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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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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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Fisheries managers in Midwestern lakes and reservoirs are tasked with balancing multiple management objectives to help maintain healthy fish populations across a landscape of diverse lakes. As part of this, managers monitor fish growth and survival. Growth rates in particular are indicators of population health, and directly influence the effectiveness of regulations designed to protect spawning fish or to promote trophy fishing opportunities. Growth, combined with reproduction and survival, also determines the amount of fish biomass available for harvest, known as population production. Changing water temperatures can influence growth and production of managed fish species in multiple complex ways, increasing the...
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Climate Change is making our environment unpredictable. Increased persistence of drought is causing deaths of plants and animals across our landscapes. However, drought amongst the western United States is not a new thing. Native American populations have been living with drought since time immemorial and practiced culturally prescribed fire practices to foster the landscape for an environment that provides resources for tribal livelihoods and traditional practices (Marks-Block et al. 2019). The United States Geologic Survey and the Yurok Tribe are partnering to study the effects of prescribed burns actively occurring in Yurok Ancestral Territory. Prescribed burns promote a healthy ecosystem through positively...
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Natural climate variability can obscure or enhance long-term trends in experienced weather due to climate change. This can happen temporarily on timescales of a season to several years to a decade or two. Natural variability is poorly described and attributed to specific causes, contributing to uncertainty and misunderstandings about the nature of climate change that stakeholders and resource managers attempt to anticipate. There exists, therefore, a need to clarify the magnitude and causality of natural climate variability. This connection needs to be explained for locally-experienced weather and particularly for daily extreme events, whose seasonal behavior impacts both resources and imagination. Conversely, it...
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The impacts of climate change are widespread and accelerating. It is daunting for resource managers to determine how to use increasingly limited staff time and funding to conserve species and ecosystems. The Refugia Research Coalition is a national framework that brings together researchers and managers to identify and develop conservation strategies for “climate change refugia”, areas that remain relatively buffered from contemporary climate change over time and enable persistence of valued physical, ecological, and socio-cultural resources. Expanding on previous work carried out in the Northwest and Northeast regions, this project will produce a list of priority species and habitats, generated by local and regional...
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Salmonids, a group of coldwater adapted fishes of enormous ecological and socio-economic value, historically inhabited a variety of freshwater habitats throughout the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Over the past century, however, populations have dramatically declined due to habitat loss, overharvest, and invasive species. Consequently, many populations are listed as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Complicating these stressors is global warming and associated climate change. Overall, aquatic ecosystems across the PNW are predicted to experience increasingly earlier snowmelt in the spring, reduced late spring and summer flows, increased winter flooding, warmer and drier summers, increased...
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Climate responses of sagebrush are needed to inform land managers of the stability and restoration of sagebrush ecosystems, which are an important but threatened habitat type. We evaluated climate responses of sagebrush using two approaches: (1) experimental manipulations of temperature and precipitation for natural plants in the field, and (2) assessment of how climate adaptation and weather have affected sagebrush seeding efforts on nearly 25 large-scale sagebrush seeding projects done over the past several decades. Experimental warming increased growth of sagebrush in high-elevation meadows in the Teton Mountains, but had marginal or no effect at lower elevations sites (near Twin Falls and Boise, Idaho, respectively)....
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Wild berries are a valued traditional food for tribes of the Chugachmiut Tribal Consortium (Chenega Bay, Eyak, Nanwalek, Port Graham, Qutekcak, Tatitlek, and Valdez) in the rural Chugach region of south-central Alaska. Berries supply essential nutrients that prevent heart disease and cancer, are used for medicinal purposes, and are the only sweet food in the traditional Native diet. Hence, berries have both nutritional and cultural significance. From 2008 to 2012, wild berry populations in the Chugach region were decimated by an unexpected outbreak of moths, thought to have been brought about by shifting climate (i.e., warmer temperatures allowed a greater number of moths to survive the winter). This outbreak...
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Mature, old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest provide critical habitat for threatened and endangered species, including the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet. Dominated by large Douglas-firs and western hemlocks, these established forests range in age from 200 to 1,000 years old. Yet wildfire activity is increasing across western North America, heightening concerns about severe fires that have the potential to kill the upper canopy layer of forests. Known as “stand-replacing fires”, these extreme events have important implications for forest ecosystems, initiating forest regrowth and altering habitat for wildlife. Identifying locations that are protected from stand-replacing fire is an urgent management...
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Preparing for and responding to the impacts of climate change are critical to the wellbeing of tribal communities that rely on natural resources to sustain their families, communities, traditional ways of life, and cultural identities. Recognizing this, efforts across the country are underway to support and enhance the capacity of tribes to prepare for climate change risks. However, due to staffing, technical, and financial limitations, many tribes continue to experience difficulty initiating and completing the critical first step of the climate adaptation planning process: a “climate change vulnerability assessment”, i.e., a structured assessment of the specific potential impacts of climate change that the tribe...
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Native mussels are in precipitous decline across North America. As part of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation’s (CTUIR) First Foods management framework that places significant value on the cultural importance of traditional food resources, they have been identified as a top conservation priority in the Pacific Northwest. Freshwater mussels are a vital component of river ecosystems, a historic food resource, and were used for adornment, jewelry, tools, and trade. Yet, little is known about the basic biology and ecology of these organisms, including where they are, how many of them remain, and what habitat characteristics (e.g., water temperature, flow, etc.) are important to them. There is...
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The Rio Grande-Rio Bravo River is the second longest river in the US and is a critical drinking water source for more than 13 million people. It flows south from the snow-capped mountains of Colorado through the New Mexico desert, forms the border between Texas and Mexico, and empties into the Gulf of Mexico at Brownsville, Texas. The multi-national, multi-state, ecologically diverse nature of this river makes management of the resource a complex task, especially in the context of more frequent droughts, changes in land use patterns, and increasing water use needs. The purpose of this project was to review scientific monitoring and research reports and provide an overview of the state of the knowledge of the Upper...
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Over two-thirds of all landbirds (i.e. birds that spend the majority of their lives in terrestrial environments) in North America migrate long-distances to areas in Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean islands. Habitats within Texas and Louisiana support high numbers of birds when they interrupt their migratory journeys through the Gulf of Mexico region to “stopover” for resting and refueling. These stopover habitats are often in areas experiencing human population growth and are impacted by natural disturbances and climate change. Predicted habitat loss from sea level rise and extreme weather events coupled with mismatches in the timing of peak bird migration and peak food abundance may limit the...
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The Bonnet Carré spillway (BCS) is a flood-control structure along the Lower Mississippi River designed to prevent flooding in the city of New Orleans by diverting excess water into the nearby Lake Pontchartrain estuary. Alarmingly, the BCS was opened as many times over the past decade (2011–2020) as it had been over the six prior decades combined (1951–2010), with devastating effects on the estuary’s valuable fisheries. Because the BCS was rarely used in the past, there is little science-based guidance for state agencies to consult when trying to manage these events. In light of the unprecedented increase in BCS operation, this project will conduct research to understand (1) how opening the BCS affects Lake Pontchartrain...
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Climate change threatens to damage historical sites and disrupt cultural practices in communities around the world, including the South-Central United States. Researchers are now paying greater attention to the impact of climate change on these cultural resources, but currently little guidance exists for decision makers who are interested in protecting them. Because communities value and interact with cultural resources in different ways, effectively planning for their protection requires broad public participation. In the planning phase, this project will focus on (1) building relationships with researchers and professionals working to protect cultural resources, (2) identifying and engaging with tribal and marginalized...
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The prairie grasslands of the Midwest and Great Plains provide important habitat for a wide variety of plants and animals, clean drinking water, and space for outdoor recreation and have experienced an over 99% loss of prairie grasslands due to a variety of factors including climate change. Land managers that are working to restore prairie grasslands would like to make them resilient to a shifting climate. However, they have limited information about how to plan these restorations with climate adaptation in mind In the Midwest and throughout much of North America, the effects of climate change are more pronounced and rapid in winter than in other seasons. Winters generally have less snow leaving plants more exposed...
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Steep, mountainous watersheds, dramatic climate gradients, and tight links between the land and sea are common features of both the Pacific Islands and Southeast Alaska. In these "ridge-to-reef" and “icefield-to-ocean" ecosystems, environmental changes that occur at higher elevations have downstream impacts on the waters below. Today, these two ecosystems are undergoing changes in climate that are significantly impacting the terrestrial, freshwater, and coastal ecosystems that communities rely on for food, water, recreation, and tourism. For example, changing weather patterns are leading to more frequent and severe extreme storms, atmospheric rivers, droughts, and heat waves. Communities in both regions have deep...
map background search result map search result map Predicting Climate Change Impacts on River Ecosystems and Salmonids across the Pacific Northwest Sagebrush Ecosystems in a Changing Climate Understanding and Communicating the Role of Natural Climate Variability in a Changing World Mapping Wild Berries in the Chugach Region of Alaska to Inform Restoration of Traditional Foods Building Tribal Capacity to Assess Vulnerability to Climate Change Fire Refugia in Old-Growth Forests: Predicting Habitat Persistence to Support Land Management in an Era of Rapid Global Change Assessing the State of Water Resource Knowledge and Tools for Future Planning in the Upper Rio Grande-Rio Bravo Basin A Synthesis of Climate Change Refugia Science and Management Actions to Inform Climate Adaptation in the Southwest North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center Consortium - Hosted by The University of Colorado Boulder (2018-2023) Adapting to Climate Change: Trends and Severe Storm Responses by Migratory Landbirds and Their Habitats Quantifying the Impacts of Climate Change on Fish Growth and Production to Enable Sustainable Management of Diverse Inland Fisheries Developing A New Software Package to Enhance Species Distribution Model Functionality State of the Science in Streamflow Modeling in the North Central Region to Address Partner Needs for Water Availability Under Drought Conditions Native and Invasive Bivalves in the Pacific Northwest: Co-occurrence, Habitat Associations and Potential Competition in the Face of Climate Change Providing a Climate Science Foundation for Updating the Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy Actionable Science Plan Improving Water Resilience and Availability Through Culturally Prescribed Fires as a Management Tool on Yurok Tribal Lands How Management Decisions Might Improve the Resilience of Prairies Under Winter Climate Change A Fresh Set of Tools: New Information for Managing Fisheries During Changes in River Discharge Integrating Cultural Resources into Adaptation Planning in Tribal and Marginalized Communities Understanding Ridge-to-Reef and Icefield-to-Ocean Ecosystem Function in a Changing Climate How Management Decisions Might Improve the Resilience of Prairies Under Winter Climate Change Mapping Wild Berries in the Chugach Region of Alaska to Inform Restoration of Traditional Foods Improving Water Resilience and Availability Through Culturally Prescribed Fires as a Management Tool on Yurok Tribal Lands A Fresh Set of Tools: New Information for Managing Fisheries During Changes in River Discharge Sagebrush Ecosystems in a Changing Climate State of the Science in Streamflow Modeling in the North Central Region to Address Partner Needs for Water Availability Under Drought Conditions Fire Refugia in Old-Growth Forests: Predicting Habitat Persistence to Support Land Management in an Era of Rapid Global Change Assessing the State of Water Resource Knowledge and Tools for Future Planning in the Upper Rio Grande-Rio Bravo Basin Native and Invasive Bivalves in the Pacific Northwest: Co-occurrence, Habitat Associations and Potential Competition in the Face of Climate Change Integrating Cultural Resources into Adaptation Planning in Tribal and Marginalized Communities A Synthesis of Climate Change Refugia Science and Management Actions to Inform Climate Adaptation in the Southwest Understanding and Communicating the Role of Natural Climate Variability in a Changing World Building Tribal Capacity to Assess Vulnerability to Climate Change Predicting Climate Change Impacts on River Ecosystems and Salmonids across the Pacific Northwest Adapting to Climate Change: Trends and Severe Storm Responses by Migratory Landbirds and Their Habitats Quantifying the Impacts of Climate Change on Fish Growth and Production to Enable Sustainable Management of Diverse Inland Fisheries 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 Providing a Climate Science Foundation for Updating the Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy Actionable Science Plan Understanding Ridge-to-Reef and Icefield-to-Ocean Ecosystem Function in a Changing Climate