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America’s remaining grassland in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is at risk of being lost to crop production. When crop prices are high, like the historically high corn prices that the U.S. experienced between 2008 and 2014, the risk of grassland conversion is even higher. Changing climate will add uncertainties to any efforts toward conservation of grassland in the PPR. Grassland conversion to cropland in the region would imperil nesting waterfowl among other species and further impair water quality in the Mississippi watershed. In this project, we sought to contribute to the understanding of land conversion in the PPR with the aim to better target the use of public and private funds allocated toward incentivizing...
The USGS National Climate Adaptation Science Center (NCASC) is currently engaged in an Ecological Drought initiative, focused on understanding the impacts of drought on natural ecosystems across the country. This project supported the Ecological Drought initiative by creating an Intermountain West Drought Social Science Synthesis Working Group. The goal of this working group was to investigate human dimensions of ecological drought across the intermountain west from a comparative, regional perspective. Throughout the Intermountain West, there has been significant investment in understanding how social factors influence manager and citizen experiences of drought in particular locations. Yet there is still a gap in...
The North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NC CASC) partnered with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Conservation Science Partners, Inc. (CSP) to systematically identify information gaps that, if addressed, would support management decisions for key species, habitats, or other issues within the North Central region (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas). In particular, we were interested in the intersection between 1) high-priority species or habitats that are 2) the subject of a planned decision, and for which 3) climate information would aid decision-making for state and federal agencies. In Spring of 2018, we interviewed state fish and wildlife managers...
Southwestern Colorado is already experiencing the effects of climate change in the form of larger and more severe wildfires, prolonged severe droughts, tree mortality from insect outbreaks, and earlier snowmelt. Climate scientists expect the region to experience more frequent summer heat waves, longer-lasting and more frequent droughts, and decreased river flow in the future (Lukas et al. 2014). These changes will ultimately impact local communities and challenge natural resource managers in allocating water and range for livestock grazing under unpredictable drought conditions, managing forests in the face of changing fire regimes, and managing threatened species under shifting ecological conditions. Considering...
Rates of climate and land use change vary across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains as do the responses of ecosystems to these changes. Knowledge of locations of rapid land use and climate change and changes in ecosystem services such as water runoff and ecological productivity are important for vulnerability assessment and crafting locally relevant adaptation strategies to cope with these changes. This project assessed the loss of public, private, and tribal lands due to ongoing land use intensifications and fragmentation extents across the NC CSC domain. In addition, the project evaluated how the climate, ecosystem processes, and vegetation have shifted over the past half century and how they are projected to...
As part of a broader effort to increase the ability of federal agencies to understand and adapt to changes in climate variability and hazard profiles, the Colorado Bureau of Land Management has commissioned an on-going research effort to gather and analyze information on the potential climate-related vulnerabilities of the numerous communities and businesses that rely upon the state’s 8.4 million acres of BLM-managed public lands. This report contains the initial findings of this project, and details work conducted between 2015 and 2017 centered around three main questions: 1. What efforts are currently underway within the Colorado BLM to address changes in climate and the climate vulnerabilities of public land...
The Colorado office of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which administers 8.4 million acres of Colorado’s surface acres, and more than 29 million acres of sub‐surface mineral estate, has been charged with developing a climate adaptation strategy for BLM lands within the state. The assessments presented herein present a statewide perspective on the potential future influences of a changing climate on species and ecosystems of particular importance to the BLM, with the goal of facilitating development of the best possible climate adaptation strategies to meet future conditions. The Colorado Natural Heritage Program conducted climate change vulnerability assessments of plant and animal species, and terrestrial...
Changing climate conditions can make water management planning and drought preparedness decisions more complicated than ever before. Federal and State natural resource managers can no longer rely solely on historical trends as a baseline and thus are in need of science that is relevant to their specific needs to 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 project analyzed two unique cases of water management to better understand how science can be translated into resource management actions and decision-making, focusing particularly on how the context of...
The Liaison Project increased communications between the North Central Climate Science Center (NC CSC), other USGS Science Centers and potential collaborators including active members of the four Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCC) included in the NC CSC area. The project was initiated with listening sessions to determine partners’ interest in liaising with the NC CSC, and USGS liaison proposals were selected based on demonstrated ability to continue and initiate relationships with state, federal, tribal, university and other partners. Increased communications has resulted in activities to co-produce knowledge to support management decisions that are impacted by climate.