnership Science Future Streamflow Estimates for Tongue River to Enable Northern Cheyenne Data Driven Water Management and Planning Understanding the Intersection of Climate Vulnerability and Resource Management in Rural Communities Support for the 2019 Tribal Climate Camp State of the Science in Streamflow Modeling in the North Central Region to Address Partner Needs for Water Availability Under Drought Conditions Predicting Future Forage Conditions for Elk and Mule Deer in Montana and Wyoming The Implications of Stream Fragmentation for Climate Change Resilience of Northern Prairie Fishes Anticipating Forest Vulnerability to Fire-Catalyzed Ecosystem Change in the Northern Rocky Mountains Supporting Tribal Climate Adaptation in the Northern Rockies and Northern Plains Region Identifying Characteristics of Actionable Science for Drought Planning and Adaptation North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center Consortium - Hosted by The University of Colorado Boulder (2018-2023) Developing A New Software Package to Enhance Species Distribution Model Functionality Supporting U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Species Status Assessments Efforts with Climate Scenario Planning Tools Climate-Driven Shifts in Prairie Pothole Wetlands: Assessing Future Impacts to Critical Waterfowl Habitats Providing a Climate Science Foundation for Updating the Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy Actionable Science Plan Short Science Syntheses and NEPA Analyses for Climate-Informed Land Management Decisions in Sagebrush Rangelands State of the Science Synthesis on Transformational Drought: Understanding Drought’s Potential to Transform Ecosystems Across the Country Developing Resources for Tribal Partnership Science Synthesizing Climate Change Impacts on Wildlife Health and Identifying Adaptation Strategies