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Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hyp.11144/full): The extensive forests that cover the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, USA, modify snow processes and therefore affect snow water storage as well as snow disappearance timing. However, forest influences on snow accumulation and ablation vary with climate, topography, and land cover and are therefore subject to substantial temporal and spatial variability. We utilize multiple years of snow observations from across the region to assess forest-snow interactions in the relatively warm winter conditions characteristic of the maritime and maritime-continental climates. We (1) quantify the difference in snow magnitude and disappearance timing...
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Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing natural resource management. The disruptions it is causing require that we change the way we consider conservation and resource management in order to ensure the future of habitats, species, and human communities. Practitioners often struggle with how to identify and prioritize specific climate adaptation actions (CAAs). Management actions may have a higher probability of being successful if they are informed by available scientific knowledge and findings; a systematic review process provides a mechanism to scientifically assess management questions. By evaluating specific actions on scientific knowledge and findings, we may be able to increase management...
Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act because of population and habitat fragmentation coupled with inadequate regulatory mechanisms to control development in critical areas. In addition to the current threats to habitat, each 1 degree celsius increase due to climate change is expected to result in an additional 87,000 km2 of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) that will be converted to unsuitable habitat for sage-grouse. Thus, the future distribution and composition of sagebrush landscapes is likely to differ greatly from today’s configuration. We conducted a large, multi-objective project to identify: (1) characteristics of habitats required by sage-grouse,...
Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015WR017873/abstract): Spatially distributed snow depth and snow duration data were collected over two to four snow seasons during water years 2011–2014 in experimental forest plots within the Cedar River Municipal Watershed, 50 km east of Seattle, Washington, USA. These 40 × 40 m forest plots, situated on the western slope of the Cascade Range, include unthinned second-growth coniferous forests, variable density thinned forests, forest gaps in which a 20 m diameter (approximately equivalent to one tree height) gap was cut in the middle of each plot, and old-growth forest. Together, this publicly available data set includes snow depth and density observations...
There is growing evidence that headwater stream ecosystems are especially vulnerable to changing climate and land use, but their conservation is challenged by the need to address the threats at a landscape scale, often through coordination with multiple management agencies and landowners. This project seeks to fill a gap, providing an example of cooperative landscape decision-making to address the conservation of headwater stream ecosystems in the face of climate change.
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The Rio Grande River is a critical source of freshwater for 13 million people in Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico. More than half of the Rio Grande’s streamflow originates as snowmelt in Colorado’s mountains, meaning that changes in the amount of snowmelt can impact the water supply for communities along the entire river. Snowmelt runoff is therefore an important component of water supply outlooks for the region, which are used by a variety of stakeholders to anticipate water availability in the springtime. It is critical that these water supply outlooks be as accurate as possible. Errors can cost states millions of dollars due to mis-allocation of water and lost agricultural productivity. There is a perception...
Abstract (from http://www.publish.csiro.au/WF/WF16165): Interannual variability in burn severity is assessed across forested ecoregions of the western United States to understand how it is influenced by variations in area burned and climate during 1984–2014. Strong correlations (|r| > 0.6) between annual area burned and climate metrics were found across many of the studied regions. The burn severity of individual fires and fire seasons was weakly, but significantly (P < 0.05), correlated with burned area across many regions. Interannual variability in fuel dryness evaluated with fuel aridity metrics demonstrated weak-to-moderate (|r| >0.4) relationships with regional burn severity, congruent with but weaker than...
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This dataset depicts the ecological integrity of locations (represented by 30 m grid cells) throughout the northeastern United States based on environmental conditions existing in approximately 2010 for aquatic systems.The values for this dataset were extracted from the Index of Ecological Integrity, Region-wide, Version 3.2 for all aquatic systems. Updated 09/2017. The metadata for the original dataset is as follows:This dataset was last updated 02/2017. This version includes a new tidal restrictions metric that assesses the effect of undersized culverts and bridges on tidal regime. The previous version (3.1) was updated on 05/2016 by incorporating a revised version of the land cover classification, DSLland Version...
Urban forests provide well-documented environmental and societal benefits valued at more than four billion dollars per year in the United States. As cities expand onto land once occupied by rural forests, urban trees take on an even more vital role in mitigating global climate change, conserving biodiversity, and protecting human health. Maintaining the health of trees is challenging in cities and in forests under climate change because of tree stress and pests. Unhealthy trees do not provide adequate ecosystem services or conservation value compared to healthy trees. In this work we found that exotic trees can remain healthy and maintain biodiversity of arthropods (e.g. spiders and insects) that is similar to native...
Assessing the impact of flow alteration on aquatic ecosystems has been identified as a critical area of research nationally and in the Southeast U.S. This project aimed to address the Ecohydrology Priority Science Need of the SECSC FY2012 Annual Science Work Plan by developing an inventory and evaluation of current efforts and knowledge gaps in hydrological modeling for flow-­‐ecology science in global change impact studies across the Southeast. To accomplish this goal, we completed a thorough synthesis and evaluation of hydrologic modeling efforts in the Southeast region (including all states of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (SEAFWA) including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky,...
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Mountain meadows in the western United States provide key habitats for many plant and wildlife species, many of which rely exclusively on these areas. Mountain meadows are also treasured by the public and provide beautiful areas to view wildflowers and wildlife on public lands such as national parks. However, mountain ecosystems are expected to be disproportionately affected by climate change. There is a limited understanding of how mountain meadows are changing, how temperature and precipitation may be driving those changes, and how this will impact sensitive species that inhabit these landscapes. Natural resource managers have an immediate need to understand these relationships to conserve or restore habitats...
Snow conditions are extremely important to a wide range of hydrologic and ecosystem components and processes, including those related to surface energy and moisture stores and fluxes, vegetation, mammals, birds, and fish. The required snow datasets currently do not exist at the required spatial and temporal resolutions needed by end users such as scientists, land managers, and policy makers.
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Water management in the middle portion of the Rio Grande Basin (between Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico and Presidio, Texas) is challenging because water demand has continued to increase over time despite limited river water and dropping groundwater levels. While urban and agricultural users can cope with frequent droughts by using a combination of river water and pumping groundwater, little to no water reaches living river ecosystems in this region. Improving this situation requires a good understanding of river water and groundwater availability, now and in the future, as well as advantages and disadvantages of water management options to sustain these ecosystems. In particular, there is a need to determine...
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Forests in the eastern United States are changing in response to ecological succession, tree harvest, and other disturbances and climate change has the potential to further change these forests. We predicted the distribution and abundance of common tree species across portions of the eastern U.S. under alternative climate scenarios that varied in the amount of warming by the end of the century from 1.1 to 4.2 degrees celsius. We used a forest landscape change model to forecast changes in tree abundances and distribution in the North Atlantic region of the U.S. while accounting for climate change, succession, and harvest. We then considered a broader region of the U.S. and combined our results with results from previous...
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Freshwater is a critical driver for island ecosystems. In Hawaiʻi, though rainfall intensity has increased, total rainfall has been on the decline for the last two decades and, as a result, streamflow has also been reduced. The changes in dynamic patterns of streamflow could result in impacts to river, estuarine, and coastal habitats. In turn, these changes also affect the nine native Hawaiian aquatic species found in these habitats at different stages of their amphidromous life cycle (in which they migrate from fresh to salt water or vice versa). To examine how changes in streamflow regime have impacted habitat quality for native migratory aquatic species, an ongoing project has been examining statewide long-term...
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Haleakalā National Park (HNP) and the surrounding landscape spans many different land cover types, some of which are undergoing vegetation changes that can reduce the amount of water that infiltrates into soil. Decreased soil infiltration can lead to the erosion of terrestrial habitats, increases in the amount of sediment entering aquatic habitats, and flooding of downstream areas as runoff increases after storms. Currently, HNP managers are attempting to control runoff and erosion to avoid loss and damage within park boundaries and parks located downstream. Managers in HNP have expressed a need for information on current and future runoff and erosion risk to help prioritize management within the park and other...
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Climate change is already affecting ecosystems, and will likely trigger significant and permanent changes in both ecological and human communities. Such transformations are already occurring in the Arctic region of Alaska, where temperatures are warming at twice the global average and causing some ecosystems to transition to new states. Arctic warming has led to coastal erosion that has forced human communities to relocate and a loss of sea ice that has forced marine mammals, such as polar bears and walrus, to adapt to a more terrestrial mode of living. Meanwhile, in the Great Plains of the U.S., past interactions between land and water use during the Dust Bowl and recent high rates of depletion of the Ogallala...
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In the North Central region, invasive species and climate change are intricately linked to changing fire regimes, and together, these drivers can have pronounced effects on ecosystems. When fires burn too hot or too frequently, they can prevent slow-growing native plants from regrowing. When this happens, the landscape can transform into a new type of ecosystem, such as a forest becoming a grassland. This process is known as “ecosystem transformation”. This project will explore key management priorities including native community resilience and management of invasive species, wildfire, and ecosystem change, in a collaboration of researchers working directly with land managers and other stakeholders through the...
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Ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves provide an effective first line of defense against coastal hazards and represent a promising nature-based solution to adapt to sea-level rise. In many areas, coral reefs cause waves to break and lose energy, allowing for sediment to accumulate on the inshore portion of reef flats (i.e. the shallowest, flattest part of a reef) and mangroves to establish. Mangroves cause further attenuation (i.e. energy loss) waves and storm surge as water moves through roots and trunks of the trees. Together, these ecosystems provide valuable protection from coastal flooding, but is unclear how this protection may be affected by sea-level rise. An assessment of future sea-level rise vulnerability...
map background search result map search result map Changes in Forested Landscapes of the Northeastern U.S. Under Future Climate Scenarios The Available Science Assessment Process (ASAP): Evaluating the Science behind Climate Adaptation Actions Aquatic Index of Ecological Integrity, Region-wide, Version 3.2, Northeast U.S. Developing Tools for Improved Water Supply Forecasting in the Rio Grande Headwaters Identifying the Risk of Runoff and Erosion in Hawaiʻi’s National Parks Adaptation Strategies in the Face of Climate-Driven Ecological Transformation: Case Studies from Arctic Alaska and the U.S. Great Plains Understanding New Paradigms for “Environmental Flows” and Water Allocation in the Middle Rio Grande River Basin in a Changing Climate Connecting Ecosystems from Mountains to the Sea in a Changing Climate The Impact of Sea-Level Rise on Coral Reef and Mangrove Interactions and the Resulting Coastal Flooding Hazards From Water to Wildlife: Linking Water Timing and Availability to Meadows and Wildlife in a Changing Climate Managing Ecological Transformation to Enhance Carbon Storage and Biodiversity The Impact of Sea-Level Rise on Coral Reef and Mangrove Interactions and the Resulting Coastal Flooding Hazards Understanding New Paradigms for “Environmental Flows” and Water Allocation in the Middle Rio Grande River Basin in a Changing Climate The Available Science Assessment Process (ASAP): Evaluating the Science behind Climate Adaptation Actions From Water to Wildlife: Linking Water Timing and Availability to Meadows and Wildlife in a Changing Climate Changes in Forested Landscapes of the Northeastern U.S. Under Future Climate Scenarios Identifying the Risk of Runoff and Erosion in Hawaiʻi’s National Parks Managing Ecological Transformation to Enhance Carbon Storage and Biodiversity Aquatic Index of Ecological Integrity, Region-wide, Version 3.2, Northeast U.S. Connecting Ecosystems from Mountains to the Sea in a Changing Climate Adaptation Strategies in the Face of Climate-Driven Ecological Transformation: Case Studies from Arctic Alaska and the U.S. Great Plains