Climate Change Shifts Conservation

As temperatures are rising, and animals are migrating to habitats that suit them, conservationists are realizing that the idea of setting aside tracks of land to preserve species is a dated practice. The fixed boundaries that were set years ago are no longer sufficient to protect some species. Policy makers are beginning to draft management plans that take global warming into account.

The U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) completed a climate change policy document on Dec. 3, under the direction of Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. The Climate Change Task Force began in March 2007, and their recently released reports outline 80 climate policy actions to address issues of global change, including the need to develop, acquire and analyze additional scientific information.

Among the many recommendations of the DOI report are a number of geospatial products to deal with coming changes that include:

Updating flood frequency estimates and flood plain maps
Creating a geospatial knowledge base for the Arctic
Developing predictive models of climate change effects on invasive and other species responses
Identifying and highlighting species migration through a series of regional maps that detail ecosystem shifts on DOI lands
Developing a geospatial database to assess the impact of climate change on native people

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has also been hard at work to assess the potential impacts of climate change on wildlife and wildlife habitat. The Draft Climate Change Strategic Plan and Draft 5-year Action Plan was released on January 6, with details that urge the agency to find ways to connect broader landscapes and assess which species are at the highest risk because of global warming.

Again, the need for assessment leads to geospatial opportunities that include:

The need to acquire regional climate science and modeling expertise, engaging scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and universities
The interest in assessing and reducing non-climate stressors such as land-use change (agricultural conversion, energy development and urbanization) and compiling those details into a national database
Increase funding for the Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model (SLAMM) that maps the predicted distribution of wetlands due to accelerated sea level rise
Increased collaboration among Federal monitoring programs that include the Forest Services’ Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA), EPA’s Environmental Assessment and Monitoring Program (EMAP), and the USGS’s National Phenology Network

These two detailed land management planning documents come at a perfect time, and are obviously coincident with a pent up desire to take action against coming change. The new administration’s declaration of a science-based approach will undoubtedly lead to greater data gathering, analysis and collaborative multidisciplinary scientific approaches.

As detailed, there are a number of promising large-scale geospatial projects among these recommendations. I urge you to download and look at both of these reports for the opportunities that they represent. The DOI report can be found here, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife report can be found here.

To read a good overview of the coming challenges of managing global change, read this story from the Washington Post.