Projects

Landscape Conservation Cooperatives use a collaborative approach to identify landscape scale conservation solutions. LCCs work across jurisdictional and political boundaries to work with partners to: meet unfilled conservation needs, develop decision support tools, share data and knowledge, and facilitate and foster partnerships.

As part of a shared science strategy, LCCs coordinate closely with the National Climate Change and Wildlife Center and the eight regional Climate Science Centers.

This project will produce an existing vegetation type map at 30m resolution for the entire Western Alaska LCC region. The lack of a consistently mapped vegetation data layer for Alaska has been identified as a primary road block for many conservation and management entities across the state.

The Integrated Ecosystem Model (IEM) for Alaska and Northwest Canada Project integrated existing models of vegetation, disturbance, and permafrost into one complete ecosystem model for the state of Alaska and Northwest Canada.The final synchronized model will integrate existing climate, vegetatio

The tundra biome is the dominant terrestrial ecosystem of the circumpolar north, and its fate in a rapidly changing climate is of high scientific and socioeconomic concern.

To assess the vulnerability of a region to invasive plants, documentation of the presence or absence of invasive plants is necessary. This project expands on work initiated by the EPA to identify invasive plants in rural communities in the Bristol Bay region.

This project evaluates the connections between climate change impacts and health in Bristol Bay communities. Climate change impacts were assessed through the lens of public health, with an eye towards the potential effects on disease, injury, food and water security, and mental health.

The western coastline of Alaska is highly susceptible to coastal storms, which can cause coastal erosion, flooding, and have other pernicious effects to the environment and commercial efforts.

The purpose of the research is to develop a storm surge model for the YK Delta area and to apply it to determine biological impacts of storm surges in the current and future climates.

Bering Sea storms introduce various environmental conditions that adversely affect human activity and infrastructure in the coastal zone and the ecosystems they depend upon.

One of the major challenges in understanding changes in coastal processes in western Alaska is the lack of measured ocean data in the region.

Nearshore bathymetry is a vital link that joins offshore water depths to coastal topography.

The compilation of an accurate and contemporary digital shoreline for Alaska is an important step in understanding coastal processes and measuring changes in coastal storm characteristics.

This project uses previously collected ShoreZone imagery to map nearly 1,600 km of coastline between Wales and Kotzebue.

This project uses existing ShoreZone coastal imagery to map 719 km of shoreline in Bristol Bay, from Cape Constantine to Cape Newenham. This section of coastline is an extremely important herring spawning area and an important component of the Bristol Bay fisheries.

We propose to support the revision and implementation of the South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative’s Conservation Blueprint by integrating its Ecosystem Indicators into a structured decision support system that makes explicit how the Indicators are interrelated and how these will resp

Land managers have incorporated threats to biodiversity for nearly two decades, but very few efforts have included threats from future conditions and fewer still have assessed vulnerability to climate change.

The Gunnison Climate Working Group is a chartered partnership of 14 public and private organizations in Colorados Upper Gunnison Basin.

The SRLCC provided funds to the states of Arizona and New Mexico to support development of the states Crucial Habitat Assessment Tools (CHATs) which provide a decision support system to better incorporate wildlife values, sensitive animals and plants, and important ecosystem features into land us

olorados Front Range represents a region of the Southern Rockies LCC that is both ecologically and economically significant.

The University of California, Davis in partnership with the Navajo Nation is partnering with the Southern Rockies LCC to provide estimates of habitat connectivity for focal species on the Navajo Nation and adjacent lands that the tribe wishes to incorporate into planning and implementation of ada

The purpose of this Agreement is to provide financial assistance to the National Wildlife Refuge Association in support of collaborative work between them and the Bear River Refuge to further the goals and accomplish objectives of the Bear River Watershed Conservation Area, and to work with the F

Streamflows in late spring and summer have declined over the last century in the western U.S. and mean annual streamflow is projected to decrease by six to 25% over the next 100 years.

The Conservation Biology Institute is developing a tool that managers in all watersheds of the Southern Rockies Landscape Conservation Cooperative can use to project the effects of climate change on soil vulnerability conditions and help resource managers develop appropriate strategies to mitigat

The purpose of this agreement is to initiate SRLCC-wide data discovery, cataloging, and general GIS analysis to characterize the landscape across the SRLCC geographic area.

This project will build an SR LCC catalog inside of the USGS-sponsored ScienceBase scientific data and information management platform, provide the ability for partner organizations to maintain and contribute to an SR LCC0specific work environment in ScienceBase, and provide stewardship and data

Without reliable spatial data for wetland and riparian areas, it is impossible for land managers to accurately assess the distribution of critical aquatic habitats and model potential impacts caused by climate change.

The project will result in recommendations for a decision support platform that links coarse and fine scale tools and for improving the Colorado River Simulation System (CRSS) as the central analytical tool for basinwide water supply planning.

Water resource managers rely on hydrologic planning and decision-making models to understand and evaluate current and future water operations in the face of endangered species needs, drought, and climate change.

In the drier, mid- and low-elevation portions of the Southern Rockies LCC, Fremont cottonwood represents the only native vegetation of tall stature, and cottonwood-dominated woodlands provide critical habitat for a large array of neotropical migratory birds and other animals.

In the desert Southwest, changes in species composition, abundance, and distribution that may occur with climate change have significant implications for management of natural resources.

The Conservation Biology Institute will develop a Southern Rockies LCC Conservation Planning Atlas (SRLCC CPA) powered by Data Basin that will make it easier for resource managers and other stakeholders to discover, analyze, and interpret spatial data on priority topics including aquatic resource

This project will build upon a recently completed synthesis product for the Southwest and review and analyze vulnerability assessments of aquatic species and habitats within the Southern Rockies Landscape Conservation Cooperative.

Stream flow in the Colorado River and Dolores River corridors has been significantly modified by water management, and continued flow alteration is anticipated in future decades with projected increases in human water demand.

This project aims to improve seasonal water supply forecasts on the Upper Rio Grande River basin and, in doing so, help to minimize the substantial costs associated with erroneous forecasts and related sub-optimal allocations of water for surface irrigation, groundwater recharge and endangered sp

The overall project goal is to understand and model the watershed impacts of forest restoration actions (thinning, prescribed fire) and climate change on the hydrologic function, particularly with respect to (1) changes in soil moisture and water yield during snowmelt, (2) inter-annual and direct

Conservation planning, the process of deciding how to protect, conserve, enhance and(or) minimize loss of natural and cultural resources, is a fundamental process to achieve conservation success in a time of rapid environmental change.

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.

To anticipate how weather is likely to change as a result of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere, geophysical and meteorological scientists examined the results of climate models on the fine scale climate patterns of Hawai’i to understand what

HaleNet, the climate network on Haleakalā, Maui, is unique in Hawai‘i for its coverage of highly diverse environments, range different climate variables monitored, high temporal resolution, and longterm record.

Expansion of deadly, mosquito-borne bird diseases such as avian malaria into Hawaiʽi’s high elevation forests as a result of global warming is one of the most significant threats facing the state’s rare native forest birds.

This study focused on sensitivity of high-elevation ecosystems in Hawai‘i to climate change.

One of the greatest ecological, social and economic issues of the day is the problem of climate change. Increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere are increasing global temperatures.

In the tropics, ample freshwater is the primary resource supporting thriving human and ecological communities. In the Pacific Islands, many watersheds are threatened by climate change, urban encroachment, and invasion by water-demanding exotic plant species like strawberry guava (SG).

Traditional Ecological Knowledge, or TEK, is “a cumulative body of knowledge, practice and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationships of living beings (including humans) with one another and with their environments.

Changes in future wave climates in the tropical Pacific Ocean from global climate change are not well understood. Spatially and temporally varying waves dominate coastal morphology and ecosystem structure of the islands throughout the tropical Pacific.

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.

One of the impacts of global climate change for the Hawaiian Islands is a projected increase in sea level of about one meter by the year 2100. This change will impact both biological and cultural resources located along the coastline.

The primary objective of this project is to bring together Hawaii's climate change scientists, Molokai's traditional fishpond managers, and other natural resource managers to share scientific and cultural knowledge and work together as a team to identify adaptive management strategies for two of

The objective of this experimental research is to determine if genetic enrichment may enhance survival, growth, and adaptation of important native Hawaiian montane plant species to changing precipitation patterns by relocating conspecifics to more favorable climate regimes at higher elevation.

The specific objectives of this contract are to identify and categorize key differences and similarities between islands and continental systems that are relevant to achieving sustainable landscapes/seascapes at regional scales; to develop a conservation framework that integrates planning process