Modeling the Effects of Climate Change on Wetlands in the Pacific Northwest
Extended Monitoring and Modeling of Climate Change Effects on Pacific Northwest Wetlands
Dates
Start Date
2012-09-21
End Date
2014-12-20
Release Date
2012
Summary
Wetlands provide critical services to natural and human communities alike, forming important wildlife habitat, storing and filtering water, sequestering carbon, and offering opportunities for recreation. Unfortunately, not only are these valuable ecosystems understudied compared to others, but they are also among the most sensitive to climate change. Climate change threatens wetlands by altering temperature and precipitation, which cause changes in water level and water temperature. Due to this threat, the international community and domestic agencies alike have highlighted the need to better understand wetlands in the face of climate change, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to the Ramsar Convention, to the National [...]
Summary
Wetlands provide critical services to natural and human communities alike, forming important wildlife habitat, storing and filtering water, sequestering carbon, and offering opportunities for recreation. Unfortunately, not only are these valuable ecosystems understudied compared to others, but they are also among the most sensitive to climate change. Climate change threatens wetlands by altering temperature and precipitation, which cause changes in water level and water temperature. Due to this threat, the international community and domestic agencies alike have highlighted the need to better understand wetlands in the face of climate change, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to the Ramsar Convention, to the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service.
Focusing on the Pacific Northwest region, this project substantially improves our understanding of wetlands and how they will respond to climate change. Researchers developed new methods to map and monitor wetlands, modeled historical and future wetland hydrologic conditions, and evaluated the impacts of climate change on wetlands and the species that rely on them. Results show that montane wetlands – those found in high altitudes – are particularly vulnerable to climate change, which is causing reduced snowpack and longer summer drought, threatening the species that depend on them. Amphibians in particular, such as the Cascades frog, rely on wetlands for breeding and are at risk of local extinction due to the loss of suitable habitat.
This research produced information that is essential for managers seeking to understand the vulnerability of wetland ecosystems to climate change and to effectively plan for and mitigate its impacts. By studying wetlands in multiple locations throughout the Pacific Northwest, researchers discovered that the effects of climate change varied considerably between sites, suggesting that a one-size-fits all approach might not work – rather, management efforts may need to be tailored accordingly from site to site.
Wetlands are widely recognized as important ecosystems that provide critical services for natural communities and human society, including nutrient cycling, wildlife habitat and provisioning, water storage and filtration, carbon sequestration, and agriculture and recreation. Wetlands challenge our current scientific capacity because of their sheer number, their wide range of sizes, and their dynamic nature. As a result, wetlands are understudied compared to other ecosystem types. However, wetlands are thought to be among the most sensitive ecosystems to climate change, so the lack of dedicated scientific resources has accelerating consequences going forward. Our goal in this project was to address the deficiency in wetland resources by developing new approaches and technical tools to better understand wetlands in general and to more effectively manage and conserve wetlands under a changing climate. By focusing our efforts on a range of wetland types, our goal was to better characterize landscape-scale climate change impacts to wetlands across the Pacific Northwest region in support of ongoing assessment and adaptation efforts. Our approach was designed in collaboration with natural resource managers, and involved three methodological advances. First, using remote sensing approaches, we developed new methods for mapping wetlands and reconstructing historical wetland hydrologic dynamics. Second, we used the Variable Infiltration Capacity model, a regional-scale hydrologic model, to hindcast historical wetland dynamics and project the future impacts of climate change on wetlands. Third, we linked these approaches with ecological data to evaluate the impacts and risk of climate change to several classes of wetlands across three ecoregions of Washington state. In the process we developed or collected multiple new datasets on wetland distributions, dynamics, and species occupancy. This work has broad societal value in deepening our understanding of wetland dynamics over time; creating new tools that enable better management and conservation of wetlands and the ecological services that they provide; and enriching conservation and climate adaptation planning efforts with resource and evidence-based decision power.