issue #18 - climate change and u.s. natural …...recognizing the importance of climate change...

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Climate Change and U.S. NaturalResources: Advancing the Nation’s

Capability to AdaptSusan H. Julius, Jordan M. West, Daniel Nover, Rachel Hauser, David S. Schimel,

Anthony C. Janetos, Margaret K. Walsh, Peter Backlund

Fall 2013 Report Number 18

Climate Change and U.S. NaturalResources: Advancing the Nation’s

Capability to Adapt

Issues in EcologyIssues in Ecology

© The Ecological Society of America • [email protected] esa 1

ISSUES IN ECOLOGY NUMBER EIGHTEEN FALL 2013

Climate Change and U.S. Natural Resources:Advancing the Nation’s Capability to Adapt

Susan H. Julius, Jordan M. West, Daniel Nover, Rachel Hauser, David S. Schimel,Anthony C. Janetos, Margaret K. Walsh, Peter Backlund

SUMMARY

Climate change is affecting land, water, and biodiversity in a variety of ways. Higher temperatures, altered precipitationpatterns, increasing extreme events (droughts and floods), and increasing disturbances are occurring across the

United States, with detrimental effects on sensitive systems. These kinds of changes, combined with other ongoingstresses, such as landscape fragmentation, could dramatically hinder the ability of natural resource managers to maintainestablished goals for ecosystems and species now and in the future.

While managing ecosystems and resources by relying on an expected set of climate conditions may have worked in thepast, a growing number of managers understand the need to develop new ways to manage ecosystems in the face of cli-mate change. The purpose of this Issue is to provide a broad perspective on approaches for adapting to climate changeimpacts on national water and land resources and biodiversity. Using examples from different management settings, weexplore ways to apply management options that allow natural and managed systems to adjust to the range of potentialvariations in future climate conditions.

Broad recommendations for managing the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and resources include:

• Plan – Conduct systematic adaptation planning based on vulnerability of management targets to climatechange.

• Address uncertainty – Analyze the effects of primary sources of uncertainty on adaptation options with con-text-specific methods.

• Leverage – Adjust existing management tools to changes in temporal and spatial patterns of climate impactsand ecological responses.

• Increase flexibility – Cultivate institutional flexibility and cooperation to meet adaptation planning goals.

• Expand and integrate – Coordinate research and management efforts across jurisdictions to broaden availableinformation and the scale at which management tools can be applied.

• Monitor – Enhance and augment existing monitoring networks to detect and measure climate change impactsand ecosystem responses to management actions.

• Review – Evaluate the effectiveness of management options; revise and improve adaptation plans accordingly.

• Assess and reassess – Conduct and update assessments frequently to identify changing priorities and condi-tions within systems of interest.

Coordinated research and strategic planning for climate change across government agencies is needed to increase thenation’s capacity to adapt. The U.S. National Climate Assessment provides a platform to engage networks of local,regional, and national experts and decision makers to exchange information, lessons learned, and insights on impacts andadaptation to support adaptation decision making. Over time, and with concentrated effort, implementing these recom-mendations and changes at all levels of management will help prepare us to successfully address climate change.

Cover photos: (clockwise starting on the upper left): a) Pine bark beetle damage to lodgepole pines in Colorado; b) Northern pintails in flight at Bear River MigratoryBird Refuge, Utah; c) Bark beetle; d) Coral bleaching caused by high water temperatures.

Photos credits: a) Flickr user vsmoothe; b) J. Kelly, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; c) Jeff Mitton, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University ofColorado, Boulder; d) Ernesto Weil, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez.

© The Ecological Society of America • [email protected] esa

IntroductionThe Earth’s climate is changing, affectingecosystems and presenting resource managerswith increased uncertainty and risk for achiev-ing their goals. Some observations that sup-port these trends include consistently highertemperatures and more extreme precipitationevents, rising sea levels, and increasing oceanacidity. The United States has experienced anaverage increase in temperature of about 1.5˚Fsince 1895, and is likely to see an additionalrise of 2˚F to 4˚F over the next two or threedecades (here and throughout this paper,when an event or outcome is described as“likely,” that means that it has a greater than a66% probability of occurring). Over the pastcentury, the U.S. has also seen an increase invery heavy precipitation events in everyregion except the Southwest, Northwest, andPacific islands including Hawai’i. Globally, sealevel has risen by about 8 inches over the lastcentury and is projected to rise by another 1 to4 feet over this century. Ocean acidificationhas increased by 30% due to increases of car-bon dioxide in the atmosphere. Otherobserved trends include more frequent or moreintense floods and droughts in some regions ofthe country and glacier and arctic sea ice melt.

These kinds of climatic changes affectecosystems and biodiversity, most often inadverse ways. Effects include degradation ofair and water quality, reduced productivity offorests and arid lands, loss of iconic speciesand landscapes, and a decoupling of predator-prey relationships that leads to pest outbreaksand invasions by non-native nuisance species.Some species have responded by moving tohigher elevations and latitudes in response towarmer temperatures, but many species maynot be able to keep pace with climate changebecause of limitations in seed dispersal ormobility. In some places, these limitations willlead to local extinctions of plants and animals,causing large changes in species compositionand creating new communities. Although it ispossible that a warmer climate may increasebiodiversity and productivity in some systems

(e.g., higher spring temperatures can extendthe growing season and, with adequate mois-ture, increase forest productivity), overall,ecosystem health is expected to decline.

Unfortunately, even if all greenhouse gasemissions were to cease today, the lifespan ofthose gases already emitted into the atmosphere(decades to centuries) means that temperatureswill still increase for another few decades andsea levels will continue to rise for a number ofcenturies. In addition, it is unlikely that green-house gas emissions will be curbed soon. Thesetwo factors have led to the realization thatadaptation to climate change is necessary.

Adaptation has been defined by theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) as the “adjustment in natural or humansystems in response to actual or expected cli-matic stimuli or their effects, which moderatesharm or exploits beneficial opportunities.”Making such adjustments for successful adapta-tion will require enhanced understanding of cli-mate-related transformations – how they willmanifest and in what ways they will affectecosystem components and processes. Alsoimportant will be understanding how manage-ment actions can be developed, refined, andemployed in the context of a well-developedand flexible management system in order toincrease our ability to cope with climate changeand preserve ecosystem resilience.

By making adaptation investments in thepresent, managers can effectively expand theircoping capacity in the future, giving themgreater ability to accommodate a range ofpotential variations in future climate (Figure1, panel c). An inflexible management systemthat makes no adaptation investments willhave little capacity to protect ecosystems fromfuture climate variability and change (Figure1, panel b). A key concept is that in additionto taking actions that build ecologicalresilience, institutions themselves need tobecome more resilient by adopting flexiblemanagement structures and approaches thatare prepared for changing conditions.Recognizing the importance of climate change

Climate Change and U.S. Natural Resources:Advancing the Nation’s Capability to Adapt

Susan H. Julius, Jordan M. West, Daniel Nover, Rachel Hauser, David S. Schimel,Anthony C. Janetos, Margaret K. Walsh, Peter Backlund




adaptation in managing natural resources willrequire modifications to management plansand, in some cases, the development of newmanagement tools, in addition to enhancedcollaboration across and among institutions,agencies, and stakeholders.

In this Issue, we summarize important cli-mate-related stresses on selected land andwater resources and biodiversity and discussadaptation options for management. Casestudies are provided to demonstrate how somemanagers can approach climate-related management problems. We review a general-ized scheme that is available for managers touse in adaptation planning, in which manage-ment goals are the starting point for identify-ing key actions that could be used to buildecosystem resilience in the face of climate-related stresses. The final section discussescritical research needs and provides recom-mendations for how adaptation and decision-making strategies might be improved.

Climate Change Impacts onNatural Resources andPotential AdaptationResponses

Climate change is a global phenomenon thataffects ecosystems at local to regional scales. Itcan even create connections between remote

regions by affecting the movement of organ-isms, nutrients, and pollutants, for example,through changes in species ranges, changes inconnectivity of streams and rivers, andthrough changes in atmospheric transport ofnutrients and pollutants. Meanwhile, resourcemanagers often work at local scales in order tofulfill site-oriented obligations such as meetingpollution reduction targets or managing fishstocks, but may themselves be affected by (oraffect) what is happening in distant systems.Natural- and human-generated non-climatestressors complicate the issue as they act sepa-rately and interactively with climatic changesto alter ecosystems. Among these areincreased impacts from pest species, changesin cycling of nutrients such as nitrogen, pointand non-point source pollution, wildfires, andland use change. Minimizing adverse effects ofhuman-caused stresses to ecosystems willlikely increase their ability to respond andadapt to climate change.

In this section we use forest and arid ecosys-tems as boundary examples of possible changesto terrestrial systems and freshwater ecosys-tems to illustrate a range of potential futurechanges in water resources. We also provideexamples of biodiversity impacts and exploreadaptation options for each of these areas froma resource manager’s perspective. Managementgoals are the starting point for identifying key

Figure 1. Climate change andcoping ability. a) A well-developed and flexiblemanagement system unadjustedfor climate change. b) A rigidmanagement system barely ableto protect ecosystems underaverage climate, with little or nocapacity to address climatevariability. c) An increase incoping ability due toinvestments in adaptation,allowing management to dealwith the effects on ecosystemsof future climate variability andchange. d) Decreasing copingcapacity so that even futureaverage climate poses threats.Adapted from: Grambsch andMenne, 2003.


actions that could be used to build ecosystemresilience in the face of climate-relatedstresses.

Land Resources: Forests and AridLands

Forests and arid lands (i.e., subtropical hotdeserts of the Southwest and temperate colddeserts of the Intermountain West) coverabout 749 million acres, most of which are inthe western U.S. There are five major aridland areas located in the Great Basin (Utahand Nevada), the Colorado Plateau (Utah,Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico), theMojave Desert (California, Nevada, Utah, andArizona), the Sonoran Desert (California,Arizona, and northern Mexico), and theChihuahuan Desert (New Mexico, Texas,Arizona, and northern Mexico). These landspresent unique and integrated managementchallenges that are the focus of many state,federal, and nongovernmental organizations.Changing climate influences forest and aridland productivity, species composition, andthe frequency and magnitude of disturbances,such as fires and insect outbreaks (Figure 2).Climate change drives the response of aridecosystems to changes in land cover. Manyplants and animals are near their physiologicallimits for temperature and water stress in theseecosystems, and even slight changes in tem-perature or the frequency and intensity of pre-cipitation events will likely result in signifi-cant consequences for these organisms.

Climate change-related effects on forest anddesert ecosystems include:

• Invasions by exotic grass species and morefrequent wildfires in arid lands from highertemperatures, increased drought, and moreintense thunderstorms.

• Greater susceptibility of U.S. forests to dis-turbance, including insect infestations, inva-sive species, wildfires, and damage fromextreme events such as drought.

• Increased tree mortality in western U.S.forests from combined drought, higher temperatures, and pests and pathogens(see Box 1).

• Increased ecosystem carbon loss throughweathering and erosion in arid lands fromcoupled land-use change and climate-induced disturbance (Figure 2).

• Increased photosynthesis for forests from ris-ing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) lev-els; young forests on fertile soils will increasewood production.

Reducing local stresses can make landresources more resilient to climate changeimpacts. Example actions may include: (1)creating larger management units that reducelandscape fragmentation and provide migra-tion corridors and (2) managing for a varietyof species and genotypes with a range of toler-ances to low soil moisture and higher tempera-tures. When large-scale disturbances orextreme events do occur, one option is toassist ecosystem adjustments by manipulatingspecies mixes, increasing genetic variation,and diversifying age structures to supportgreater system resilience in the future.

Water Resources: Freshwater Systems

With both human and natural systems highlydependent upon water resources, even slightchanges in climate can result in changes towater quality, storage, and biogeochemicalfluxes that significantly impact water manage-ment and planning requirements. U.S. waterresource management plans are often based onassumptions about past conditions and behav-iors. Planning for future conditions willrequire an understanding that climate futuresare, at present, uncertain. We provide a list ofobserved and projected climate change-relatedeffects on U.S. water resources below.

• Most of the United States experiencedincreases in average precipitation and stream


Figure 2. Conceptual frameworkillustrating the variety of climateand climate change feedbacks

and effects on arid landecosystems at the local scale

from regional scale drivers suchas climate and nutrient transport

(blue box) on local scaleprocesses (green box).

Redrawn from CCSP, 2008a.

CO2

Climate• Temperature• Wind• Precipitation

– seasonality– extremes

NitrogenDeposition

RegionalScale

Desertification

Soils &Topography

Fire Landuse

LocalScale

Available H2ONutrients, &

Temperature Stress

Exotic Species• Herbaceous• Woody

SuccessfulSpread?

Yes

Yes

Increased Erosion?

Vegetation Structure & Function• Aboveground Net Primary Production (ANPP)• Nutrient Pools & Fluxes• Species Composition

Upland – Riparian Linkages

SignificantCover

Change



flow and decreases in drought during the sec-ond half of the 20th century. These trends arelikely due to a combination of decadal-scalevariability and long-term climatic change.

• The timing of peak flows has changed acrossthe Western U.S., with a consistent shifttoward earlier seasonal snowmelt coupledwith reduced summer and fall flows.

• Regional differences in runoff are predicted,with increased annual runoff in the EasternU.S., little or no change in the Missouri andMississippi Basins, and substantial decreasesin the interior West (Figure 5).

• Stream temperatures are expected toincrease as climate warms, affecting aquaticecosystems and species directly and indi-rectly.

• Warming surface waters will likely increasestratification of water bodies, leading todeclining oxygen concentrations in bottom

waters and declining habitat quality(Box 2).

• Increasing export of carbon and nitrogenfrom watersheds is expected as enhancedweathering rates interact with land-usechange and an increasing frequency ofextreme events such as floods and droughts(Box 2).

To address potential ecosystem impacts fromchanges in water quality and availability,options include using drought-tolerant plantvarieties to maintain riparian buffers, creatingwetlands or off-channel storage basins toreduce erosion during high flow periods, pur-chasing or leasing water rights to enhanceflow management options, managing waterstorage and withdrawals to smooth the supplyof available water throughout the year, anddeveloping effective storm water infrastructure

Box 1. Bark Beetle Outbreaks

Management Context: Since 1990, native bark beetles have killed trees across millions of hectares of forest from Alaska to southernCalifornia, and east into the Rocky Mountains. Although bark beetle infestations are a natural phenomenon in forested ecosystems,current outbreaks, which have occurred simultaneously across the Western U.S., are the largest and most severe in recorded history.These outbreaks appear to be related to a combination of recent warming trends associated with climate change and forest age andcondition. Consecutive warm winters in particular can increase the size and severity of outbreaks, as cold-induced mortality is reducedand growing season lengthens (see Figure 3). Shifts in precipitation patterns and associated droughts also favor bark beetle outbreaksby weakening trees and making them more susceptible to beetle attack.

Management Goal: Deal with invasive outbreaks during the early stages of invasion when outbreak patches are small and treatable.

Adaptation Strategies: To deal with invasive outbreaks and other ecosystem issues, managers of the Olympic National Forest inOlympia, Washington developed a land management plan that included an Early Detection/Rapid Response (EDRR) methodology.EDRR allows managers to coordinate rapid responses to extreme events, including insect outbreaks, with an eye toward managementresponses that may also be appropriate for other types of disturbances, such as those related to climate change. The plan includesactions for both post-disturbance management related to short-term restoration, e.g., thinning, as well as for long-term restorationunder climate change, e.g., planting tree varieties that are adapted to the altered climatic conditions. Such large, system-resetting dis-turbances require an immediate plan of action, and they allow managers to influence future structure and ecosystem function throughcarefully designed management experiments in adapting to climatic change.

Figure 3. Probability of spruce beetle offspring developing in a single year. Panels a-c show predictions for spruce forests across the rangeof this insect in North America during three periods: (a) 1961–1990, (b) 2001–2030, and (c) 2071–2100. Higher probability of one-year life-cycle duration translates to higher probability of population outbreak and increased levels of spruce-beetle-caused tree mortality. Modelresults are shown only for areas estimated to be 20th-century spruce habitat. Source: Bentz et al. 2010.



Box 2. Water Quality in the Chesapeake Bay

Management Context: Runoff from agricultural and urban development and discharge from sewage treatment plants have resulted in ele-vated levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in surface waters, causing increased growth of algae in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. In shallowwaters, these organisms deprive seagrasses of sunlight, limiting plant health and in some cases bringing about death of grass beds; seagrassprovides habitat to many aquatic species, such as sea bass and blue crab. In deeper waters, algal growth and subsequent die-off reduce oxy-gen concentrations in normally oxygen-rich waters. In summer, when mixing between surface water and low-oxygen bottom water decreases,bottom-dwelling creatures such as clams, oysters, and worms – food for fish and humans alike – are negatively affected. The range of climatechange-related challenges to near coastal habitats includes increases in water temperature, sea level rise, fewer seagrasses due to tempera-ture-related shifts in growing range, more precipitation, and larger dead zones caused by the oxygen depletion described above.

Goal: Bring together local, state, and federal stakeholders to clean up the severely degraded Chesapeake Bay watershed ecosystemunder the aegis of the Clean Water Act.

Adaptation Strategies: To address the above issues, the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) engages a broad spectrum of stakeholders fromPennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New York, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, as well as representatives from federalagencies, and members of nongovernmental organizations. Bringing together a consortium of interests enhances accountability for effortsrelated to bay restoration and ongoing protection. Participants leverage scientific understanding – including information on climate changeinteractions that exacerbate existing stressors – to develop and implement plans for reducing the influx of pollutants and improving the Bay’saquatic ecosystems. Moreover, the program offers a framework for assessing success including consideration of needs and desires of stake-holders. This approach and framework has facilitated development of a strong cooperative partnership based on accountability. While on-going rapid population growth and urban development are outpacing the ability of the CBP to get ahead of the problem, without the programand its participants, the Bay’s problems could be far more serious. Some successes reported in the 2010 Bay Barometer include less nitrogenand phosphorus entering non-tidal creeks and rivers, stable and abundant populations of adult blue crabs, and a return of shad populationsto the Potomac River. Over the same period of time, however, underwater bay grasses decreased, tidal waters meeting or exceeding guide-lines for water clarity decreased, and less than half of stream health scores at monitoring sites were fair, good, or excellent.

Most recently, the Bay Program is focused on meeting a Bay-wide TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load), established by the U.S. Environ-mental Protection Agency in 2010. This TMDL sets limits on nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution necessary to meet water qualitystandards in the Bay and its tidal rivers. The purpose of the TMDL is to ensure that all pollution control measures that are needed to fullyrestore the Bay will be in place by 2025, with at least 60% of pollution reductions completed by 2017.

Develop the StrategyDefine mission, vision, & valuesConduct strategic analysisFormulate strategy

At CBP informed by:– CWA Section 117– Chesapeake 2000Translate the Strategy

Define strategic objectives & themesSelect measures & targetsSelect strategic initiatives

At CBP appears in:– Agreements, directives, and

adoption statements– Annual performance goals– Tributary strategies

Plan OperationsImprove key processes & programsDetermine resource needs

At CBP occurs in:– CBP committees and

subcommittees– Individual partner budgeting

Monitor & LearnStrategy reviewsOperational reviews

At CBP occurs in:– Monitoring and modeling– Scientific review– CBP committee review

Execute programsand initiatives

Test & Adapt the StrategyConduct performance analysesExamine emerging strategiesReview external analyses

At CBP includes:– Revision of goal strategies– Alignment of goals, activities, and

resources– Review of external analyses

StrategicFrameworkPerformanceMeasures

ActivityIntegrationPlanCapDatabaseDashboards

Figure 4. Chesapeake Bay Adaptive Management Model. The adaptive management process model above shows the cycle of strategydevelopment, planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation applied to all areas of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s activities, allowingthe organization to more nimbly adapt and change strategies based on evolution of options and processes. Source: Chesapeake BayProgram, cap.chesapeakebay.net/managementmodel.htm.



that reduces future occurrences of severe ero-sion. Other strategies that enhance aquaticspecies’ resilience to climate change includeincreasing physical habitat heterogeneity inchannels to support diverse biotic assemblagesand conducting river restoration to stabilizeeroding banks and repair in-stream habitat.

Biodiversity

Once reduced or lost, biodiversity is difficult ifnot impossible to restore or replace. Althoughthe impact of climate change on species vari-ety is currently exceeded by other major dri-vers such as land-use change, it will likelybecome increasingly important in the comingdecades. Already, changes in the climate sys-tem are affecting processes that control differ-ent aspects of biodiversity, such as the physio-logical processes that control wherepopulations can thrive – which in turn deter-mine plant and animal ranges. The majoreffects of climate change on aspects of biodi-versity in the United States are listed below.

• The patterns of life cycle events for someplants have been affected by shorter, milderwinters and earlier spring thaws, with someplant species flowering around a day or twoearlier per decade in the northern hemisphere.

• Species distributions have shifted over the lastfew decades, with plants and animals movingto higher elevations and latitudes at medianrates of 36 feet per decade and 10.5 miles perdecade respectively (Figure 6). Greater shiftsare expected to occur in the future.

• In higher latitudes, where temperatureincreases are relatively large, evidence indi-cates a significant lengthening of the grow-

ing season and higher net primary produc-tivity, which has been shown to correlatewith higher biodiversity.

• Water quality is anticipated to degrade dueto temperature increases, higher amounts ofnutrient export (due to increased precipita-tion), and increased acidification, resultingin a variety of changes in aquatic ecosystemsincluding potential species losses (Box 3).

• Subtropical and tropical corals in shallowwaters have already suffered mass mortalitiesfrom temperature-induced bleaching events(Box 3) and also face a growing problem ofinhibited calcification rates due to increas-ing ocean acidification (a direct result ofincreases in atmospheric carbon dioxidelevels).

One of the most effective options for increas-ing species’ and ecosystems’ resilience to cli-mate change is to reduce other human sourcesof stress, such as development pressures thatincrease habitat fragmentation, activities thatincrease pollutant, nutrient, and sedimentloadings, introduction of invasive species that

Figure 5. Median changes inrunoff interpolated to USGSwater resources regions fromMilly et al. (2005) from 24 generalcirculation model simulations for2041-2060 relative to 1901-1970.Numbers on the map show thepercentage of the 24 runs forwhich change in runoff had thesame sign as the 24-run median.Colors on the map show themedian magnitude of change inrunoff from historical runoff forthat region. Source: CCSP,2008a.

Figure 6. Annual change inlatitude of center of abundancefor 305 widespread bird speciesin North America, 1966-2005.The shaded band shows thelikely range of values, based onthe number of measurementscollected and the precision of themethods used. Figure source:EPA. Bird Wintering Ranges.http://epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/society-eco/bird-ranges.html. Data source:National Audubon Society. 2009.Northward shifts in theabundance of North Americanbirds in early winter: A responseto warmer winter temperatures?Available online at:www.audubon.org/bird/bacc/techreport.html.

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out-compete native species, overfishing, orother activities that deplete scarce or sensitiveresources or species. Other options that moredirectly address climate change impacts arecentered on identifying and protecting areasthat appear to be resistant to climate changeeffects, that recover well from climate-induceddisturbances, that are ecologically significant(such as nursery grounds, spawning grounds,and areas of high species diversity), or thathave a full breadth of habitat types that maxi-mize habitat heterogeneity.

Adaptation Planning

In previous sections we have presented someexamples of how managers have responded toclimate change-related impacts on sensitive

systems thus far. Based on these and an ever-growing number of other efforts, the adapta-tion community has developed a set of princi-ples for adaptation planning that can bearranged into a framework. In this section wediscuss a generalized framework for systematicadaptation planning, followed by a discussionof how to accommodate the uncertainty thattypically accompanies planning processes.

Example Framework for AdaptationPlanning

A number of frameworks have been developedto address the need to systematically incorpo-rate climate change adaptation into planningprocesses. Most of these frameworks have sim-ilar steps. We present one such representative

Box 3. Biodiversity in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary

Management Context: Congress established the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in November 1990 to protect the region’s valu-able and unique biodiversity. Mounting threats to the Keys’ coral reef ecosystem prompted this designation. Environmental problems suchas deteriorating water quality are being exacerbated by climate change, as are temperature-induced coral bleaching events and diseaseoutbreaks (Figure 7). Coral species, communities, and locations are differentially affected by these impacts, with consequences forbiodiversity at local and regional scales.

Goal: Maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Sanctuary, including restoration and maintenance of a balancedindigenous population of corals.

Adaptation Strategies: Management actions to reduce anthropogenic stressors such as pollution and overfishing may also increase coralresilience in the face of climate change. For example, no-take zones have been shown to enhance heavily-fished populations, and this inturn supports resilience through re-establishment of important predators. Meanwhile, monitoring and research efforts are underway toidentify bleaching-resistant sites that can be targeted for protection as refugia and as larval sources for recovery. Looking to the future,another strategy is to identify and protect sites where coral reefs flourished north of their current distributions in past geological periods.These locations could be used as destination sites for northward range migrations as climate change continues in the coming decades.Finally, restoration of adjacent systems, such as mangrove swamps, not only provides habitat and shoreline protection, but also a sourceof dissolved organic compounds that have been shown to provide protection from photo-oxidative stress in corals.

Figure 7. Combined effects of disease and bleaching due to rising water temperatures. This 500 year old star coral off the southwest coastof Puerto Rico illustrates the effect of rising water temperatures. An initial disease infection exacerbated by warming waters (a) was followedby such high temperatures that bleaching (loss of symbiotic micro-algae from the coral) occurred (b), followed by more disease (c) thatfinally killed the colony (d). Source: USGCRP, in press. Photo credit: Ernesto Weil, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez.

(a) (b) (c) (d)



framework in Figure 8 below and discuss it.

Step 1 – Identify management targets (Figure8) based on the overarching conservationgoal(s). Since climate change effects onecosystems and natural resources will varyfrom site to site, and adaptation responses willneed to be individually tailored to the loca-tion of implementation, beginning with estab-lished goals and objectives places the targetsof concern at the center of analysis and evalu-ation in order to develop adaptation plansthat maintain desired goals. Conservation tar-gets can be selected at multiple ecological lev-els, including species, habitats, ecosystems, ornetworks of protected areas.

Step 2 – Assess vulnerabilities of conservationtargets to climate change. This includes devel-oping relevant problem parameters for the tar-gets of concern, creating conceptual modelsthat link drivers to endpoints (targets) to cap-ture the major processes that need to beassessed, choosing analytic methods/modelsbased on the identified processes, gatheringavailable data, and evaluating what is knownabout climate change and ecological processesto assess impacts and vulnerability. Once aqualitative or quantitative sense of a species’or system’s vulnerability to climate change isbetter understood, management options thataddress the new information can be evaluated.

Step 3 – Identify management options. Thesecan be categorized under seven general adap-

tation approaches for managing for resilience(Table 1). For each of these approaches thereare many specific management options thatcan be considered – we have provided just afew illustrative examples in Table 1. Note thatdifferent options may employ different tech-niques and/or focus on different ecosystemtypes or elements, but in all cases their pur-pose is to address one or more of three keycomponents of vulnerability to climatechange: sensitivity, exposure, and adaptivecapacity (Figure 8). In implementing theseoptions, it is not sufficient to simply employthe same best practices; rather, their applica-tion should be considered through the“climate lens.” Managers need to examinehow the timing, location, and application ofpractices may need to be adjusted to account

Figure 8. Framework fordeveloping climate changeadaptation strategies.Source: Glick et al. 2011.

Table 1. Adaptation approaches and example management options to address climate change impacts onecosystems. See CCSP 2008b for more examples.

Adaptation approaches Examples of specific adaptation options

Reduce local anthropogenic stresses Reduce overfishing or correct altered hydrology to restore the ability of species or ecosystems to withstand a stressful climatic event.

Protect key ecosystem features for system Protect complexity of landscape features in order to preserve critical buffer zonesresilience and migration corridors.

Protect diverse habitats and biological Increase genetic diversity in river systems and maintain habitat complexity tocommunities safeguard sources for recovery regardless of climate change.

Ensure redundancy in protection of Protect redundant ecosystem types, such as cypress savannas, to reduce the risk ecosystem type or species that a disturbance (e.g., wildfire) will cause global species extinction.

Restore compromised or lost ecosystems Restore tidal marshes, seagrass meadows, and mangroves, since together these stabilize estuary function by providing diverse vegetation structure.

Identify ecosystem refuges Protect coral reefs on islands' shady side or near areas of ocean upwelling to use natural protection from heat and light during bleaching events.

Relocate organisms to new habitats Transport fish populations with low thermal tolerances to cooler river reaches(e.g., at higher altitudes or in groundwater-fed systems).

Overarching Conservation Goal(s)

• Species• Habitats

• Ecosystems

1. IdentifyConservationTarget(s)

2. AssessVulnerabilityto ClimateChange

• Sensitivity• Exposure• Adaptive Capacity

Monitor, Review, Revise

• Changes in Policy• Changes in Practice• Institutional Changes

• Reduce Sensitivity• Reduce Exposure

• Increase Adaptive Capacity

4. ImplementManagementOptions

3. IdentifyManagementOptions



for climate change in order to attain thedesired result. Further, they should explorehow the efficacy of these practices might beaffected by climate change, and whetherdifferences in effectiveness might affectprioritization of certain practices or optionsover others.

Step 4 – Implement management options.Implementation may be constrained bypolicies or cultural and institutional beliefsand behaviors. Successful implementation willdepend on creative use of policies, practices,and institutional changes to empower action.

The central circle of Figure 8 depicts thecyclical nature of adaptation planning throughan iterative process of monitoring, review, andrevision of the adaptation plan. Monitoring isnecessary to follow continuing ecosystemchange and to measure whether the desiredoutcome was achieved. Periodically revisitingexisting management plans is recommended toincorporate newly gained system knowledge orneeds, and to make adjustments in response toexpected or unexpected positive or negativeoutcomes. Review and revision can berepeated for every step in order to keep pacewith changing ecological conditions, manage-ment targets, vulnerabilities, and other newscientific information. In some cases, a com-plete revision of management goals may berequired when the goal of maintaining ecosys-tems, resources, or species compositions in anunchanged state is no longer feasible.

Dealing with Uncertainty

In assessing vulnerability and planning adap-tation responses, it may be difficult forresource managers to know how to character-ize the ranges of uncertainty in climate changeimpacts and translate these uncertainties intopractical management actions. Fortunately,tools are being developed and tested that canhelp with such tasks. One such tool is scenarioplanning, which facilitates exploration of thebreadth of projected impacts and potentialresponses. Scenario planning may be done inseveral ways. One way is to conduct sensitivityanalyses of key management targets to a widerange of climate scenarios using realistic speci-fied changes in climate drivers, such as incre-mental changes in temperature or precipita-tion, across a broader range of changes.Results may be used in the planning process totarget for adaptation those processes that are

most sensitive to climate change. Anothermethod is to use specific models or climate-baseline scenarios to assess relevant and plausi-ble alternative futures as points in a range offuture conditions. Due to model and systemuncertainties, there is no one model that canprovide an accurate “prediction;” rather, bycapturing a breadth of realistic outcomes, suit-able adaptation responses can be selected thatare effective across a range of potential climatescenarios. These approaches provide means toidentify the greatest vulnerabilities and enableselection of targeted and robust adaptationapproaches. These approaches are similar toengineering tolerances that are developed toensure proper and safe functioning of equip-ment or processes under a wide and uncertainrange of possible conditions, properties, imper-fections, or stresses.

Two examples where uncertainty methodshave been applied are (1) in British Columbia,to decisions related to managing theMountain Pine Beetle; and (2) in theMetropolitan Water District of SouthernCalifornia, to decisions related to meetingwater demands under a variety of futurehydrologic conditions induced by climatechange. In the first example, managementgoals and objectives were established forBritish Columbia forests for the short- andlong-term in light of potential near- and long-term pest infestations and damages. A numberof climate change and land management sce-narios were run and outcomes evaluatedaccording to desired timber economic values,nontimber values, fire risk level, and ecologi-cal resilience. The strategies selected werethose that, although the most costly, weremost robust across the climate scenarios inmeeting desired goals, allowed for flexibility inimplementation, and provided long term ben-efits. In the second example, the MetropolitanDistrict and RAND Corporation workedtogether to run hundreds of scenarios of future temperature and precipitation changes,demographic changes, condition of the SanFrancisco Bay Delta Yields from localresources, and timeliness of implementingactions articulated in the MetropolitanDistrict’s Integrated Resources Plan. Theanalysis helped identify the MetropolitanDistrict’s key vulnerabilities to climate changeand other future uncertainties, and gave themmarkers to monitor that will provide earlywarnings that management actions in theirplan might fail in meeting established goals.These markers will allow the Metropolitan



District the necessary lead-time to adapt theirplans and actions accordingly.

Other approaches are also available for han-dling uncertainty in management and plan-ning processes. These include:

• Structured Decision Making, a process thatbegins with problem framing, then elicitsobjectives, develops alternatives, evaluatesthe consequences of alternatives relative tothe objectives, and identifies preferredactions using decision analytic tools;

• Adaptive Management, an approach usedwhen a decision is recurrent, when uncer-tainty matters in terms of the decision to bemade, and when monitoring can provideinformation to discriminate among alterna-tive hypotheses or models in order to adjustmanagement strategies in response to whatis learned;

• Robust Decision-Making, an approach thatuses robustness rather than optimality as theprimary criterion for evaluation in identify-ing decisions that maximize the likelihoodof some acceptable outcome across a rangeof scenarios; and

• Expert Elicitation, a systematic process forobtaining the judgments of experts to char-acterize uncertainty and fill data gapswhere traditional scientific research is notfeasible or adequate data are not yet avail-able. Useful in situations where uncertain-ties are large, more than one conceptualmodel can explain available data, andtechnical judgments are required to assessassumptions.

All of these approaches are being tested andapplied in planning processes for climatechange adaptation and are worth exploring tounderstand which are most appropriate forspecific management contexts.

Planning appropriately for climate changeimpacts will also require transitioning from“managing for resilience” to “managing forchange” at appropriate times. In other words,when a system is pushed past the limits of itsresilience such that there is no longer mainte-nance of ecosystem status or achievement ofpreviously defined goals, those goals may haveto be adjusted toward managing transitions tonew ecosystem states. For example, in a casewhere management goals are focused on popu-lations of cold water fish species, but streamtemperatures exceed their thermal tolerances,goals may have to be adjusted to focus on

warm water fish species. Many of the sametools mentioned in this section that provide arange of plausible alternative futures may beused to explore new ecosystem states and thepotential management responses that mightenable smooth transitions into more favorablestates than may occur without management.The potential importance of shifting manage-ment targets and/or approaches underscoresthe importance of monitoring, reviewing, andrevising adaptation plans at every step of plandevelopment and implementation, as indi-cated in the center of Figure 8.

Advancing the Nation’sCapability to Adapt toChanging Climate

It is certain that climate change will leave nosystem unaffected, but it is highly uncertainhow those effects will be manifested. Thus it isimperative that we improve our knowledge,tools, and capabilities to respond in an adap-tive way to future climate changes. Areas forimprovement include (1) systems to detect cli-mate changes and to monitor effectiveness ofmanagement options, (2) mechanisms toincrease institutional flexibility and coopera-tion to enable more rapid management adjust-ments in scale and application, and (3) sup-port for ongoing assessment of impacts andadaptation for continued improvement ofadaptation practices, planning, and implemen-tation. These needs are discussed in moredetail in the next section.

Monitoring Systems

Observations of conditions and trends in eco-logical systems are essential for detecting andassessing responses to climate change; how-ever, because land, water, and biodiversitymonitoring systems were originally designedfor other objectives, their utility for quantify-ing the effects of climate change is often lim-ited. For example, state bioassessment pro-grams have been established to assess thestatus and health of aquatic ecosystems byusing monitoring results to compare high qual-ity (or least impaired) sites with other sites todetect impairments. These programs havebeen shown to be inadequate for detecting cli-mate change impacts because they aredesigned to detect differences among a popula-tion of streams rather than gradual, long termchanges in the entire population. Meanwhile,climate observations are monitored largely



independently of natural resource monitoring,and observations are often not collocated,resulting in the need to interpolate or down-scale climate information for use in ecologicalstudies. As an example, two types of observingsystems are generally used to provide data onbiological diversity: species or ecosystem-spe-cific observing systems (such as the NationalScience Foundation’s Long Term EcologicalResearch program that has established moni-toring sites within specific ecosystem typessuch as grasslands, deserts, and forests) andspatially extensive observations derived fromremotely-sensed data (such as the NationalAeronautics and Space Administration’sModerate Resolution ImagingSpectroradiometer, or MODIS, that collectsdata on global dynamics and processes occur-ring on the land, in the oceans, and in thelower atmosphere). While multiple systems ofboth types exist, coverage has not been com-prehensive across space, time, andspecies/ecosystems; furthermore, the capacityto maintain and expand these monitoring sys-tems into the future is not assured.Continuous long-term data are needed tounderstand ecosystem responses to climatechange.

In addition to detecting change, monitoringis also needed for adaptation planning andmanagement. Availability of timely, accurate,and system-specific environmental data aidsthe ongoing process that is adaptive manage-ment, enlightening decision makers aboutresponses of ecosystems and their componentsto management actions and enabling adjust-ments to those actions as necessary. Observingsystems designed to detect climate-relatedchanges support management assessments ofkey system sensitivities (or, as in Box 3, assess-ments of least sensitive, i.e., most resistant,areas). They can also be used to measure theefficacy of management actions by detecting,for example, whether climate-related sensitivi-ties decrease after implementation of adapta-tion strategies (e.g., as called for in the “moni-tor and learn” step in Box 2). Observationalprograms to improve this type of monitoringcould be achieved through a combination ofoverhauling and adjusting existing systemsand creating new systems to effectively andaccurately capture climate-related phenomenaaffecting ecosystems. More detailed observa-tions at local scales could better detect subtlechanges and would foster basic understandingof ecosystem health, as well as improved man-agement insights and capabilities. Standard

observations over large areas would comple-ment these detailed observations and providebetter knowledge of large-scale trends, infor-mation on spatial processes such as movementof invasive species, and insights intomacroscale processes such as nutrient redistri-butions across systems. Efforts are underway atthe U.S. Global Change Research Program toinventory established monitoring networksand assess the feasibility of adapting these net-works to detect system responses to climatechange.

Institutional Flexibility andCooperationIn addition to effective observation systems,managers need their respective institutions toboth support individual flexibility and cooper-ation, and be flexible and dynamic them-selves. Ecosystem adaptation and mitigationstrategies provide maximum benefit whenmanagers and institutions coordinate differentactivities to address multiple impacts simulta-neously, including climate impacts (see Box1). In addition to institutional rigidity,another stumbling block to effective manage-ment can arise from incentive systems thatreward the status quo while discouraging cre-ative-but-risky ideas, which inhibits the devel-opment of innovative responses to emergentclimate change risks. Oganizational obstaclesthat delay or prevent implementation of adap-tation actions can put valuable ecologicalresources at risk, rule out actions that requirelong lead times for implementation, andpotentially trigger internal or external policyand regulatory actions to remedy inaction.

Many of these limitations can be overcomeby, for example, building incentives thatreward innovative ideas, creating guides formanagers that outline strategies for climatechange adaptation, and generating high-levelpriorities, policies, and planning proceduresthat encourage local-level strategies and man-agement actions. Strengthening internal andexternal cooperation and cross-institutionalties is also crucial, as the ability of managers topreserve valued ecosystems and their servicesin the future may ultimately depend on flexi-bility in terms of setting priorities, managingfor change, and managing simultaneously atvarious spatial and temporal scales. For exam-ple, as temperatures rise and climate impactsbecome more severe and potentially irre-versible, enabling managers to re-examine pri-orities and shift to adaptation options thatincorporate newly acquired information on



thresholds and projected ecosystem changeswill increase their ability to attain ecosystemmanagement goals.

Expansion of interagency collaboration,integration, and lesson-sharing to support flex-ible decision making and agile managementresponses is more critical now than everbefore. Fortunately, the U.S. has a history ofachieving powerful responses to crises andnational challenges. The nation’s executiveand congressional leadership have mandatednew collaboration among agencies, extendedexisting authority for action, and successfullyencouraged innovation to address climatechange impacts. For example, the U.S. Fishand Wildlife Service hosts 22 LandscapeConservation Cooperatives (LCCs) thatengage states, tribes, federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities, andother groups to develop the science and tech-nical expertise to support conservation plan-ning at landscape scales and to promote col-laboration in defining and achievingconservation goals. Such collaborativeresponses will allow managers to address issuesthat extend beyond a single habitat, conserva-tion area, or political/administrative unit, andbeyond traditional agency-by-agency responsemechanisms.

Need for Ongoing Assessment

Ongoing assessment of impacts, adaptationmethods, and ecosystem responses is essentialfor continued improvement in adaptationplanning and management to meet conserva-tion goals. Existing management practices maynot adequately address future anticipatedecosystem responses since the rate, type, direc-tion, and extent of changes are highly uncer-tain. Through a process of ongoing distributedassessments, in contrast to centralized andperiodic assessments, new observations andresearch findings may be rapidly incorporatedto adjust existing management strategies,address unanticipated threats, and improveprojections of future ecosystem responses.

In order for such ongoing assessments toproduce useful information, models will needto be further refined and observational net-works and experimentation capabilities willneed to be expanded. With the establishmentof a distributed assessment system – a networkof experienced scientists, managers, and deci-sion makers from across the country who par-ticipate in sustained and long-term interac-tions – integration of results from across

sources can occur to inform research agendasand decision making.

Consideration and incorporation of resultsfrom ongoing assessments into adaptationplanning processes may necessitate ongoingevaluations of organizational missions andstrategic plans. For example, projectedchanges in ecosystem dynamics may alter cur-rent “optimal” allocation of resources embod-ied in existing strategic plans. Some federallymanaged systems already allow for strategicplans to change as new scientific informationis considered. For example, the National ParkService (NPS) guidelines have historicallyprovided flexibility regarding policy interpre-tation that has allowed advances in ecologicalknowledge to be incorporated into manage-ment guidelines. Over its 100-plus year his-tory, the NPS has changed some practicesbased on this enhanced knowledge. One suchpractice, strict management of wildlife (e.g.,species culling) has evolved over time basedon consideration of new scientific informa-tion, resulting in some park managers optingto let natural processes control populationnumbers. Similarly, where active fire suppres-sion was the norm in the Forest Service, con-sideration of new scientific results led to ashift to the current practice of prescriptiveburns and natural fire management.

In support of furthering adaptation assess-ment at the national level, the White HouseCouncil on Environmental Quality initiatedan Interagency Climate Change AdaptationTask Force, drawing on the expertise of morethe 20 federal agencies. This group released aninterim report recommending a variety of keycomponents of a national strategy for climatechange adaptation, including integration ofscience into adaptation decisions and policy,and coordination and communication acrossagencies and industry. The Task Force will bereplaced with the Council on ClimatePreparedness and Resilience (as per ExecutiveOrder 13653). This Council will continue theefforts of the Task force to address waterresource management issues. It will also con-tinue looking at ways to establish interna-tional cooperation on climate change adapta-tion schemes to build knowledge, harmonizeefforts, and better support multilateral organi-zations and efforts around climate change mit-igation, adaptation, and resilience building.While efforts to provide national-scale ecosys-tem management are under way and are essen-tial to climate change adaptation efforts,administration of public lands and resources



ultimately falls to local and regional authori-ties and requires specific local managementand monitoring.

The U.S. Global Change Research Programhas unveiled a strategic vision for ongoingassessment to increase our ability to adapt atall levels of management across the country(USGCRP, 2012). The program defines ongo-ing assessment as a commitment to a long-term, consistent, and ongoing process for eval-uation of climate risks and opportunities toinform decision-making at multiple scales andfor various systems. This will require thedevelopment of a sustained assessment capac-ity by the federal government in support ofstakeholders and scientists across the country.It also requires increasing efficiency and lever-aging existing federal science investments forimpacts and adaptation research as well as dis-tribution of lessons learned.

Conclusions

Climate change impacts are already being feltby the nation’s ecosystems, and managementadaptation is both needed and possible.Engaging in adaptation planning as early aspossible will broaden the range of manage-ment options that can be employed, whilewaiting can result in foreclosure of optionsthat require long lead times for organization orimplementation, and could even increaseadaptation costs. Fortunately, natural resourcemanagers have a long history of dealing withextreme events and have well-developed toolsthat can be used for adaptation to new condi-tions. In addition, experimentation with newtools is also underway in the scientific andmanagement communities.

For maximum benefit in the climate changecontext, traditional management tools mayneed to be applied in new ways. Climatechange has spatial and temporal effects onenvironmental drivers of ecological systems,such as regional patterns of rainfall and tem-perature. Therefore managers may need toadjust their use of these tools in terms ofwhen, where, and how they are applied, inorder to maximize their effectiveness at main-taining management goals. For example, inusing restoration as a management tool, it maynot be enough to simply restore the same wet-land to its previous condition, and in the samelocation. Rather, managers should considerwhether there are other locations with fea-tures that will confer greater resistance tofuture climate change effects and whether

there is a different composition of species thatwill be more tolerant of potential future con-ditions. The case studies that we have pre-sented explore these types of ideas.

The case studies represent individualinstances where early adopters, experimentingwith adapting locally, have gone through aprocess of developing adaptation plans.Although no single case study reflects comple-tion of every step of the generalized frameworkfor adaptation planning presented in Figure 8(as these were pioneer efforts), the combinedwisdom generated by examining the efforts ofmany early adopters is leading toward conver-gence on similar supporting frameworks suchas the one presented here. Managers can tailorthe process to their particular managementcontext, using existing information whereavailable or new information generated whennecessary. Despite the convergence of adapta-tion planning frameworks, uncertainty willalways be an inherent part of making adapta-tion decisions. There is therefore a need toincorporate uncertainty and make robustchoices, monitor to gauge the efficacy of thosechoices, adjust practices where necessary asnew information comes in, and improve meth-ods for addressing uncertainties.

Advancing the nation’s capability to adaptto a changing climate will require overcomingnumerous challenges. Climate change hasbrought renewed urgency to the already-acknowledged need for coherent and coordi-nated national-level ecological and climatemonitoring systems. Consequently, there are anumber of agencies and organizations strivingto develop monitoring and observation sys-tems that can detect climate changes and eco-logical responses. Improved monitoring net-works will also be necessary to respond quicklyto rapidly changing environmental conditions.Such unanticipated environmental outcomesin the face of climate change make flexibleresponses essential for both management andadaptation planning to maintain resilience ofnatural resources and ecosystems. Planningitself needs to occur at larger scales as well aslocal scales, making advances in cooperativeplanning and decision-making important.Currently, flexibility is somewhat limited atthe national level because of the need tofulfill very specific mandates, but progress isbeing made as agencies are supported andencouraged to coordinate on research andstrategic planning for climate change. Notonly is such coordination increasinglyoccurring, but the federal government has



made a commitment to provide the means toengage networks of local, regional, andnational experts and decision makers toexchange information, lessons learned, andinsights on impacts and adaptation.Information from such exchanges will pro-vide the basis on which ongoing assessmentsare conducted to support adaptation decisionmaking and inform national-level adaptationpolicies. Success will depend largely on theextent to which all of these efforts prepare usto address the formidable challenges posed byclimate change, and the extent to which wecontinue to assess the success of adaptationplanning efforts.

For Further Reading

Baron, J.S., L. Gunderson, C.D. Allen, E.Fleishman, D. McKenzie, L.A. Meyerson, J.Oropeza, and N. Stephenson. 2009.Options for national parks and reserves foradapting to climate change. EnvironmentalManagement 44: 1033–1042.

Bentz, B.J., J. Regniere, C.J. Fettig, E.M.Hansen, J.L. Hayes, J.A. Hicke, R.G.Kelsey, J.F. Negron, and S.J. Seybold. 2010.Climate change and bark beetles of thewestern United States and Canada: directand indirect effects. BioScience 60: 602-613.

CCSP, 2008a. Synthesis and AssessmentProduct 4.3: The effects of climate change onagriculture, land resources, water resources,and biodiversity in the United States. AReport by the U.S. Climate Change ScienceProgram and the Subcommittee on GlobalChange Research. U.S. Department ofAgriculture, Washington, DC. 362p.

CCSP, 2008b. Synthesis and AssessmentProduct 4.4: Preliminary review of adapta-tion options for climate-sensitive ecosystemsand resources. A Report by the U.S. ClimateChange Science Program and the Sub-committee on Global Change Research. U.S.Environmental Protection Agency, Wash-ington, DC. 873p.

Chapin, F.S., G.P. Kofinas, and C. Folke, editors.2009. Principles of Ecosystem Stewardship:Resilience-Based Natural Resource Manage-ment in a Changing World. Springer, NewYork, NY.

Davison, J.E., L.J. Graumlich, E.L. Rowland,G.T. Pederson, and D.D. Breshears. 2012.Leveraging modern climatology to increaseadaptive capacity across protected area net-works. Global Environmental Change 22:268-274.

Glick, P., B.A. Stein, and N.A. Edelson, editors.2011. Scanning the Conservation Horizon:A Guide to Climate Change VulnerabilityAssessment. National Wildlife Federation,Washington, DC.

Gonzalez, P. 2011. Science for natural resourcemanagement under climate change. Issuesin Science and Technology 27: 65-74.

Grambsch, A., and B. Menne. 2003.Adaptation and adaptive capacity in thepublic health context. In McMichael, A.J.,D.H. Campbell-Lendrum, C.R. Corvalan,K.L. Ebi, A.K. Githeko, J.D. Scheraga, andA. Woodward, editors. Climate Change andHuman Health: Risks and Responses. WorldHealth Organization, Geneva, Switzerland,pp. 220-236.

Griffith, B., J.M. Scott, R. Adamcik, D. Ashe,B. Czech, R. Fischman, P. Gonzalez, J.Lawler, A.D. McGuire, and A. Pidgorna.2009. Climate change adaptation for theU.S. National Wildlife Refuge system.Environmental Management 44: 1043-1052.

Hansen, L.J., and J. Hoffman. 2010. ClimateSavvy: Adapting Conservation and ResourceManagement to a Changing World. IslandPress, Washington, DC.

Interagency Climate Change Adaptation TaskForce. 2010. Progress Report of the Inter-agency Climate Change Adaptation TaskForce: Recommended Actions in Support ofa National Climate Change AdaptationStrategy. The White House Council onEnvironmental Quality, Washington, DC.

Joyce, L.A., G.M. Blate, S.G. McNulty, C.I.Millar, S. Moser, R.P. Neilson, D.L. Peterson.2009. Managing for multiple resources underclimate change: national forests. Environ-mental Management 44: 1022–1032.

Karl, T., J.M. Melillo, and T.C. Peterson, edi-tors. 2009. Global Climate Change Impactsin the United States. Cambridge UniversityPress, New York, NY.

Kirshen, P., C. Watson, E. Douglas, A. Gontz,J. Lee, and Y. Tian. 2008. Coastal floodingin the northeastern United States due toclimate change. Mitigation and Adapta-tion Strategies for Global Change 13:437–451.

Magness, D.R., J.M. Morton, F. Huettmann,F.S. Chapin, and A.D. McGuire. 2011. Aclimate-change adaptation framework toreduce continental-scale vulnerabilityacross the United States National WildlifeRefuge System. Ecosphere 2: art112.

Mawdsley, J. 2011. Design of conservationstrategies for climate adaptation. Wiley

16 esa © The Ecological Society of America • [email protected]


Jordan M. West, Global Change Impacts andAdaptation Program (8601P), Office ofResearch and Development, U.S.Environmental Protection Agency, 1200Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC20460Daniel Nover, AAAS Fellow, Global ChangeImpacts and Adaptation Program (8601P),Office of Research and Development, U.S.Environmental Protection Agency, 1200Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC20460Rachel Hauser, University Corporation forAtmospheric Research, P.O. Box 3000, 1850Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80307David S. Schimel, Jet Propulsion LaboratoryM/S 233-300, 4800 Oak Grove Drive,Pasadena, CA 91109Anthony C. Janetos, Pardee Center for theStudy of the Longer-Range Future, BostonUniversity, Boston University Pardee House,67 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215Margaret K. Walsh, Global Change ProgramOffice, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1400Independence Avenue SW #4407,Washington, DC 20250Peter Backlund, Integrated Science Programand External Relations, National Center forAtmospheric Research, PO Box 3000,Boulder, CO 80307

Layout

Bernie Taylor, Design and layout

About Issues in Ecology

Issues in Ecology uses commonly-understood lan-guage to report the consensus of a panel of scien-tific experts on issues related to the environ-ment. The text for Issues in Ecology is reviewedfor technical content by external expert review-ers, and all reports must be approved by theEditor-in-Chief before publication. This report isa publication of the Ecological Society ofAmerica. No responsibility for the viewsexpressed by the authors in ESA publications isassumed by the editors or the publisher.

Editor-in-Chief

Jill S. Baron, U.S. Geological Survey andColorado State University,[email protected]

Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 2:498-515.

National Research Council. 2010. America’sClimate Choices: Adapting to the Impactsof Climate Change. National AcademiesPress, Washington, DC.

Palmer, M.A., D.P. Lettenmaier, N.L. Poff, S.L.Postel, B. Richter, and R. Warner. 2009.Climate change and river ecosystems: pro-tection and adaptation options. Environ-mental Management 44: 1053-1068.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2012.Implications of climate change for bioassess-ment programs and approaches to accountfor effects. Global Change Research Pro-gram, National Center for EnvironmentalAssessment, Washington, DC. EPA/600/R-11/036A. Available from the NationalTechnical Information Service, Springfield,VA, and online at http://www.epa.gov/ncea.

U.S. Global Change Research Program(USGCRP). 2012. The National GlobalChange Research Plan 2012-2021: AStrategic Plan for the U. S. Global ChangeResearch Program (USGCRP). U.S. GlobalChange Research Program, Washington,DC. Available at: http://www.usgcrp.gov/

West, J.M., S.H. Julius, P. Kareiva, C. Enquist,J.J. Lawler, B. Petersen, A.E. Johnson, andM.R. Shaw. 2009. U.S. natural resourcesand climate change: Concepts andapproaches for management adaptation.Environmental Management 44: 1001–1021.

Acknowledgments

Funding for this project was provided byPurchase Order EP11H000073 from the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency to theEcological Society of America. This articlesynthesizes information from the U.S. ClimateChange Science Program (CCSP)’s Synthesisand Assessment Products 4.3 and 4.4, as wellas the most recent 2013 External ReviewDraft National Climate Assessment. Theviews expressed in this report are those of theauthors and do not necessarily reflect theviews or policies of the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency.

About the Scientists

Susan H. Julius, Global Change Impacts andAdaptation Program (8601P), Office ofResearch and Development, U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency, 1200 PennsylvaniaAvenue NW, Washington, DC 20460

Advisory Board of Issues inEcology

Charlene D’Avanzo, Hampshire College Jessica Fox, Electric Power Research InstituteSerita Frey, University of New HampshireNoel Gurwick, Smithsonian EnvironmentalResearch CenterKeri Holland, U.S. Department of StateRobert Jackson, Duke University Thomas Sisk, Northern Arizona University

Ex-Officio Advisors

Jayne Belnap, US Geological SurveyValerie Eviner, University of California, Davis.Richard Pouyat, USDA Forest Service

ESA Staff

Clifford S. Duke, Director of ScienceProgramsJennifer Riem, Science Programs Coordinator

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issue #18 - climate change and u.s. natural …...recognizing the importance of climate change...

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