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Abstract (from Ecology and Society): Coastal ecosystems in the eastern U.S. have been severely altered by human development, and climate change and other stressors are now further degrading the capacity of those ecological and social systems to remain resilient in the face of such disturbances. We sought to identify potential ways in which local conservation interests in the Lowcountry of South Carolina (USA) could participate in a social process of adaptation planning, and how that process might ultimately be broadened to engage a more diverse set of partners. We engaged participants through a combination of informal meetings, workshops, and other collaborative interactions to explore how the conservation community...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
1) Raw parcel-level habitat data for the South Carolina Lowcountry surrounding Cape Romain NWR and Francis Marion NF, from current current conditions and for three projected sea-level rise futures based on SLAMM model outputs, NLCD land cover and the projected distribution of sea levels for 2050. 2) a table of parcel identification numbers (without georeference) with parcel size (Ha) and sub-group identity. 3) Optimization-model derived reserve design portfolios that define the Pareto-optimal frontier for each sub-group and for four budget scenarios along axes of reserve design benefits and risk.
Abstract (from Landscape and Urban Planning): Cultural resources in coastal parks and recreation areas are vulnerable to climate change. The US National Park Service (NPS) is facing the challenge of insufficient budget allocations for both maintenance and climate adaptation of historic structures. Research on adaptation planning for cultural resources has predominately focused on vulnerability assessments of heritage sites; however, few studies integrate multiple factors (e.g., vulnerability, cultural significance, use potential, and costs) that managers should consider when making tradeoff decisions about which cultural resources to prioritize for adaptation. Moreover, heritage sites typically include multiple...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
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Coastal management decisions are complex and include challenging tradeoffs. Decision science offers a useful framework to address such complex problems. We illustrate the process with several coastal restoration studies. Our capstone example is based on a recent barrier island restoration assessment project at Dauphin Island, Alabama, which included the development of geomorphological and ecological models that forecast environmental changes over a 10 year time period from 2015 to 2025. The proposed framework aims to serve as a tool to assist coastal managers with the process of restoration. Specifically, we discuss the importance of considering concepts and techniques from ecology, coastal geology, geomorphology,...
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Note: this data release has been deprecated. Please see new data release here: https://doi.org/10.5066/P18WWMVR. Freshwater fish are among the most vulnerable taxa to climate change globally but are generally understudied in tropical island ecosystems. Climate change is predicted to alter the intensity, frequency, and variability of extreme flow events on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. These changes may impact Caribbean native and non-native stream ecosystems and biota complex ways. We compiled an extensive dataset of native and non-native fish assemblages collected at 119 sites across Puerto Rico from 2005 to 2015. We coupled these data with stream flow indices and dam height to understand how flow dynamics...
Abstract (from USGS Publications Warehouse): The collective set of decisions involved with the restoration of degraded wetlands is often more complex than considering only ecological responses and outcomes. Restoration is commonly driven by a complex interaction of social, economic, and ecological factors representing the mandate of resource stewards and the values of stakeholders. The authors worked with the Herring River Restoration Committee (HRRC) to develop a decision framework to understand the implications of complex tradeoffs and to guide decision making for the restoration of the 1,100-acre Herring River estuary within Cape Cod National Seashore, which has been restricted from tidal influence for more than...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
Abstract (from USGS): Adapting cultural resources to climate-change effects challenges traditional cultural resource decision making because some adaptation strategies can negatively affect the integrity of cultural resources. Yet, the inevitability of climate-change effects—even given the uncertain timing of those effects—necessitates that managers begin prioritizing resources for climate-change adaptation. Prioritization imposes an additional management challenge: managers must make difficult tradeoffs to achieve desired management outcomes related to maximizing the resource values. This report provides an overview of a pilot effort to integrate vulnerability (exposure and sensitivity), significance, and use potential...
Abstract (from Wildlife Research): Designing effective long-term monitoring strategies is essential for managing wildlife populations. Implementing a cost-effective, practical monitoring program is especially challenging for widespread but locally rare species. Early successional habitat preferred by the New England cottontail (NEC) has become increasingly rare and fragmented, resulting in substantial declines from their peak distribution in the mid-1900s. The introduction of a possible competitor species, the eastern cottontail (EC), may also have played a role. Uncertainty surrounding how these factors have contributed to NEC declines has complicated management and necessitated development of an appropriate monitoring...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
Coastal ecosystems in the Eastern U.S. have been severely altered by processes associated with human development, including drainage of wetlands, changes in hydrology, land clearing, agricultural and forestry activity, and the construction of structures that “harden” the coast. Sea-level rise and the changing frequency of extreme events associated with climate change are now further degrading the capacity of those ecological and social systems to remain resilient. As custodians of ecological goods and services valued by society, coastal National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) have a particularly important role to play in helping socio-ecological systems adapt to global-change processes. To help refuges address this challenge,...
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Amphibians in the US Caribbean, like the well-known coquí frog, are particularly vulnerable to human-caused climate change. Coquí frogs are represented by 17 species across Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands and include several mountainous and coastal species that are threatened by extreme heat and drying, loss of coastal freshwater marshes through saltwater intrusion, or both. Over the past decade, the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center has invested in several scientific investigations to understand how global climate change is likely to affect the local climate of the US Caribbean and how sensitive different coquí species are to changes in local climate and habitat conditions in Puerto Rico. This project...
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Climate change doesn’t just threaten our natural resources—it threatens our cultural resources, too. Cultural resources represent evidence of past human activity, such as archeological sites, or are of significance to a group of people traditionally associated with the resource, such as Native American ceremonial sites. Climate change is challenging the long-term persistence of many cultural resources. For example, those located in coastal areas, such as historic lighthouses, are threatened by sea-level rise, shoreline erosion, and more frequent severe storm events. While climate change challenges managers of both natural and cultural resources to make decisions in the face of uncertainty, far less work has been...
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Barrier islands are exposed to a range of natural and human-caused changes, including hurricanes, sea-level rise, and dredging. These changes have the potential to influence the ability of barrier islands to serve as a first-line of defense for the mainland during storm events. Gulf Islands National Seashore, a National Park Service unit in the northern Gulf of Mexico between Florida and Mississippi, is predominantly comprised of barrier islands and faces immediate challenges, including erosion that washes out roads and sand dunes and the adverse impacts on cultural and natural resources from exposure to saltwater. Managers require realistic estimates of both the vulnerability of the park’s natural and cultural...
Abstract (from Ecological Society of America (ESA): Climate change and urban growth impact habitats, species, and ecosystem services. To buffer against global change, an established adaptation strategy is designing protected areas to increase representation and complementarity of biodiversity features. Uncertainty regarding the scale and magnitude of landscape change complicates reserve planning and exposes decision makers to risk of failing to meet conservation goals. Conservation planning tends to treat risk as an absolute measure, ignoring the context of the management problem and risk preferences of stakeholders. Application to conservation of risk management theory emphasizes diversification of portfolio of...
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Globally, freshwater fishes are among the taxa most vulnerable to climate change but are generally understudied in tropical island ecosystems where climate change is predicted to alter the intensity, frequency, and duration of extreme flow events. These changes may impact stream ecosystems and native and non-native biota in complex ways. We compiled an extensive dataset of fish assemblages collected at 119 sites across the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico from 2005 to 2015. We coupled these data with stream flow indices and dam height to understand associations between flow and fish assemblage structure. Sixteen percent of sites contained exclusively non-native species, 34% contained exclusively native species, and...
Abstract (From http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol20/iss4/art14/): National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) in the United States play an important role in the adaptation of social-ecological systems to climate change, land-use change, and other global-change processes. Coastal refuges are already experiencing threats from sea-level rise and other change processes that are largely beyond their ability to influence, while at the same time facing tighter budgets and reduced staff. We engaged in workshops with NWR managers along the U.S. Atlantic coast to understand the problems they face from global-change processes and began a multidisciplinary collaboration to use decision science to help address them. We are applying a...
Managing resources under climate change is a high-stakes and daunting task, especially because climate change and associated complex biophysical responses engender sustained directional changes as well as abrupt transformations. This environmental non-stationarity challenges assumptions and expectations among scientists, managers, rights holders, and stakeholders. These challenges are anything but straightforward – a high degree of uncertainty impedes our ability to predict the environmental trajectory with confidence, and affected resources often span multiple governance jurisdictions or are subject to competing management objectives. Fortunately, tools exist to help grapple with such challenges. Two commonly used...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
Abstract (from USGS Publications Warehouse): This final report summarizes activities, outcomes, and lessons learned from a 3-year project titled “Climate Change Adaptation for Coastal National Wildlife Refuges” with the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) and local partners in the surrounding South Carolina Lowcountry. The Lowcountry is classified as the 10-county area encompassing the coastal plain of South Carolina (this report specifically focuses on Berkeley, Charleston, and Georgetown Counties). The goals of this work, sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (SECASC), were to foster active engagement with stakeholders; to develop a comprehensive definition...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
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Coastal National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) provide a myriad of beneficial services, including buffering storm surge, improving water quality, supporting commercial fisheries, and providing habitat for imperiled wildlife and plants. Yet in the last century, coastal ecosystems in the eastern U.S. have been severely altered by human development activities as well as sea-level rise and more frequent extreme events related to climate change. These influences threaten the goods and services provided by NWRs and pose decision-making challenges for refuge managers. The purpose of this project was to explore how structured decision-making – a formal, systematic method for analyzing decisions – could help NWR staff make informed...
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The New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis) is the only native rabbit species in New England. Over the past 50 years, the cottontail’s range has been reduced by more than 80% as a result of habitat loss from maturing forests and land-use change, resulting in major population declines and concerns for the long-term prospects of this iconic species and other wildlife dependent on young forests. Another threat facing the New England cottontail is resource competition from eastern cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus), introduced into the northeastern US in the early1900s. In response, the New England cottontail is considered a species of special concern by six northeastern states and was a candidate for federal...
Coastal ecosystems in the eastern U.S. have been severely altered by local processes associated with human development, including drainage of coastal wetlands, hydrologic alterations affecting sediment supply, and land-use change, and by global-scale ecological changes including sea-level rise and other effects associated with climate change. Together, these forces are degrading the capacity of ecological and social systems to respond to disturbance. The goal of this project was to foster active engagement with stakeholders; develop a comprehensive problem definition that expressed local values, knowledge, and perceptions; and encourage building of effective networks and trust across organizations and individuals...
map background search result map search result map Informing Conservation Management Decision-Making at Coastal National Wildlife Refuges Protecting Cultural Resources in the Face of Climate Change Development of an Adaptive Management Framework for the Conservation of the New England Cottontail Enhancing Coastal Adaptation Planning at Gulf Islands National Seashore Data from: Decision science as a framework for combining geomorphological and ecological modeling for the management of coastal systems Advancing Climate Change Adaptation Strategies for High Elevation and Endangered Lowland Coquí Frogs in the U.S. Caribbean The Effects of Flow Extremes on Native and Non-Native Stream Fishes in Puerto Rico (Deprecated July 2024) The Effects of Flow Extremes on Native and Non-native Stream Fishes in Puerto Rico Protecting Cultural Resources in the Face of Climate Change Data from: Decision science as a framework for combining geomorphological and ecological modeling for the management of coastal systems Informing Conservation Management Decision-Making at Coastal National Wildlife Refuges Enhancing Coastal Adaptation Planning at Gulf Islands National Seashore The Effects of Flow Extremes on Native and Non-Native Stream Fishes in Puerto Rico (Deprecated July 2024) The Effects of Flow Extremes on Native and Non-native Stream Fishes in Puerto Rico Advancing Climate Change Adaptation Strategies for High Elevation and Endangered Lowland Coquí Frogs in the U.S. Caribbean Development of an Adaptive Management Framework for the Conservation of the New England Cottontail