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Climate change adaptation research has made major advances over the last decade. For example, much is known about the impacts of climate change, many novel adaptation planning approaches have been developed, decision tools have become ubiquitous, and many novel adaptation options have been proposed. However, additional research is needed to demonstrate how these adaptation planning schemes can translate to implementation on the ground. The area in and around the Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks in Southern Sierra Nevada serve as ideal natural laboratories to study the impacts of climate change and the effectiveness of various on-the-ground forest treatments and restoration designs. Southern Sierra Nevada faces...
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Biodiversity is declining worldwide, and this trend could potentially become more severe as climate conditions change. An integral component of proactive adaptive management planning requires forecasts of how changes in climate will affect individual species. This need has been identified my multiple federal agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Forest Service. The goal of this project was to assist land and wildlife managers in anticipating which species are most vulnerable to changes in climate in the Southwest, and how resources can best be invested to facilitate adaptation. Researchers evaluated the current and future breeding ranges...
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Natural resource managers often use weather and climate information to make land management decisions. While technological advancements in data acquisition and processing have led to more online, climate-based tools and databases, these tools often require resource managers to invest a substantial amount of time to use. To address these data access challenges, the project team was previously funded to collaborate with resource managers to design highly specialized, customizable climate reports that can be used to improve land management and decision making. A key finding of this previous research was that the data and time requirements of report generation were unique to each partner. Because of that, a codebase...
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These data were simulated using the SOILWAT model and were intended to characterize soil-water conditions at different ecological sites on the Southern Colorado Plateau. SOILWAT is a daily, site-specific, multi soil-layer, ecosystem water-balance model, driven by daily meteorology, as well as site soil texture and vegetation. The sites simulated correspond with Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) plots established by the National Park Service’s (NPS) Southern Colorado Plateau Network (SCPN), which were established to capture the range of ecosystem conditions present in this network. Plant communities of the Southern Colorado Plateau Network (SCPN) are a vital sign for this region, enhancing habitat, stabilizing soils,...
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Abundant scientific research has characterized the relationships between climate and fire in ecosystems of the United States, and there is substantial evidence that the role of fire in ecosystems is likely to change with a changing climate. Changing fire patterns pose numerous natural resource management challenges and decision makers in natural-resource management increasingly require information about potential future changes in fire regimes to effectively prepare for and adapt to climate change impacts. An effective forward-looking fire science synthesis is urgently required to reflect the changing dimensions of human fire management, recognizing that fire causes, effects, impacts, and management are all interrelated...
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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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The quantity and availability of weather- and climate-related data has grown dramatically over the past decade due in part to improvements in computing speed, internet bandwidth and data visualization tools. Ideally, these improvements should help information reach experts in the relevant domain and inform decision making, leading to better weather- and climate-related decision-making and risk management. Decision support tools (DSTs) often serve as the intermediary between raw data and actionable information and decision making. The design of these DSTs is critical to ensure they present actionable information for a wide variety of potential users. This can lead to mis-specified tools with a ‘one size-fits no one’...
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The complex challenge of adapting to climate changerequires collaborative solutions that can be enhanced by connecting individuals to each other and to essential information. This project will evaluate the effectiveness of online decision information tools designed to aid adaptation, that are supported by the development of a network of practice. Networks can aid adaptation by improving the quantity and quality of professional relationships, mobilizing leadership, enhancing the flow of information and generating more actions that lead to adaptation breakthroughs. Many new networks in the Southwest have developed online tools to inform adaptation planning and natural resource management. In this project, we will...
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In California, increased wildfire activity has been linked to decreasing snowpack and earlier snowmelt. Not only has this translated into a longer fire season, but reduced snowpack has cascading effects that impact streamflow, water supplies, agricultural productivity, and ecosystems. California receives 80% of its precipitation during the winter, so mountain snowpack plays a critical role in replenishing the state’s water supply. One factor that affects the amount of winter precipitation (and therefore snowpack) in California is the North Pacific Jet (NPJ)—a current of strong, high altitude winds that occur over the northern Pacific Ocean. Winters when the NPJ is located further north than normal are drier than...
Categories: Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service, Report; Tags: 2013, CA, CA-wide, CASC, Completed, All tags...
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In recent years, a number of catastrophic wildfires have fundamentally changed species composition and structure across a large area of the Sierra Nevada of California. These fires leave behind many large, severely burned patches of land where the majority of trees have died. To make informed management decisions, forest managers need to understand the long-term effects of these fires on vegetation recovery and fuel loading. Large patches without trees might not reforest on their own which can cause forest loss; and, high-severity fires may lead to other high-severity fires by increasing the amount of fuel available to burn. Such repeat fires could lower the odds of any postfire forest recovery. By including...
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Ecosystems respond to disturbances (such as wildfire) and changing climate in a variety of ways, including persistence, recovery, and reorganization into new combinations. Some species respond by migrating across the landscape over time, which allows them to keep up with changing climate. Many forests recover after wildfire by regenerating from seeds, and public land managers often assist these processes to help ecosystems recover. However, the success of all of these strategies depends on young plants (seedlings and saplings) surviving, often when exposed to harsh conditions following fires, including prolonged droughts, heat waves, and rising temperatures. In this project, researchers will study how well young...
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Drought is one of the biggest threats facing our forests today. In the western U.S., severe drought and rising temperatures have caused increased tree mortality and complete forest diebacks. Forests are changing rapidly, and while land managers are working to develop long-term climate change adaptation plans, they require tools that can enhance forest resistance to drought now. To address this immediate need, researchers are examining whether a common forest management tool, prescribed fire, can be implemented to help forests better survive drought. Prescribed fire is commonly used in the western U.S. to remove potential wildfire fuel, such as small trees and shrubs. It is also thought that this act of selectively...
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Changing climate conditions have been identified as a major threat to the sustainability and availability of water resources in the Southwestern U.S. Long-term decreases in precipitation can lead to reductions in regional groundwater levels and loss of groundwater storage in aquifers for some communities. Reduced precipitation can also lead to lower water levels in streams and losses in the vegetation that grows alongside riverbanks. The goal of this project was to identify how hydrologic systems in the Southwest might respond to changes in climate and the degree to which this response is dependent on the characteristics of the hydrologic system. To do this, researchers developed a tool that simulates how quickly...
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There is a growing realization that current warming trends may be associated with increases in the size, frequency, and severity of forest fires in the West. While rising temperatures can create drought conditions that favor severe fires, it is also possible that drought limits the ability of trees to survive a fire. During a drought, there is less water available for trees and more outbreaks of harmful insects and pathogens can occur, both of which can weaken trees. Tree mortality is one means of measuring the severity of a fire, and evidence shows that trees exposed to drought conditions for periods of 5-10 years are already more sensitive to the effects of fire – suggesting that drought could indeed increase...
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Native Americans throughout the Southwest are vulnerable to climate change due to intimate relationships with the environments and landscapes upon which their cultures, traditions, and livelihoods depend. The Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe (PLPT) in Nevada is profoundly connected physically, culturally, and spiritually to Pyramid Lake, the endangered cui-­ui fish, and the threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout. While the tribe has adapted to non-­climatic stressors over the past century, climate change impacts to water resources pose a threat to the ecosystems and species of fish so deeply important to the PLPT. Our previous research indicates that PLPT is an exemplary leader in adaptive planning, given that tribal members...
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In the southwestern United States, droughts of 10 or more years are projected to become more frequent by 2100. It also is projected that there will be fewer wet days per year, with more precipitation falling on those wet days. Such climatic extremes can strongly affect wild animals and plants, ecosystems, and humans. In the Southwest, more frequent and intense storms may negatively affect protected species in coastal salt marshes; changes in the timing and amount of precipitation could lead to increases in fuel loads; and increasingly humid heat waves could lead to higher incidence of heat-related illness among visitors to national parks. This project will improve understanding of climate extremes and their potential...
The Bibliography of Aeolian Research (The BAR) contains 36,342 references to papers and reports that focus on aeolian research — the study of detachment, transport, and deposition of sediments by wind. Aeolian research spans a broad array of disciplines and may include: * the study of the physics of blowing sand, dust, and other granular material (i.e., saltation, suspension, creep and abrasion); * the study of geomorphic processes in arid environments and associated aeolian landforms, deposits, and sedimentary features; * the study of wind erosion and its control by tillage, cover crops, shelterbelts, and other management practices; and * the study of mineral dust, dust emissions, atmospheric transport and the...
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In the Southwestern U.S., rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns are resulting in changes such as more frequent and severe wildfires and prolonged drought. Natural resource managers striving to make decisions in the face of these changing conditions can benefit from information on past, present, and future climate. While an array of climate assessments are available, it is unclear how useful or relevant this information is for resource management decision-making in the Southwest. This project sought to identify the types of environmental information that resource managers in the Southwest need to make climate-related management decisions. To meet this goal, researchers first assessed the degree...
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The Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center supports conservation and management of the Southwest’s natural resources and cultural heritage by building partnerships between scientists and decision-makers, fostering development of research products to inform decisions, and assisting American Indian communities in adapting to climate change in the southwestern United States. Our vision it to help to maintain and sustain the Southwest’s unique biodiversity, its ecosystems’ diverse contributions to human welfare, and its diverse cultures, [both indigenous and adventitious,] as the region’s climate undergoes change in the coming years and decades. The SW CASC is hosted by the University of Arizona. Other consortium...
map background search result map search result map Identifying the Vulnerability of Birds and Reptiles to Changes in Climate in the Southwest Improving Groundwater Supply Forecasting in the Southwestern U.S. The Influence of the North Pacific Jet Stream on Future Fire in California Assessing the Use of Climate Information in Resource Management Decisions in the Southwest How Does Drought Influence Fire Severity in the Southwestern U.S.? 1 degree digital elevation model for Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, USA Improving Understanding of Climate Extremes in the Southwestern United States Fighting Drought with Fire: A Comparison of Burned and Unburned Forests in Drought-Impacted Areas of the Southwest Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Traditional Knowledge and Climate Change Adaptation Simulated Soil Water Potential in National Parks and Monuments of the Southern Colorado Plateau, 1915-2099—Data State of the Science Synthesis on Transformational Drought: Understanding Drought’s Potential to Transform Ecosystems Across the Country Designing Climate-Resilient Habitat for At-Risk Species in the Southern Sierra Nevada Forest Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center Consortium- Hosted by University of Arizona (2018-2023) Future of Fire: Towards a National Synthesis of Wildland Fire Under a Changing Climate Climate MicroApps: Assessment and Innovation in Climate Decision Support Tools for Land Managers Evaluation of Network Tools to Advance Climate Adaptation in the Southwest Automating Custom Climate Reports to Support Natural Resource Management in the Southwest How Do Critical Life History Stages Limit Plant Adaptation to Changing Climate? The Role of Seedling and Sapling Survivorship in Ecosystem Resilience The Effects of Catastrophic Wildfires on Vegetation and Fuel Loads in the Sierra Nevada of California The Effects of Catastrophic Wildfires on Vegetation and Fuel Loads in the Sierra Nevada of California Improving Groundwater Supply Forecasting in the Southwestern U.S. Simulated Soil Water Potential in National Parks and Monuments of the Southern Colorado Plateau, 1915-2099—Data Climate MicroApps: Assessment and Innovation in Climate Decision Support Tools for Land Managers Automating Custom Climate Reports to Support Natural Resource Management in the Southwest How Do Critical Life History Stages Limit Plant Adaptation to Changing Climate? The Role of Seedling and Sapling Survivorship in Ecosystem Resilience The Influence of the North Pacific Jet Stream on Future Fire in California Designing Climate-Resilient Habitat for At-Risk Species in the Southern Sierra Nevada Forest Improving Understanding of Climate Extremes in the Southwestern United States Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center Consortium- Hosted by University of Arizona (2018-2023) Assessing the Use of Climate Information in Resource Management Decisions in the Southwest 1 degree digital elevation model for Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, USA How Does Drought Influence Fire Severity in the Southwestern U.S.? Fighting Drought with Fire: A Comparison of Burned and Unburned Forests in Drought-Impacted Areas of the Southwest Evaluation of Network Tools to Advance Climate Adaptation in the Southwest Identifying the Vulnerability of Birds and Reptiles to Changes in Climate in the Southwest State of the Science Synthesis on Transformational Drought: Understanding Drought’s Potential to Transform Ecosystems Across the Country Future of Fire: Towards a National Synthesis of Wildland Fire Under a Changing Climate