Projects By Category: Vulnerability Assessment

Past analysis has shown that temperature-dependent avian malaria is likely to reduce overall available Hawaiian forest bird habitat with temperature increases.

Sea-level rise (SLR) is one of the biggest threats to the Hawaiian coastline, and resource managers of coastal wetlands in Hawai‘i must begin planning now for future impacts. The majority of these impacts are expected to occur from 2040 – 2100.

Our project focuses on understanding patterns and causes of recent population declines in the Haleakala silversword that are associated with decreasing precipitation, increasing temperature, and related climate changes in Hawaii's high-elevation ecosystems.

In Hawaiʽi and elsewhere, research efforts have focused on two main approaches to determine the potential impacts of climate change on individual species: estimating species vulnerabilities and projecting responses of species to expected changes.

The project incorporates Heiltsuk Traditional Knowledge and Values into ecosystem-based management planning within Strategic Landscape Reserve Design (SLRD) Landscape Units. The SLRD process seeks to identify areas to set aside from logging (harvesting) over short and long term timeframes.

The project incorporates Heiltsuk Traditional Knowledge and Values into ecosystem-based management planning within Strategic Landscape Reserve Design (SLRD) Landscape Units. The SLRD process seeks to identify areas to set aside from logging (harvesting) over short and long term timeframes.

This project will utilize traditional ecological knowledge to establish traditional gathering practices. Interviews will be conducted with traditional gatherers (a.k.a. subsistence) over the last two generations to get baseline data.

The overarching goal of the project was to develop overlapping conceptual models of environmental and community health indicators in reference to climate forecasts.

This project built on previous National Wildlife Federation work and literature reviews for the North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperative (NPLCC).

This project obtained information regarding past catastrophic events, such as tsunamis, and TEK through oral history interviews with Tolowa elders regarding the effects of climate change and tsunamis on traditional smelt fishing camps; generated a GIS model of coastal inundation due to sea level

A sea level rise vulnerability assessment has been completed for the shorelines of San Juan County Washington.

A recent (2008-2012) outbreak of Geometrid moths has decimated subsistence berry harvest in South Central Alaska. This project will develop a risk model to predict where subsistence berry plants will be most resistant to Geometrid attack.

This project used sound science and best management practices in the development and preparation of a coast redwoods for climate change workshop and related field trip involving multiple partners and others.

This project will complete a tribally-based climate change vulnerability assessment t and adaptation plan for Eulachon that spawn in the Chilkoot and Chilkat rivers near Haines, Alaska.

This project will assess impacts of climate change on stream resources by considering the role of thermal heterogeneity and altered hydrologic regimes.

This project will look at how climate change has altered hydrologic systems, Pacific salmon habitat, and survival of salmon in the Nooksack River watershed. It will develop an adaptation plan that can be adopted and integrated into management plans.

For Tribes where significant knowledge of traditional management practices is intact, but where all or part of ancestral lands are managed by other agencies, it is important that the sharing of TEK and implementation of management take place in a manner that promotes rather than hinders Tribal so

This project developed hydrologic projections for diverse wetland habitats (e.g.

The North Pacific Forest Landscape Corridor and Connectivity Project utilized a landscape connectivity simulator (UNICOR) and a genetic simulation program (CDPOP) to model the functional (dispersal and genetic) connectivity in the North Pacific Landscape.

This project developed a soil vulnerability index and map indicating where forest cover will be most affected by climate change. Using this map, researchers developed a greater understanding of potential changes in soil moisture and temperature regimes under future climate conditions.

This project applied sea-level rise (SLR) modeling approaches along the Pacific coast tidal gradient at a parcel scale through improved data collection tools and collaboration relevant to land managers.

The primary objective of the research is to develop a rule-based decision support system to predict the relative vulnerability of nearshore species to climate change.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) will identify and implement the goals and objectives outlined in CSKT Climate Change Strategic Plan.

The project will establish contact with interested parties in each tribe or first nation within the Crown of the Continent to collect information on all relevant activities and research regarding climate and adaptive management within each tribal nation.

The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) has been working collaboratively with the Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service (USFS) to inventory and map current and potential distributions of plant communities which support species of cultural concern on federal la

Numerous studies show that ongoing climate change will have major effects on the distribution and conservation status of much of our biodiversity.

Numerous studies show that ongoing climate change will have major effects on the distribution and conservation status of much of our biodiversity.

We propose a regional assessment of aquatic species vulnerabilities and responses to climate change as the basis for adaptive management for aquatic ecosystems in the Great Northern LCC, using the Transboundary Flathead Ecosystem as a case example.

We propose to work with the Rocky Mountain Partnership Forum to expand upon the successful approach applied in the first two years of this project to help managers incorporate climate change science into their natural resource management decisions for a new resource of interest that will be chose

Despite extensive knowledge and data surrounding the status and threats to Yellowstone cutthroat trout there is currently no comprehensive framework for prioritizing conservation of populations and metapopulations (i.e., locations) and potential actions that could be taken in these locations to s

This project, part of a broader effort called the Gulf Coast Vulnerability Assessment, involved identifying gaps in data and integrating datasets and corresponding metadata required for a Gulf of Mexico-wide assessment of conditions and variables affecting barrier island vulnerability.

This project, part of a broader effort called the Gulf Coast Vulnerability Assessment, involved identifying gaps in data and integrating datasets and corresponding metadata required for a Gulf of Mexico-wide assessment of conditions and variables affecting barrier island vulnerability.

This project links downscaled climate data to an ecosystem model (LINKAGES) to a landscape simulator (LANDIS) to wildlife models (HSI). Collectively, these models offer a means to assess the response of wildlife to climate change - mediated through habitat.

FY2014

FY2014

Delivering adequate water supplies to support expanding human enterprise while maintaining the necessary flow regimes to support desired riparian ecosystems and formally protected wildlife species that depend upon them is increasingly difficult in the arid western United States.

Rocky Mountain Research Station scientists initiated a study in the 1990s on avian distribution and habitat associations within the Sky Islands.

The Grassland, Shrubland, Desert Program of the U.S.

Southern Nevada Water Authority will add new modeling and analytical capabilities to tools developed as part of a previous WaterSMART Climate Analysis Tools Grant that assessed impacts of climate change on water quality and sediment transport in Lake Mead.

Museum of Northern Arizona, Inc. will leverage tools previously developed by the Springs Stewardship Initiative to help resource managers in the southwestern U.S.

Explore climate change impacts on vegetation across the Desert and Southern Rockies LCCs using historical monitoring data collected from 23 sites across the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, Mojave and Colorado Plateau deserts for 30-50 years.

Texas Tech University will conduct quantitative and predictive analysis of the connectivity of isolated desert "wetlands", that include tinajas, the name for eroded pools in bedrock, for 20 wildlife species over the Sonoran desert ecoregion.

FY2013

FY2013

This project will conduct a vulnerability assessment, develop climate-smart adaptation strategies and actions, and generate implementation plans for focal habitats of the South and Central Coast regions of the CALCC, with a specific focus on four Southern California National Forests (Angeles, San

Perennial streams in the Desert LCC support riparian trees such as cottonwood (Populus spp) and box elder (Acer negundo) that are critical components of habitat for riparian obligate birds and other wildlife species (Webb et al. 2007).

In the desert southwest biodiversity is facing a changing landscape due to human population growth, expansion of energy development, and from the persistent effects of climate change among other threats.

University of California Riverside’s Center for Conservation Biology will create a sustainable resource monitoring framework that will provide empirical data identifying if and how climate change is changing the composition and vitality of Joshua Tree National Park.

Our proposal addresses Funding Category Ill by evaluating natural resource management practices and adaptation opportunities. More specifically, our project addresses Science Need #6 to improve monitoring and inventory of watersheds and ecosystems (including invasive species).

This project supports a collaborative, multi-stakeholder effort led by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to develop a largescale vulnerability assessment and associated adaptation strategies for focal resources of the Sierra Nevada.