Climate Change
Agencies Should Develop Guidance for Addressing the Effects on Federal Land and Water Resources Gao ID: GAO-07-863 August 7, 2007Climate change has implications for the vast land and water resources managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Forest Service (FS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and National Park Service (NPS). These resources generally occur within four ecosystem types: coasts and oceans, forests, fresh waters, and grasslands and shrublands. GAO obtained experts' views on (1) the effects of climate change on federal resources and (2) the challenges managers face in addressing climate change effects on these resources. GAO held a workshop with the National Academies in which 54 scientists, economists, and federal resource managers participated, and conducted 4 case studies.
According to experts at the GAO workshop, federal land and water resources are vulnerable to a wide range of effects from climate change, some of which are already occurring. These effects include, among others, (1) physical effects, such as droughts, floods, glacial melting, and sea level rise; (2) biological effects, such as increases in insect and disease infestations, shifts in species distribution, and changes in the timing of natural events; and (3) economic and social effects, such as adverse impacts on tourism, infrastructure, fishing, and other resource uses. Experts at the GAO workshop also identified several challenges that resource managers face in addressing the observed and potential effects of climate change in their management and planning efforts. In particular, BLM, FS, FWS, NOAA, and NPS have not made climate change a priority, and the agencies' strategic plans do not specifically address climate change. Resource managers focus first on near-term, required activities, leaving less time for addressing longer-term issues such as climate change. In addition, resource managers have limited guidance about whether or how to address climate change and, therefore, are uncertain about what actions, if any, they should take. In general, resource managers lack specific guidance for incorporating climate change into their management actions and planning efforts. Without such guidance, their ability to address climate change and effectively manage resources is constrained. While a broad order developed in January 2001 directed BLM, FWS, and NPS to consider and analyze potential climate change effects in their management plans and activities, the agencies have not yet provided specific direction to managers on how they are to implement the order. A BLM official stated at an April 2007 hearing that BLM is establishing policy and technical committees to address necessary actions and develop guidance to address climate change in agency management practices. FWS and NPS officials said that their agencies have not developed specific guidance but believe that they are operating in a manner consistent with the 2001 order. While NOAA and FS have not provided specific guidance to their resource managers, NOAA officials said that the agency is establishing a working group to determine what actions to take to address climate change effects. FS officials said that FS planning processes are designed to identify and respond to emerging issues such as climate change. Finally, resource managers do not have sufficient site-specific information to plan for and manage the effects of climate change on the federal resources they manage. In particular, the managers lack computational models for local projections of expected changes and detailed inventories and monitoring systems for an adequate baseline understanding of existing local species. Without such information, managers are limited to reacting to already-observed climate change effects on their units, which makes it difficult to plan for future changes.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-07-863, Climate Change: Agencies Should Develop Guidance for Addressing the Effects on Federal Land and Water Resources
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Report to Congressional Requesters:
August 2007:
Climate Change:
Agencies Should Develop Guidance for Addressing the Effects on Federal
Land and Water Resources:
GAO-07-863:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-07-863, a report to congressional requesters.
Why GAO Did This Study:
Climate change has implications for the vast land and water resources
managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Forest Service (FS),
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), and National Park Service (NPS). These resources
generally occur within four ecosystem types: coasts and oceans,
forests, fresh waters, and grasslands and shrublands.
GAO obtained experts‘ views on
(1) the effects of climate change on federal resources and (2) the
challenges managers face in addressing climate change effects on these
resources. GAO held a workshop with the National Academies in which 54
scientists, economists, and federal resource managers participated, and
conducted 4 case studies.
What GAO Found:
According to experts at the GAO workshop, federal land and water
resources are vulnerable to a wide range of effects from climate
change, some of which are already occurring. These effects include,
among others, (1) physical effects, such as droughts, floods, glacial
melting, and sea level rise; (2) biological effects, such as increases
in insect and disease infestations, shifts in species distribution, and
changes in the timing of natural events; and (3) economic and social
effects, such as adverse impacts on tourism, infrastructure, fishing,
and other resource uses.
Experts at the GAO workshop also identified several challenges that
resource managers face in addressing the observed and potential effects
of climate change in their management and planning efforts. In
particular, BLM, FS, FWS, NOAA, and NPS have not made climate change a
priority, and the agencies‘ strategic plans do not specifically address
climate change. Resource managers focus first on near-term, required
activities, leaving less time for addressing longer-term issues such as
climate change.
In addition, resource managers have limited guidance about whether or
how to address climate change and, therefore, are uncertain about what
actions, if any, they should take. In general, resource managers lack
specific guidance for incorporating climate change into their
management actions and planning efforts. Without such guidance, their
ability to address climate change and effectively manage resources is
constrained. While a broad order developed in January 2001 directed
BLM, FWS, and NPS to consider and analyze potential climate change
effects in their management plans and activities, the agencies have not
yet provided specific direction to managers on how they are to
implement the order. A BLM official stated at an April 2007 hearing
that BLM is establishing policy and technical committees to address
necessary actions and develop guidance to address climate change in
agency management practices. FWS and NPS officials said that their
agencies have not developed specific guidance but believe that they are
operating in a manner consistent with the 2001 order. While NOAA and FS
have not provided specific guidance to their resource managers, NOAA
officials said that the agency is establishing a working group to
determine what actions to take to address climate change effects. FS
officials said that FS planning processes are designed to identify and
respond to emerging issues such as climate change.
Finally, resource managers do not have sufficient site-specific
information to plan for and manage the effects of climate change on the
federal resources they manage. In particular, the managers lack
computational models for local projections of expected changes and
detailed inventories and monitoring systems for an adequate baseline
understanding of existing local species. Without such information,
managers are limited to reacting to already-observed climate change
effects on their units, which makes it difficult to plan for future
changes.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends that the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the
Interior develop guidance incorporating agencies‘ best practices, which
advises managers on how to address climate change effects on the
resources they manage and gather the information needed to do so. In
commenting on a draft of this report, the three departments generally
agreed with the recommendation and provided technical comments, which
GAO has incorporated into the report as appropriate.
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-863].
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact John B. Stephenson at
(202) 512-3841 or stephensonj@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
Experts Stated That Federal Resources Are Vulnerable to a Wide Range of
Observed and Potential Climate Change Effects, and That the Nature and
Extent of These Effects Will Vary:
Resource Managers Identified Several Challenges in Addressing the
Observed and Potential Effects of Climate Change on Federal Resources:
Conclusions:
Recommendation for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendixes:
Appendix I: List of National Academies Workshop Participants:
Appendix II: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
Appendix III: Climate Change and Federal Lands Workshop Proceedings,
November 2 and 3, 2006:
Background:
Questions for Workshop Participants:
Day 1: Breakout Session Questions and Responses:
Day 1: Afternoon Plenary Session Questions and Responses:
Day 2: Breakout Session Questions and Responses:
Day 2: Afternoon Plenary Session:
Appendix IV: Four Case Study Profiles:
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem: The Florida Keys National Marine
Sanctuary:
Forests Ecosystem: The Chugach National Forest:
Fresh Waters Ecosystem: Glacier National Park:
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem: Bureau of Land Management Kingman
Field Office, Arizona:
Appendix V: Comments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (FS):
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Commerce (NOAA):
Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of the Interior (BLM, FWS,
and NPS):
Appendix VIII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables Tables:
Table 1: Shares and Global Warming Potentials of Greenhouse Gas
Emissions from U.S. Sources, 2004:
Table 2: Key U.S. Ecosystem Types:
Figures:
Figure 1: Map of NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries:
Figure 2: Map of Federal Resources and the Entities Responsible for
Their Management:
Figure 3: Grinnell Glacier as Viewed from Mt. Gould in Glacier National
Park, between 1938 and 2005:
Figure 4: Spruce Trees Killed by the Spruce Bark Beetle in the Kenai
Peninsula, Alaska:
Figure 5: Bleached Brain Coral, July 2005:
Abbreviations:
BLM: Bureau of Land Management:
CCP: Comprehensive Conservation Plan:
CESU: Cooperative Ecosystem Study Unit:
EEZ: Exclusive Economic Zone:
EMS: Environmental Management System:
ESA: Endangered Species Act of 1973:
FS: Forest Service:
FWS: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:
GHG: greenhouse gas:
IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
NEON: National Ecological Observatory Network:
NEPA: National Environmental Policy Act:
NGO: nongovernmental organization:
NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
NPS: National Park Service:
USGS: U.S. Geological Survey:
August 7, 2007:
The Honorable John Kerry:
United States Senate:
The Honorable John McCain:
United States Senate:
A growing body of evidence shows that increasing concentrations of
greenhouse gases--primarily carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide-
-in the Earth's atmosphere have resulted in a warmer global climate
system, among other changes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), a leading source for international climate expertise,
noted in April 2007 that "observational evidence from all continents
and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by
regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases." The IPCC
further noted that climate change has, in some areas, led to rising sea
levels, declining snow cover, melting glacial and Arctic ice, coral
bleaching, and changes in the timing and amount of precipitation, among
other things. The stresses caused by climate change could be
exacerbated by existing stresses on ecosystems from such sources as
pollution, human settlement, land-use change, and invasion by nonnative
species. Together, climate change and ecosystem stresses may cause
substantial damage to, or the complete loss of, some ecosystems and the
extinction of species. Furthermore, scientists project that changes in
temperature and precipitation may result in more extreme weather
events, such as more frequent and severe droughts, storms, and floods
as well as changes in local climate conditions.
Federal agencies manage over 600 million acres of land--almost 30
percent of the land area of the United States--and more than 150,000
square miles of protected waters, including 13 national marine
sanctuaries and 1 marine national monument. These federal resources are
managed primarily by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (Agriculture)
Forest Service (FS); the Department of Commerce's (Commerce) National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); and the Department of
the Interior (Interior), specifically the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM), the National Park Service (NPS), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (FWS).
The resources managed by federal agencies generally occur within four
principal ecosystem types--coasts and oceans, forests, fresh waters,
and grasslands and shrublands--and support a rich diversity of plant
and animal communities, including endangered and threatened species,
such as the Florida panther, the desert tortoise, the whooping crane,
and the Santa Cruz cypress, among others. Federal resources also
support a range of economically and socially valuable activities, such
as mineral extraction and recreation. In fiscal year 2005, the public
visited federal lands over 600 million times, according to estimates by
Agriculture and Interior.
These agencies manage their resources for a variety of purposes related
to preservation; recreation; and, in some cases, resource use, yet each
agency has distinct responsibilities for the resources it administers.
The statutes governing these agencies' resource management activities
generally do not require the agencies to manage for specific outcomes,
such as a certain number of visitors, or to provide a specific response
to changes in ecological conditions, such as insect outbreaks. Instead,
these laws give the agencies discretion to decide how best to carry out
their responsibilities in light of their respective statutory missions
as well as the need to comply with or implement specific substantive
and procedural laws, such as the Endangered Species Act of 1973
(ESA),[Footnote 1] the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA),[Footnote 2] or the Clean Air Act. The agencies are generally
authorized to plan and manage for changes in resource conditions,
regardless of the cause that brings about the change.[Footnote 3] As a
result, federal resource management agencies are generally authorized,
but are not specifically required, to address changes in resource
conditions resulting from climate change in their management
activities.
In this context, we obtained (1) experts' views on the observed and
potential effects of climate change on federal resources within the
four principal ecosystem types and (2) the views of federal resource
managers on the challenges they face in addressing the observed and
potential future effects of climate change in their management actions
and planning efforts. In addition, four case studies illustrate some of
the effects of climate change on federal resources as well as the
challenges to addressing them.
To solicit experts' views on the effects of climate change and federal
resource managers' views on the challenges to addressing climate change
on federal resources within the four ecosystem types, we convened a 2-
day workshop in collaboration with the National Academies' Board on
Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. Descriptions in this report of the
effects of climate change come from experts at the workshop; we did not
independently review articles from the scientific literature or verify
participants' statements. To identify experts for the first day of the
workshop, which addressed science issues, the National Academies and
GAO agreed on selection criteria, which included recommendations from
other experts, a demonstrated record of publication in the field, and
experience contributing to climate change impact assessments or other
peer-reviewed scientific reports and articles relating to climate
change.[Footnote 4] Individuals' availability on the date of the
workshop was also a key factor. The National Academies and GAO gave
particular preference to individuals recommended by more than one
expert. In addition to ecosystem expertise, we gave priority to those
candidates whose expertise also included an understanding of climate
change (e.g., an understanding of how climate change might affect coral
reefs or forests). GAO identified most of the federal resource managers
for the second day of the workshop because the National Academies does
not interact extensively with the federal resource management
community. To select these managers, we asked for recommendations from
both agency headquarters officials and managers in the field. We gave
priority to senior federal resource managers with management experience
in the field. We also invited managers from Washington, D.C.,
headquarters offices to ensure a balanced perspective. We selected
managers who had a general familiarity with relevant statutes,
regulations, agreements, executive orders, and other management
directives aimed at protecting the resources under their agencies'
jurisdictions. We also selected managers who had a general familiarity
with the issue of climate change and how it could affect one of the
four relevant ecosystem types--although this knowledge was not
essential. We sought to have representation from each major agency that
manages resources corresponding to each of the four ecosystem types.
Fifty-four scientists, economists, and federal resource managers from
academia, government, and nongovernmental organizations attended the
workshop. Appendix I contains a list of the workshop participants and
moderators.
To illustrate the vulnerability of federal resources to the potential
effects of climate change as well as the various management challenges
discussed at the workshop, we conducted case studies of four federal
resource units, one case study for each ecosystem type, using a
nonprobability approach.[Footnote 5] The four units are the Florida
Keys National Marine Sanctuary in southern Florida (coasts and oceans
ecosystem); the Chugach National Forest in south-central Alaska
(forests ecosystem); Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana
(fresh waters ecosystem); and the BLM Kingman Field Office in
northwestern Arizona (grasslands and shrublands ecosystem). We selected
our specific case study units after soliciting selected experts' views
on which federal resources may be most vulnerable to climate change. We
then visited each of the four units, interviewed a number of experts
and resource managers at the units, and viewed some of the resources
discussed at the meetings. More detailed information on our objectives,
scope, and methodology is presented in appendix II. A summary of the
workshop can be found in appendix III, and summaries of the individual
case studies can be found in appendix IV.
In this report, we use the term "federal resources" to refer to federal
lands managed by BLM, FS, FWS, and NPS and to national marine
sanctuaries and one marine national monument managed by NOAA; the term
"ecosystem" to refer to a system of interacting living organisms
together with their physical environment; the term "resource managers"
to refer to individuals who manage federal resources; the term
"physical effects" to refer to observable changes in the physical
condition of some part of a natural system, including, among others,
extreme weather events--that is, weather events that are rare at a
particular place (this may vary from place to place); the term
"biological effects" to refer to changes in the interaction among
organisms living in a given ecosystem; and the phrase "economic and
social goods and services" to refer to economic resources, such as
revenue-producing industries, including forestry and fishing, among
others, and social or cultural resources, such as recreational
activities, scenic views, and historical artifacts, among others. We
recognize that all of these effects are interrelated, and that certain
effects may belong to more than one category. Although the workshop
experts discussed a wide range of possible climate-related effects, we
describe only some of these effects in our report because we could not
cover the full range of effects on all federal resources across the
country. We also did not attempt to rank effects according to severity,
owing to a lack of criteria to make such rankings. We conducted our
work between May 2006 and July 2007 in accordance with generally
accepted government auditing standards.
Results in Brief:
U.S. federal resources within the four principal ecosystem types are
vulnerable to a wide range of effects from climate change, including
physical, biological, and economic and social effects. Some of these
climate-related effects have already been observed, according to
scientific experts participating in our November 2006 workshop.
Officials at our four case study sites also pointed to examples of
climate-related effects that are already occurring on federal
resources. Among the types of effects identified are the following:
* Physical effects of climate change include drought, floods, glacial
melting, sea level rise, and ocean acidification, among others. For
example, warmer springs have resulted in earlier snowmelt, longer
summer drought, and increased wildland fire activity in western U.S.
forest ecosystems, where fires are linked more to climatic conditions
than to land management techniques. Both the frequency of large fires
and the area burned increased significantly in the western United
States during the period of 1987 through 2003 compared with 1970
through 1986. In addition, as illustrated at Glacier National Park,
climate change is causing glaciers to melt. Since 1850, the estimated
number of glaciers in the park has dropped from 150 to 26. Both summer
and winter temperatures are increasing in the park, and some
projections suggest that if current trends in the rate of melting
continue, the remaining glaciers will be gone in the next 25 to 30
years. Furthermore, rising sea levels that are attributable to climate
change already have affected low-lying areas, as illustrated at Big
Pine Key in the Florida Keys. According to an FWS official in the Keys,
saltwater intrusion on land, amplified by increased hurricane activity,
has overwhelmed sources of fresh waters and habitat that support
resident plants and animals, such as the Key deer and the Lower Key
marsh rabbit. This official further stated that these effects will pose
a threat in the future, not only to wildlife, but also to humans who
live on the islands.
* Biological effects of climate change include increases in insect and
disease infestations, shifts in species distribution, coral bleaching,
and changes in the timing of natural events, among others. For example,
warmer temperatures and reduced precipitation associated with climate
change have contributed to insect outbreaks in some areas, as
illustrated at the Chugach National Forest in Alaska. According to an
FS official at the forest, a spruce bark beetle outbreak has led to
high mortality rates for certain types of spruce trees on over 400,000
acres of the Chugach. In the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, on which part of
the forest is located, about 1 million acres have been affected by the
beetles. Officials at the Chugach indicated that continued increases in
temperature and decreases in precipitation could further change
vegetation composition and structure, and increase the incidence and
severity of future insect outbreaks. Similarly, in the Mojave Desert
near the BLM Kingman Field Office, invasive grasses, combined with
drought caused, at least in part, by climate change, have increased the
frequency and severity of wildland fires, destroying native plants and
transforming some desert communities into annual grasslands. Prolonged
drought weakens the natural plant communities and then, in periods of
wetness, invasive species--particularly grasses--fill the gaps between
native vegetation. These invasive grasses can spread and grow faster
than native species; the thicker and less evenly spaced vegetation
leads to increased fire danger. If a fire starts, it burns much hotter
due to the invasive grasses. Native plant communities, such as saguaro
cacti and Joshua trees, are damaged, which provides further environment
for invasive species and increased fire danger. According to experts,
this shift in ecosystems from desert to grassland is likely to continue
as the climate changes, which will in turn result in a loss of species
diversity in these areas.
* Economic and social effects of climate change include adverse impacts
on recreation and tourism; infrastructure; water supplies; and fishing,
ranching, and other resource-use activities. For example, according to
NOAA officials at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, the
continued bleaching of coral reefs caused by climate change in the
Florida Keys may adversely affect the fishing and tourism industries,
which are important sources of revenue for communities in the area.
Coral reefs play a key role in these industries because they are an
important habitat for fish and other marine species and are popular
with snorkelers and scuba divers. Bleaching occurs when corals eject
the microscopic algae that live within their tissues in response to
stressful conditions, such as warmer water. (Corals can recover from
bleaching events if the stress is not too severe or long-lasting, but
the stress caused by bleaching can lead to secondary problems, such as
coral diseases.) If water temperatures in the Florida Keys continue to
increase as a result of climate change, more coral bleaching may occur,
adversely affecting the area's fishing and tourism industries. Alaska
may also be affected by the economic effects of climate change in the
future. Many aquatic species are adapted to cold-water conditions, and
temperature increases and seasonal shifts may adversely affect fishery
resources, upon which commercial, sport, and subsistence fishers all
depend.
Scientific experts at the workshop noted that the nature and extent of
climate change effects will depend on the rate and magnitude of climate
change. They also stated that some changes will occur quickly and will
be readily apparent, while others will occur gradually and be less
apparent in the near term.
In our workshop, resource managers identified several challenges to
addressing the observed and potential effects of climate change in
their management actions and planning efforts. These challenges include
the following:
* Undertaking activities that address the effects of climate change is
currently not a priority within the five resource management agencies
in our review. Resource managers have a wide range of responsibilities,
and they focus first on near-term activities that they are specifically
required to undertake, leaving less time and resources for longer-term
issues such as climate change. For example, officials at the BLM
Kingman Field Office said that, due to resource constraints, they can
only address the most immediate, highest-priority issues, and that
backlogs of required actions, such as permits, are continually growing,
leaving many issues, including climate change, unaddressed.
Furthermore, in general, climate change effects are not specifically
addressed in agency planning activities. For example, at the Chugach
National Forest, managers stated that climate change is not a priority
because it is not included in the most recent list of priority threats
developed by the FS Chief and is not considered a strategic issue by
the agency. To plan and manage for climate change, these resource
managers stated that agencies would have to change how they approach
their missions because addressing climate change would require managers
to anticipate potential future change in their planning processes, as
opposed to using historical data to react to observed changes.
* Resource managers have limited guidance from their agencies about
whether or how to address climate change in management actions and
planning efforts. Under these circumstances, these resource managers
are uncertain about what actions, if any, they should take. A 2001
Interior order directed BLM, FWS, and NPS to consider and analyze,
among other things, potential climate change effects in management
plans and activities developed for public lands. However, headquarters
officials from these agencies told us that they have yet to provide
direction to resource managers about how to implement this order.
Officials at BLM headquarters stated that the lack of specific
authority, guidance, and direction may have limited the agency's
efforts to address the effects of climate change. Furthermore, in
testimony before the House Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies on April 26, 2007, BLM's
National Science Coordinator acknowledged that there is little current
guidance at BLM dealing with climate change. However, the coordinator
said that BLM is establishing policy and technical committees to
address necessary actions and develop guidance to address climate
change in agency management practices. Headquarters officials at FWS
and NPS said that, although they have not developed specific guidance,
they operate in a manner consistent with Interior's 2001 order in their
general planning activities. However, resource managers from BLM, FWS,
and NPS told us that they have received no direction for how to
incorporate climate change into their planning activities. Headquarters
officials from NOAA, under Commerce, said that the agency is
establishing a working group to determine what actions it should and
can afford to take to address the effects of climate change. FS
headquarters officials said that, although they have not provided
specific guidance on addressing the effects of climate change, the
agency's planning process is designed to identify emerging issues, such
as climate change, and respond in ways to promote the sustainability of
the nation's land and water resources. Resource managers from FS and
NOAA said that they have received no specific direction from their
agencies about how to address climate change in their planning
activities. In general, resource managers from all of the agencies said
that they need specific guidance to incorporate climate change in their
management actions and planning efforts.
* These resource managers do not have sufficient site-specific
information to plan for and manage the effects of climate change on the
federal resources they oversee. In particular, they lack computational
models capable of providing local projections of expected changes. For
example, at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, officials said
that they currently lack adequate modeling and scientific information
that would enable managers to predict change on a small scale, such as
that occurring within the sanctuary. Without such models, most of the
managers' options for dealing with climate change are limited to
reacting to already-observed effects on their units, making it
difficult to plan for future changes. Furthermore, these resource
managers generally lack detailed inventories and monitoring systems to
provide them with an adequate baseline understanding of the plant and
animal species that currently exist on the resources they manage. For
example, at the Chugach National Forest, managers told us that, without
accurate baseline inventory data of the plants and animals in the
forest, it is difficult to determine whether changes to species
populations are within the normal range of variability.
Furthermore, these resource managers said that climate change is
inherently a complex, global issue. Greenhouse gas emissions generally
originate outside the boundaries of federal resources, yet these
resources are affected by the cumulative effects of the emissions.
These managers further noted that climate change-related effects can
interact with and amplify the effects of other, preexisting
environmental problems, such as nonnative species or fire on a given
resource unit, making resource managers' jobs more difficult.[Footnote
6]
Resource managers are uncertain about what actions, if any, they should
take to address the current effects of climate change and to plan for
future effects on their resources. Agencies have not assigned climate
change a priority among the other factors they must address and have
not provided resource managers with direction on how or whether to
address the effects of climate change. Without such guidance--and
additional site-specific data--resource managers are constrained in
their ability to address climate change in their planning and
management activities. Therefore, to better enable federal resource
management agencies to take into account the existing and potential
future effects of climate change on federal resources, we are
recommending that the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the
Interior--in consultation with the Directors of FS; the Administrator
of NOAA; and the Directors of BLM, FWS, and NPS, respectively--develop
clear, written communication to resource managers that explains how
managers are expected to address the effects of climate change,
identifies how managers are to obtain any site-specific information
that may be necessary, and reflects best practices shared among the
relevant agencies, while also recognizing the unique missions,
objectives, and responsibilities of each agency. In commenting on a
draft of this report, Agriculture (for FS), Commerce (for NOAA), and
Interior (for BLM, FWS, and NPS) all generally agreed with our
recommendation and offered technical comments, which we have
incorporated into the report as appropriate.
Background:
Greenhouse gases--including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide,
among other gases--trap some of the sun's heat in the Earth's
atmosphere and prevent the heat from returning to space. This
insulating effect, known as the greenhouse effect, moderates
atmospheric temperatures, keeping the Earth warm enough to support
life. However, according to the IPCC, global atmospheric concentrations
of these greenhouse gases have increased markedly as a result of human
activities over the past 200 years and now far exceed preindustrial
levels. The IPCC further reports that these increases have contributed
to a warming of the Earth's climate. Table 1 shows the shares of
greenhouse gas emissions and their global warming potentials from U.S.
sources.[Footnote 7]
Table 1: Shares and Global Warming Potentials of Greenhouse Gas
Emissions from U.S. Sources, 2004:
Greenhouse gas: Carbon dioxide;
Major sources: Fossil fuel combustion, nonenergy use of fuels, and iron
and steel production;
Percentage of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions: 85%;
Global warming potential: 1.
Greenhouse gas: Methane;
Major sources: Landfills, natural gas and petroleum systems,
agriculture, and coal mining;
Percentage of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions: 8;
Global warming potential: 21.
Greenhouse gas: Nitrous oxide;
Major sources: Agricultural soil management, transportation, and manure
management;
Percentage of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions: 6;
Global warming potential: 310.
Greenhouse gas: Synthetic gases;
(HFCs, PFCs, and SF6)[A];
Major sources: Substitution of ozone-depleting substances, electric
power transmission and distribution, and aluminum production;
Percentage of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions: 2;
Global warming potential: 140 to 23,900.
Source: Environmental Protection Agency.
Note: Percentages do not sum to 100 percent due to rounding.
[A] HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons), PFCs (perfluorocarbons), SF6 (sulfur
hexafluoride).
[End of table]
The IPCC attributes increases in average global air and ocean
temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising mean
global sea levels to a warming of the Earth's climate system. The IPCC
reports that 11 of the 12 years between 1995 and 2006 rank among the 12
warmest years since 1850 (the first year that global temperatures were
recorded) and are indicative of a strong upward warming trend over the
last 50 years. Furthermore, according to the IPCC, since 1961, average
global ocean temperatures have increased, because the oceans have
absorbed more than 80 percent of the heat added to the Earth's climate
system. Such warming causes seawater to expand, contributing to sea
level rise. The IPCC also reports that mountain glaciers and snow cover
have declined, on average, in both hemispheres, and that widespread
decreases in the sizes of glaciers and polar ice caps, combined with
losses in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, have very likely
contributed to a sea level rise of 0.17 meters during the 20TH century.
The federal government manages nearly 30 percent of the land in the
United States. Three federal agencies within Interior--BLM, FWS, and
NPS--and Agriculture's FS administer over 90 percent of these lands.
NOAA, within Commerce, administers 14 Marine Protected Areas.[Footnote
8] These agencies manage their resources for a variety of purposes
related to preservation; recreation; and in some cases, resource use,
yet each agency has distinct responsibilities for the resources it
administers. The statutes governing these agencies' resource management
activities generally do not require the agencies to manage for specific
outcomes, such as a certain number of visitors, or to provide a
specific response to changes in ecological conditions, such as insect
outbreaks. Instead, these laws give the agencies discretion to decide
how best to carry out their responsibilities in light of their
respective statutory missions as well as the need to comply with or
implement specific substantive and procedural laws, such as the Clean
Air Act, the ESA, or NEPA. The agencies are generally authorized to
plan and manage for changes in resource conditions, regardless of the
cause that brings about the change. As such, federal resource
management agencies are generally authorized, but are not specifically
required to address in their actions and planning efforts changes in
resource conditions resulting from climate change.
BLM, FS, FWS, NOAA, and NPS have unique management missions, as
follows:
* BLM's mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity
of public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future
generations under the principles of multiple use and sustained yield as
provided in the Federal Land Policy Management Act. BLM manages more
than 260 million acres located primarily in 12 western states. The
agency manages and issues permits for activities such as recreation,
livestock grazing, timber harvesting, and mining.
* FS's mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of
the nation's forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and
future generations under the Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act and
the National Forest Policy Management Act. FS manages more than 190
million acres throughout the country. The agency manages and issues
permits for activities such as skiing, livestock grazing, recreation,
timber harvesting, and mining and for rights-of-way for road
construction.
* FWS's mission is to work with others to conserve, protect, and
enhance fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the
continuing benefit of the American people. FWS also has a regulatory
function, in that it enforces laws, including the ESA and others. FWS
manages 547 national wildlife refuges and 37 large, multiple-unit
Wetland Management Districts on more than 96 million acres of land
throughout the nation; 69 national fish hatcheries; and 46
administrative sites. The National Wildlife Refuge System, which
performs FWS's land management functions, administers a national
network of lands and waters for the conservation; management; and,
where appropriate, restoration of the fish, wildlife, and plant
resources and their habitats within the United States.:
* In addition to these 4 agencies, NOAA seeks to preserve the
biological and ecological integrity of U.S. marine systems, which
include its National Marine Sanctuary System, consisting of 14 Marine
Protected Areas that encompass more than 150,000 square miles of marine
and Great Lakes waters. (See fig. 1.) NOAA also manages the waters of
the Exclusive Economic Zone, the outer boundary of which is 200
nautical miles from the U.S. coastline.
* NPS's mission is to conserve the scenery, the natural and historic
objects, and the wildlife of the national park system so that they will
remain unimpaired for the enjoyment of current and future generations.
NPS manages 391 national park units covering more than 84 million acres
throughout the United States and its territories. The agency manages
many of the nation's most precious natural and cultural resources.
Figure 1: Map of NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries:
[See PDF for image]
Source: National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration.
[End of figure]
Other federal entities that manage various federal land and water
resources include the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of
Reclamation, the Department of Defense, and the Tennessee Valley
Authority, among others. Figure 2 shows federal resources according to
the entity responsible for their management.
Figure 2: Map of Federal Resources and the Entities Responsible for
Their Management:
[See PDF for image]
Source: U.S. Geological Survey.
[End of figure]
The resource units managed by the federal government encompass four
principal ecosystem types, as shown in table 2.
Table 2: Key U.S. Ecosystem Types:
Ecosystem type: Coasts and oceans;
Description: Estuaries, coastal habitats, and ocean waters as far as
200 miles from the U.S. shoreline.
Ecosystem type: Forests;
Description: Land areas of 1 acre or more that are at least 10 percent
covered by trees, including areas in which trees are intermingled with
other cover and both naturally regenerating forests and areas planted
for future harvest.
Ecosystem type: Fresh waters;
Description: Streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, reservoirs, fresh water
wetlands, groundwater, and riparian (riverbank) areas.
Ecosystem type: Grasslands and shrublands;
Description: Lands in which the dominant vegetation is grasses and
other nonwoody vegetation, or where shrubs are the norm, including bare-
rock deserts, alpine meadows, and Arctic tundra.[A].
Source: H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the
Environment, The State of the Nation's Ecosystems: Measuring the Lands,
Waters, and Living Resources of the United States (2002).
Note: The Heinz Center classification system also includes two
additional ecosystems: farmlands and urban and suburban areas. However,
we did not consider these two ecosystem types in this report, because
the majority of these lands are in private hands.
[A] Alpine refers to the zone made up of slopes above the timberline
and characterized by, among other things, the presence of low, shrubby,
slow-growing woody plants. Tundra is a treeless, level, or gently
undulating plain characteristic of the Arctic and subarctic regions.
[End of table]
Experts Stated That Federal Resources Are Vulnerable to a Wide Range of
Observed and Potential Climate Change Effects, and That the Nature and
Extent of These Effects Will Vary:
Experts at our workshop told us that climate change is likely to affect
federal resources in a number of ways. For example, the experts said
that climate change has already caused--and will likely continue to
cause--physical changes, including drought, floods, glacial melting,
sea level rise, and ocean acidification. Climate change will also cause
biological changes, such as increases in insect and disease
infestations, shifts in species distribution and abundance, and changes
in the timing of natural events (referred to as phenological changes),
among others. The experts further said that climate change is likely to
adversely affect economic and social goods and services supported by
federal resources, including recreation, tourism, infrastructure, water
supplies, fishing, ranching, and other resource uses. Officials at our
four case study sites provided us with additional examples of some of
these climate-related effects already occurring on federal resources.
As we have previously mentioned, these four sites are the Florida Keys
National Marine Sanctuary in southern Florida (coasts and oceans
ecosystem); the Chugach National Forest in south-central Alaska
(forests ecosystem); Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana
(fresh waters ecosystem); and the BLM Kingman Field Office in
northwestern Arizona (grasslands and shrublands ecosystem).
Physical Effects of Climate Change on Federal Resources Are Already
Apparent and Will Likely Increase:
Experts at our workshop and officials at our four case study sites
stated that climate change can result in physical changes, and that
many such changes have already occurred and are likely to continue in
the future. Physical effects of climate change include warmer
temperatures, drought, glacial melting, floods, sea level rise, and
ocean acidification, among others.
Experts from the workshop identified increased temperatures as one of
the key physical effects of climate change. According to these experts,
effects of increasing temperatures that have already been observed
include the declining duration of lake and river ice cover throughout
the northern hemisphere and increased temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees
Fahrenheit in eastern water bodies after storm events.
A scientist at Glacier National Park told us that, while the estimated
global average temperature has risen 0.6 degree Celsius (about 1 degree
Fahrenheit) since about 1897, the estimated average temperatures of the
highest elevations in the park have risen 1.6 degrees Celsius (about 3
degrees Fahrenheit) over the same period. This scientist expects this
trend to continue. Winter and summer temperatures within the park also
are increasing. The data suggest that the number of frost days below 0
degree Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) in Montana from 1900 to 2005
declined by 3 weeks. Furthermore, in 1900, the estimated number of
extreme heat days--defined as days with temperatures above 90 degrees
Fahrenheit--was about 5 days per year in Glacier National Park (and
western Montana); in 2005, this estimated number was about 20 days per
year. A record was set in 2003, with 31 days above 90 degrees
Fahrenheit. Experts consider 90 degrees to be a major threshold beyond
which there are negative impacts on human health and plants in the
region. Increased moisture stress due to increased temperatures makes
plants more vulnerable to fire, and fire activity in the region has
increased in recent years. In 2003, 74,000 hectares in Glacier National
Park--about 13 percent of the park's total area--burned, in what was
the largest fire year since 1910, when the park was founded.[Footnote
9] Other major fires occurred in 1988 and 2001, according to NPS and
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) officials.
According to experts at the workshop, warmer spring seasons--due at
least partly to climate change--have already resulted in earlier
snowmelt, longer summer dry periods, and increased wildland fire
activity in western U.S. forest ecosystems, where the experts stated
that fires are linked more to climatic conditions than to land
management techniques. Both the frequency of large fires (greater than
400 hectares) and the area burned increased significantly in the
western United States during the period of 1987 through 2003 compared
with 1970 through 1986, and wildland fire size and severity are likely
to further increase with climate change, according to these experts.
Furthermore, workshop participants noted that, in general, climate
change will likely increase droughts in the future.
Drought conditions that are potentially caused by climate change are
already affecting trees, shrubs, and water resources in some areas. For
example, according to officials from the BLM Kingman Field Office,
about 30 percent of old growth pinyon pine trees in the Cerbat
Mountains of Arizona; extensive stands of black brush near Dolan
Springs in Arizona; and shrubs, such as cliffrose and juniper on
shallow soils on the Colorado Plateau, have died due to severe drought
conditions. Similarly, officials from the Chugach National Forest told
us that closed-basin lake levels in the Kenai Lowlands in south-central
Alaska have declined by as much as 1 meter as a result of drought, and
many ponds that appeared on 1950 maps and aerial photographs are now
grassy basins with spruce and hardwood trees.
Experts participating in all of our workshop discussions also
identified ice and glacial melting as physical effects resulting from
climate change. Experts said that there is evidence that sea ice
retreat, accelerating glacier melt, and measurable coastal erosion in
the Arctic--due, at least in part, to climate change--are now greater
than they were just 5 years ago. These experts noted that there also
has been a major loss of glaciers in the western United States, such as
in Montana and Alaska. According to a scientist at Glacier National
Park, the estimated number of glaciers in the park has dropped from 150
to 26 since 1850, and some projections suggest that if current trends
in the rate of melting continue, the remaining glaciers will be gone in
the next 25 to 30 years. Figure 3 shows the melting of Grinnell Glacier
between 1938 and 2005. Furthermore, according to officials at the
Chugach, many Kenai Peninsula glaciers in south-central Alaska began
retreating in the 1850s. For example, the Harding Icefield lost 70
vertical feet and 5 percent in surface area in the last 50 years,
according to these officials. In addition, an official at the Chugach
said that glaciers in the forest have generally been declining very
quickly in surface area and volume, with a few exceptions due to local
topography. Furthermore, according to our workshop participants,
increasing air, ocean, and coastal water temperatures will likely lead
to a continuing loss of sea ice, a reduction in permafrost, decreased
snowpack, and increased glacial melting.[Footnote 10]
Figure 3: Grinnell Glacier as Viewed from Mt. Gould in Glacier National
Park, between 1938 and 2005:
[See PDF for image]
Source: U.S. Geological Survey.
[End of figure]
According to experts discussing the fresh waters ecosystem at our
workshop, flooding is another physical effect potentially caused by
climate change. For example, they noted that rain-on-snow events (i.e.,
rain following snow) increase the potential for flooding, because
rainwater and melted snow cause very high runoff rates in winter and
early spring. Officials at Glacier National Park who have observed such
changes told us that regional precipitation patterns are changing, such
that more precipitation falls as rain and less as snow. (They said that
snowpack has declined by up to 30 percent since the mid-20TH century.)
With less snow and warmer winters, the timing of spring runoff can be
up to 20 days earlier than normal. This is causing winter streamflow to
increase and summer streamflow to decrease. Scientists expect to
continue to receive less snow in winter with more rain, rain-on-snow
conditions, and midwinter melting of snowpack. These warmer winters may
lead to more winter flooding in the park--as well as more avalanches.
The experts further noted that high runoff in winter and early spring
is likely to increase soil erosion, enlarge stream channels, increase
sediment loads in streams, and increase stream turbidity.[Footnote 11]
Because of the higher volume of runoff in the spring, combined with
less snowpack, streams could shrink or dry up completely every summer.
Not only would this affect riparian vegetation growth and aquatic
animals, the associated drying of adjacent soils and vegetation would
also increase the risk of forest fires.[Footnote 12]
Experts discussing the coasts and oceans ecosystem at our workshop also
identified sea level rise as one of the key physical effects of climate
change. Global ocean and coastal trend analyses that are based on
satellite measurements of sea level change suggest that sea levels are
rising faster to higher levels at different rates in different places.
According to these experts, sea level rise may lead to flooding and the
permanent loss of coastal wetlands and barrier shorelines; degradation
of fresh waters, brackish coastal waters, and low-lying ecosystems,
which could impact the drinking water supply; the loss of storm buffers
for low-lying areas; increased vulnerability to storm surge and
flooding; and increased erosion and retreat of shorelines around
barrier islands and estuaries. For example, these experts said that the
Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina, the
Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland, as well as various
southeast and southwest Louisiana national wildlife refuges, are among
the federal resources particularly vulnerable to sea level rise. Also,
according to experts discussing the grasslands and shrublands
ecosystem, as sea levels rise, saltwater will encroach on coastal
prairies, turning them into coastal wetlands.
Rising sea levels that are attributable to climate change already have
affected low-lying areas, such as Big Pine Key in the Florida Keys.
According to an FWS official in this area, saltwater intrusion on land,
amplified by increased hurricane activity, has overwhelmed sources of
fresh waters and habitat that support resident plants and animals, such
as the Key deer and the Lower Key marsh rabbit that live on the Keys
refuges.[Footnote 13] This official further stated that these effects
will pose a threat in the future, not only to wildlife, but also to
humans who live on the islands.
Finally, experts discussing the coasts and oceans ecosystem at our
workshop also identified ocean acidification as one of the physical
effects of climate change. Acidification occurs when increased carbon
dioxide levels decrease the concentration of carbonate ion in seawater.
Because carbonate ion is a substance that coral reefs need to build
their skeletons, ocean acidification may reduce the calcification rate
in corals (and other calcium carbonate-based species) and cause other
changes in the oceanic food chain, plankton communities, and the
distribution of certain species. This could affect the coral reefs
comprising the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and corals in any
other marine protected area, state, or territory. A University of Miami
scientist who has been studying coral reefs and climate change for a
number of years, and with whom we spoke while conducting our Florida
Keys case study, told us that by 2050, carbonate ion could be 34
percent less abundant than today.[Footnote 14]
Biological Effects of Climate Change on Federal Resources Are Already
Apparent and Are Likely to Increase:
Experts participating in our workshop and officials at our four case
study sites stated that climate change can result in biological
changes, and that many such changes have already occurred and are
likely to continue in the future. The biological effects of climate
change include increases in insect and disease infestations, shifts in
species distribution, and changes in the timing of natural events
(referred to as phenological changes), among others.
Experts discussing the forests and the grasslands and shrublands
ecosystems noted that the infestation of pests--especially those that
emerge under warmer or drier conditions--is a key biological effect
attributable, at least in part, to climate change. Examples of such
pests include bark beetles, grasshoppers, and various fungi as well as
diseases caused by bacteria, parasites, and viruses. According to
experts at the workshop plenary session, the spruce bark beetle, the
mountain pine beetle, and the southern pine beetle have already
infested some U.S. forests, thriving in areas where the cold winters
would have previously prevented them from colonizing. These experts
noted, for example, that the southern pine beetle has migrated into red
spruce areas in the southeastern United States, and that pests have
also damaged New England sugar maples. The experts further noted that
increased temperatures will increase the range and effects of insects
and disease infestation. In particular, experts stated that there have
been shifts in the intensity and extent of the spruce bark beetle in
the Pacific Northwest and Alaska caused by an acceleration of the
beetle's life cycle due to warmer and drier climatic conditions.
A spruce bark beetle infestation has already occurred at the Chugach
National Forest, according to an FS official at the forest. Warmer
temperatures and reduced precipitation associated with climate change
have contributed to a spruce bark beetle outbreak that has led to high
mortality rates for certain types of spruce trees on over 400,000 acres
of the forest (see fig. 4). About 20 percent of the forest's land and
the adjacent Kenai National Wildlife Refuge are located on the Kenai
Peninsula. According to FS experts, about 1 million acres of the
peninsula have been affected by the beetles, including 400,000 acres
within the forest itself. Officials at the Chugach indicated that
continued increases in temperature and decreases in precipitation could
further change vegetation composition and structure and increase the
incidence and severity of future insect outbreaks. The officials stated
that spruce bark beetle populations increase greatly when warm weather
climate events combine with forest stresses.[Footnote 15] (Officials at
the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge noted, however, that not all spruce
bark beetle damage is attributable to climate change. Another scientist
explained that the key link to climate change is that outbreaks are now
persistent and not episodic.)
Figure 4: Spruce Trees Killed by the Spruce Bark Beetle in the Kenai
Peninsula, Alaska:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Forest Service, Forest Health Protection.
Note: The brown-colored trees shown in this figure are white spruce
killed by spruce bark beetles.
[End of figure]
Experts discussing the fresh waters ecosystem said that increased water
body temperatures may increase the risk of toxic algal blooms as well
as the severity of fish diseases. They said that there have been recent
observations of severe pathogen problems in the Yukon River in
Alaska.[Footnote 16] (The Yukon River flows through the Yukon Delta
National Wildlife Refuge.) Experts in the coasts and oceans ecosystem
likewise noted that increasing air and water temperatures could
increase the incidence of toxic algal blooms in ocean environments.
They observed that increased microbial activity could affect fish,
shellfish, corals, sea turtles, and some sea grasses.
Another biological effect of climate change that was identified by the
workshop experts is anticipated shifts in the distribution, abundance,
and ranges of both plant and animal species. As an example of one
observed change that is due at least in part to climate change, fresh
waters ecosystem experts noted that the nonnative zebra mussel has
extended its range in the Great Lakes as lake temperatures have warmed.
Experts discussing other ecosystem types similarly agreed that changes
in species distribution are likely to occur in the future, and that
nonnative species might eventually dominate or replace native species
in some areas. For example, experts discussing the coasts and oceans
ecosystem noted that marine and nonnative species may invade estuaries
where they have typically not lived. Oyster predators from the ocean
may move into the Chesapeake Bay, for example. Likewise, experts on the
forests ecosystem said that forest species composition--both the trees
and the species that depend on the trees and forest vegetation--may
change. They indicated that sugar maple, white bark pine at high
elevations, and subalpine spruce fir forests in the Rocky Mountains
have already experienced such changes. Experts discussing the
grasslands and shrublands ecosystem, moreover, stated that tree die-
offs triggered by drought and exacerbated by higher temperatures may
lead to a shift from woodland to shrubland or grassland. They said that
midwestern savannas and the southwestern pinyon and juniper woodlands
are particularly vulnerable to such changes.[Footnote 17] They further
noted that some rare ecosystems, such as alpine tundra, California
chaparral, and blue oak woodlands in California may become extinct
altogether.[Footnote 18] These experts said that native biodiversity
will decrease in many areas, and that new assemblages of species will
be living together, with unknown consequences.
Evidence of changes in species distribution is already apparent on some
federal resources. For example, according to officials at the BLM
Kingman Field Office, drought conditions are causing native Mojave
Desert scrub plant communities in the region to convert into nonnative
annual grassland communities, which are more vulnerable to
fire.[Footnote 19] This phenomenon has contributed to problems related
to fire management. Prolonged drought acts as a source of stress to
native plant communities. Then, in periods of wetness, invasive species
(typically, invasive annual grasses) fill in the gaps between native
vegetation. Invasive species can spread and grow faster than native
species.[Footnote 20] As a result, the thicker and less evenly spaced
vegetation leads to fire danger. If a fire starts, it burns much longer
and hotter due to the invasive grasses. Native plant communities, such
as saguaro cacti and Joshua trees, are not fire resistant, so fire
damages these communities and provides further environment for invasive
species and increased fire danger. In some instances, repeated fires of
this nature have destroyed native plant communities, such that only
invasive grasslands remain. A severe drought occurred in 2002 that
resulted in the loss of perennial grasses, shrubs, and trees. Drought,
coupled with increased annual growth in wet years, accelerates the
conversion of hot desert plant communities into annual grasslands.
Should continued severe drought become the norm, this conversion can be
expected to continue.
Furthermore, according to BLM Kingman officials, pinyon-juniper
woodlands (which include pinyon pine trees and various types of
junipers) near the BLM site have died off, as have some ponderosa pines
and chaparral. These officials said these changes are likely due to the
severe drought the region has experienced since about 1996. According
to these officials, even pinyon pines hundreds of years old that have
survived drought events in the past are dying, which the officials said
was unusual and unique. Ponderosa bark beetles and mistletoe
infestations have also stressed the trees, contributing to the die-off
of the ponderosa pines. BLM officials said that changes to forested
plant communities would be significant, since these communities already
are small and disjunct. The resource managers said that these
communities probably would either be greatly reduced in size or
eliminated from many areas.
Experts discussing fresh waters told us that temperature increases are
most likely to threaten cold-water species, such as trout, salmon, and
amphibians. An FWS fish biologist who studies and provides expertise on
certain resources in Glacier National Park told us about a park
species, the bull trout, that is at particular risk from climate
change. The bull trout, listed as a threatened species under the ESA,
is native to the western United States. It migrates in the spring from
lakes and streams, such as Flathead Lake up the Flathead River system
near the park, where it spawns in the fall in tributaries as far as 150
miles upstream. This fish is very sensitive to water temperature and
clarity. Its spawning temperature range is 6 to 10 degrees Celsius (43
to 50 degrees Fahrenheit), and its young-rearing temperature range is
below 16 degrees Celsius (61 degrees Fahrenheit). It is found in only
the coldest streams. If temperatures increase, streams may become
intolerable for the bull trout. In addition, if isolated glaciers
disappear due to temperature increase, the mountain streams the
glaciers feed may dry up late in the season, further reducing habitat.
Therefore, the bull trout can only survive in a very limited area, and
many of its migration corridors have been cut off as a result of
ecosystem fragmentation.
Scientists at Glacier National Park further noted that warming trends
are expected to cause an upward migration of vegetation, changing the
ground cover in many areas of the park and affecting wildlife species
that depend on those habitats. As alpine habitats warm, the tree line
is expected to move upslope, with forests beginning to invade alpine
and subalpine meadows.[Footnote 21] Some of these changes are already
occurring. Animals that may be harmed by the loss of alpine and
subalpine habitat include bighorn sheep, pikas (relatives of the
rabbit), mountain goats, wolverines, and grizzly bears. Many rare
plants and animals in Glacier are near extinction, and the experts said
that climate change may increase the likelihood that these species will
cease to exist in the park.
Experts on several ecosystem types also stated that climate change will
affect phenology, that is, plant and animal life-cycle events that are
influenced by environmental changes, especially seasonal variations in
temperature and precipitation. Experts discussing the forests
ecosystem, for example, said that changes will affect critical species
interactions, such as pollination and seed dispersal. Experts
discussing the grasslands and shrublands ecosystem observed that the
distribution of plants that undergo photosynthesis during the cool
season and plants that undergo photosynthesis during the warm season
may change, with implications for the animals--both vertebrates and
invertebrates--that are associated with them. They further noted that
pollination could become out-of-sync with flowering. Likewise, one
expert on the fresh waters ecosystem also stated that the phenology of
fish migration and reproduction may be disrupted by changing patterns
of water flow or availability.
Officials at the Chugach National Forest indicated that the recent
spruce bark beetle outbreaks on the Kenai Peninsula may be attributed,
to some extent, to phenological changes. For example, the spruce bark
beetle's life cycle has accelerated from 2 years to 1 year. These
officials explained that populations of many insects are regulated by
low winter temperatures and many outbreaks end by episodes of cold
temperature. However, as the climate warms, infestations by insects
whose populations are controlled by cold will likely increase.
Furthermore, an FWS biologist in the Florida Keys pointed out that, on
the basis of some limited data sets, it appears that green turtles in
the Keys region may be nesting earlier, possibly as a result of climate
change. The biologist also noted that a larger study of loggerhead
turtles conducted in another part of Florida between 1989 and 2003
found that the median date of loggerhead turtle nesting occurred
approximately 10 days sooner.[Footnote 22] During this same 15-year
period, according to the study, average sea surface temperatures
increased by 0.8 degree Celsius during May, when loggerheads typically
begin to nest on these beaches. This study suggests that the turtles
may be responding to recent climate trends.[Footnote 23]
Climate Change Is Likely to Affect the Economic and Social Goods and
Services Supported by Federal Resources:
Experts participating in our workshop noted that climate change is
likely to have adverse effects on a range of economic and social goods
and services supported by federal resources, including recreation and
tourism, infrastructure, water supplies, fishing, ranching, and other
resource-use activities.
According to experts on the grasslands and shrublands ecosystem, if FWS-
managed wetlands--called prairie potholes--in the upper midwest dry up,
waterfowl populations would decline, since these wetlands serve as
resting, feeding, and nesting habitat for migratory waterfowl.[Footnote
24] The loss of the prairie potholes would hurt midcontinent waterfowl
populations and the many resources that interact with them. This loss
would further result in wide-ranging economic impacts on a variety of
industries, such as hunting, and on communities in that part of the
country.
The experts also pointed out that the increasing frequency of extreme
events, such as fire or drought, could limit recreational activities on
federal lands. For example, experts on the coasts and oceans ecosystem
observed that accelerated sea level rise could result in a loss of
beaches and associated recreational activities. They further stated
that increasing air and water temperatures could affect such
recreational activities as fishing and bird-watching, and that ocean
acidification could negatively affect tourism and sport fishing in
coastal areas. Similarly, managers at the BLM Kingman Field Office told
us that climate change could cause declines in the recreational use of
the land by hunters (owing to less game to hunt) and by the visiting
public.
NOAA officials at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary told us
that the continued bleaching of coral reefs in the Florida Keys--
caused, at least in part, by climate change--may adversely affect the
tourism and fishing industries, which are important sources of revenue
for communities in the area. Coral reefs play a key role in these
industries because they are important habitats for fish and other
marine species and are popular with snorkelers and scuba divers.
Bleaching occurs when corals eject the microscopic algae that live
within their tissues in response to stressful conditions, such as
warmer water. (Corals can recover from bleaching events if the stress
is not too severe or long-lasting, but the stress caused by bleaching
can lead to secondary problems, such as coral diseases.) If water
temperatures in the Florida Keys continue to increase as a result of
climate change, more coral bleaching may occur, adversely affecting the
area's tourism and fishing industries. Figure 5 shows two brain coral
colonies in the Upper Keys area of the Florida Keys National Marine
Sanctuary in July 2005. The smaller colony (bottom of the figure) shows
healthy coloration, while the larger colony (top of the figure) is
nearly completely bleached.
Figure 5: Bleached Brain Coral, July 2005:
[See PDF for image]
Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Florida Keys
National Marine Sanctuary.
[End of figure]
Experts from three workshop groups noted that climate change could
affect infrastructure and operational costs on federal lands. For
example, experts in the grasslands and shrublands ecosystem noted that,
as wildland fires become more frequent and severe as the climate
changes, the costs of fire-fighting and rehabilitating land increases.
Experts stated that rising sea levels will affect resource use on
federal lands, and that changes in precipitation will affect dams,
canals, flood protection, and reservoirs. Experts discussing the fresh
waters ecosystem said that some park visitation levels, particularly in
colder climates, have been restricted by weather conditions. Climate
change, they noted, is expected to result in a change of visitor
patterns and may result in a wider use of the land's resources and
infrastructure. Managers at Glacier National Park agreed with this
perspective, saying that climate change may lengthen the primary
visitation period for the park as spring comes earlier and winter comes
later. According to these officials, June through August used to be the
peak visitation time frame, but already companies affiliated with the
park (e.g., concession owners) are getting more requests to conduct
activities in May and September. Roads and facilities may need to stay
open longer, which will require more staff and resources, and the
potential for weather-related infrastructure damage will require more
maintenance and improvements. These officials further noted that if the
park is open longer, there will be more crime, more bear-human
interactions, and a greater need for search-and-rescue operations, all
of which will require more resources to manage.
Climate change has already affected the infrastructure on some federal
lands. For example, officials from the Chugach National Forest
indicated that, to the extent that large storm events are related to
climate change, there have been significant impacts on bridges and
infrastructure in Alaska, and that the frequency of severe storm events
appears to be increasing. (Forest officials noted that in the last 10
years, the Chugach National Forest region has experienced two 100-year
storm events.) Similar effects and other impacts on infrastructure are
illustrated at Glacier National Park. Officials at the park told us
that, in 2003, the most popular and scenic road in the park, the Going-
to-the-Sun Road, was shut down for 23 days due to fire. To the extent
that climate change is linked to more frequent and severe forest fires,
western Montana could face more fires. Glacier National Park staff
noted that fires distract FS and NPS staff from their regular duties,
and that if more fires occur, the visitor experience could be
diminished by poor air quality and limited access to fire-ravaged areas
of the park. As a result, the park and local communities could face
lost revenues associated with declines in visitation.
Experts in the fresh waters ecosystem indicated that climate change may
also adversely affect water supplies and quality. Snow and ice serve as
natural reservoirs in mountainous areas and northern regions of the
United States, gradually supplying water into the summer months. Much
of the west relies on spring snowmelt to provide a steady stream of
water into summer months, when demand is highest. However, warmer
temperatures and changes in winter precipitation patterns from snow to
rain are expected to continue causing reduced snowpack and early
snowmelt. Water supply shortages will likely increase the cost of
water. In addition, the experts said that water quality is likely to
decline if harmful algal blooms, bacteria, or botulism occur as a
result of increased temperature; such occurrences would likely result
in increased water treatment costs. Moreover, coastal areas that rely
on groundwater supplies will have to be careful not to overdraw from
the aquifer to avoid saltwater intrusion and contamination,
particularly in water-stressed areas of the southwest. Experts on the
coasts and oceans ecosystem stated that accelerated sea level rise
could increase saltwater intrusion, affecting drinking water supplies
in some regions.
Water issues are particularly significant in the southwestern United
States. For example, BLM Kingman Field Office managers told us that
climate change-related economic costs resulting from declines in the
availability of water in the region could be extremely high. According
to experts discussing the fresh waters ecosystem, less surface water
availability means lower groundwater recharge rates and further demand
on the existing groundwater resources. The BLM managers further said
that reductions in groundwater could affect communities within the
field office boundary by causing wells to dry up, thereby forcing
people to abandon homes or greatly increasing the cost of living in the
area.
Experts on various ecosystem types noted that the use of certain
resources on public lands could be affected by climate change. For
example, experts discussing the fresh waters ecosystem noted that
Alaska may be affected economically by climate change. They said that
many fish species are adapted to cold-water conditions, and that
temperature increases and seasonal shifts may adversely impact
fisheries upon which commercial, sport, and subsistence fishers depend.
Also, experts discussing the grasslands and shrublands ecosystem stated
that changing climate conditions might reduce Native Americans' use of
federal lands and reduce revenue from natural resources on their lands.
They also noted that changes in the water supply might lead to greater
competition for water, which could have a negative economic impact on
ranchers and some communities situated near federal lands. Officials at
the BLM Kingman Field Office agreed that if the climate becomes hotter
and drier, there could be a decline in the ranching industry in the
Kingman area. In addition, officials at the Chugach National Forest
told us that large storms can be harmful for the fishing industry; they
said that the last major storm destroyed salmon spawning areas in the
Chugach for 1 year.
Scientific experts at the workshop noted that the nature and extent of
climate change effects will depend on the rate and magnitude of this
change. They also stated that some changes will occur quickly and will
be readily apparent, while other changes will occur gradually and be
less apparent in the near term.
Resource Managers Identified Several Challenges in Addressing the
Observed and Potential Effects of Climate Change on Federal Resources:
Resource managers from the five key resource management agencies--BLM,
FS, FWS, NOAA, and NPS--who participated in our workshop identified
several challenges to addressing the observed and potential effects of
climate change.[Footnote 25] These challenges include (1) the lack of
priority given to addressing the effects of climate change within their
agencies, (2) limited guidance from headquarters about whether or how
to address the effects of climate change in management actions and
planning efforts, and (3) insufficient site-specific information to
plan for and manage the effects of climate change on the federal
resources they oversee. Resource managers further stated that climate
change is a complex, global issue that is difficult for one resource
unit or agency to address on its own. In addition, resource managers
interviewed for our case studies described similar challenges and
provided illustrative examples.
Addressing the Effects of Climate Change Is Not a Priority Within
Resource Managers' Agencies:
According to resource managers from our workshop and case studies,
addressing the effects of climate change is currently not a priority
within the federal resource management agencies. These resource
managers said that they can use their existing management practices to
respond to changing conditions at their units--some of which could be
caused, at least in part, by climate change. However, they said that
specifically addressing the current and potential future effects of
climate change is not a priority.[Footnote 26] For example, in
discussing the grasslands and shrublands ecosystem at the workshop,
resource managers agreed that climate change is not on their agencies'
agendas as a policy issue. Furthermore, resource managers from the BLM
Kingman Field Office and the Chugach National Forest stated explicitly
that climate change is not a priority for them.
Resource managers in all of the workshop groups agreed that they have a
wide range of responsibilities and that, because none of the agencies
have designated climate change as a priority, the managers focus first
on near-term activities that they are specifically required to
undertake, leaving less time and resources for longer-term issues such
as climate change. For example, resource managers discussing the fresh
waters ecosystem told us that they are typically accountable for things
on a short-term time frame, and current planning horizons may be too
short for incorporating long-term factors such as climate change into
management practices. In addition, managers at the BLM Kingman Field
Office said that, due to resource constraints, they can only address
the most immediate, highest-priority issues, and that backlogs of
required actions, such as permits, are continually growing, leaving
other issues unaddressed, including the effects of climate change.
Furthermore, NOAA resource managers at the Florida Keys National Marine
Sanctuary said that, due to limited staffing and fiscal resources, NOAA
expects sanctuary managers to place a priority on meeting the many
daily challenges they face, such as implementing the management plan
for the 2,900 square nautical mile sanctuary and, specifically,
managing no-boating or no-fishing zones to protect sensitive areas.
Climate change has not been identified as a priority in the National
Marine Sanctuaries. Resource managers discussing all four ecosystem
types at the workshop stated that, to address the long-term issue of
climate change, agencies would have to change how they approach their
missions. In this regard, they said that resource managers are
currently bound to using historical data to react to observed changes,
while addressing the effects of climate change would require managers
to anticipate potential future changes in their planning processes.
In our workshop, resource managers told us that climate change effects
are typically not addressed in agency planning activities.
Specifically, resource managers discussing the coasts and oceans
ecosystem at the workshop said that climate change has not been
considered in management plans. BLM, FWS, and NPS resource managers
discussing the grasslands and shrublands ecosystem also said that
current management plans do not specifically account for climate
change. Similarly, resource managers discussing the fresh waters
ecosystem agreed that climate change effects are not explicitly
addressed in agency strategic plans. Furthermore, resource managers
interviewed for the Chugach National Forest case study stated that they
do not consider addressing the effects of climate change in the forest
to be a priority because it is not included in the most recent list of
priority threats developed by the FS Chief and is not considered a
strategic issue by the agency. However, some resource managers from the
workshop and case studies said that climate change effects are
beginning to be addressed in resource unit planning processes, but on
an inconsistent, case-by-case basis. For example, resource managers
discussing the coasts and oceans ecosystem said that planning for
individual units is bottom up, not top down, and is driven by local
constituents. They said that climate change vulnerability issues have
begun to get consideration in some planning efforts.
Resource managers at our workshop also said that climate change is not
a priority, in part, because of limited support from agency leaders.
Specifically, resource managers discussing the coasts and oceans
ecosystem said that there has been little support from agency leaders
to comprehensively address climate change issues. In addition, resource
managers discussing the fresh waters ecosystem at our workshop told us
that there are political hazards associated with discussing climate
change, and that it is not politically profitable to talk about the
issue. Resource managers interviewed for our case studies made similar
points. For example, NOAA resource managers at the Florida Keys
National Marine Sanctuary said that they have difficulty using terms
like "global warming" in presentations and in publications due to
concerns raised within NOAA. Similarly, an official at Glacier National
Park said that top NPS management monitored public statements on
climate change more closely than any other issue, and that park
managers are reluctant to talk about climate change. However, another
official stated that this reluctance may be changing, although he noted
that no funding or resources have been allocated directly to the issue.
Limited Guidance Constrains Resource Managers' Efforts to Plan for and
Manage Potential Climate Change Effects:
Resource managers have limited guidance from their agencies about
whether or how to address the effects of climate change in management
actions and planning efforts, according to agency headquarters
officials and resource managers from our workshop and case studies.
Under these circumstances, resource managers are uncertain about what
actions, if any, they should take with regard to addressing or
preparing for the effects of climate change.
Agency headquarters officials agreed that they have provided limited
climate change guidance to their resource managers. Interior issued an
order in 2001 directing its agencies, including BLM, FWS, and NPS, to
consider and analyze, among other things, potential climate change
effects in management plans and activities developed for public
lands.[Footnote 27] However, headquarters officials from these agencies
told us that they have not yet provided specific direction to resource
managers about how to implement this order.[Footnote 28] Officials at
BLM headquarters stated that the order was signed during the prior
administration, and that the order has not been emphasized because it
was not consistent with the current administration's previous position
on climate change. These BLM headquarters officials added that the lack
of specific authority, guidance, and direction may have limited the
agency's efforts to address the effects of climate change, and that an
authoritative statute, a regulation, or guidance would provide a
greater impetus to address climate change effects. In testimony before
the House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Interior,
Environment, and Related Agencies, on April 26, 2007, BLM's National
Science Coordinator acknowledged that there is little current guidance
at BLM dealing with climate change. He said that BLM is establishing
policy and technical committees to address necessary actions and
develop guidance to address climate change in agency management
practices. Headquarters officials at FWS and NPS said that, although
they have not developed specific guidance, they operate in a manner
consistent with Interior's 2001 order in their general planning
activities.[Footnote 29]
NOAA, under Commerce, and FS, under Agriculture, are not subject to
Interior's order. However, National Marine Sanctuary Program
headquarters officials said that the agency is establishing a working
group to determine what actions it should and can afford to take to
address the effects of climate change.[Footnote 30] FS headquarters
officials said that, although they have not provided specific guidance
on addressing the effects of climate change, the agency's planning
process is designed to identify emerging issues, such as climate
change, and respond in ways to promote the sustainability of the
nation's land and water resources.[Footnote 31] FS headquarters
officials further stated that they have been concerned that they would
encounter litigation if they initiated activities specifically designed
to address the effects of climate change within FS's current broad
authority.
Resource managers who participated in our workshop said that they are
not aware of any agency guidance to address the effects of climate
change, and that they have received no direction on how to incorporate
climate change into their planning activities. For example, resource
managers discussing the coasts and oceans ecosystem said that they are
not aware of any formal climate change guidance from their respective
agencies--FWS, NOAA, NPS, and USGS. Resource managers discussing the
forests ecosystem said that agency policies are, in some cases, geared
toward responding to events as they occur, constraining the ability of
managers to incorporate anticipated events in their planning efforts.
These individuals added that managers are unclear about the nature of
their agencies'--FS, FWS, and NPS--mandates with respect to climate
change and, accordingly, differences in interpretation and
implementation take place at the management level. In addition,
resource managers from the Bureau of Reclamation, FWS, and NPS
discussing the fresh waters ecosystem told us that most managers do not
know how to build climate change into the management process but
believed that there is a need to do so. These managers identified a
need for direction or guidance on how to incorporate climate change
into management plans. Furthermore, resource managers discussing the
grasslands and shrublands ecosystem agreed that their agencies--BLM,
FS, FWS, and NPS--have no explicit guidance on climate change. They
further noted that there are differing views in their agencies about
how to interpret broad resource management authorities with respect to
climate change, and that, as a result, efforts to address the effects
of climate change are ad hoc and piecemeal. These managers also stated
that they need better guidance at all levels on the effects of climate
change and the appropriate agency responses to those effects. They also
said that their agencies need an overall mandate and a coordinated
approach to address the issue, and that it will take very strong
direction from high-level officials to get agencies to address the
effects of climate change. Moreover, resource managers at the workshop
generally agreed that they need direction on how to account for climate
change when making land management decisions, and that high-level
planning should recognize the potential effects of climate change and
promote integrated, cross-agency approaches to addressing these
effects.
Resource managers we interviewed for our case studies also said that
they are not aware of any guidance or requirement to address the
effects of climate change, and that they have not received direction
regarding how to incorporate climate change into their planning
activities. Resource managers from the BLM Kingman Field Office, the
Chugach National Forest, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary,
and Glacier National Park all explicitly stated that they do not have
guidance for how or whether they should account for climate change in
planning and management decisions. Resource managers from the Kingman
Field Office said that they need a national directive from headquarters
to implement climate change-related activities, and that such a
directive could give some imperative to take action. In addition,
Chugach resource managers stated that they need a clear policy about
how to address the effects of climate change, including clear and
focused goals. They added that they are not sure whom to contact if
climate change becomes an issue because there is no agencywide
facilitator or contact point regarding climate change. Furthermore,
resource managers at the Everglades National Park, which is
ecologically linked to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, told
us that limited guidance makes deciding what, if anything, to do about
climate change difficult. Moreover, resource managers at Glacier said
that a formal written position on climate change would be useful to
further clarify the exact official stance on the science, impacts, and
communication strategy.
Some resource managers identified potential complications with issuing
guidance related to climate change. In our workshop, resource managers
discussing the grasslands and shrublands ecosystem said that policy
development can take years; therefore, in their view, the agencies may
not be able to respond to climate change in an appropriate time frame.
In addition, BLM Kingman Field Office resource managers said that
social, political, and legal obstacles would likely present challenges
to addressing the effects of climate change, even if guidance were
issued. Furthermore, they told us that if they received a directive to
address the effects of climate change, the field office would adjust
its work priorities for the year and would have to shift or delay other
activities. Moreover, resource managers at the Chugach National Forest
thought that a general requirement for each forest to address the
effects of climate change in its land management plans may be
counterproductive because each forest would be forced to "reinvent the
wheel" on its own. These managers thought that any guidance should be
accompanied by an agencywide structure, which would allow land
management plans across the National Forest system to be
consistent.[Footnote 32]
Resource Managers Need Site-Specific Information to Plan for and Manage
the Effects of Climate Change:
Resource managers told us that they do not have sufficient site-
specific information to plan for and manage the effects of climate
change on the federal resources they oversee. Specifically, resource
managers said that they need local-and regional-scale models to predict
change on a small scale as well as improved inventory and monitoring.
Resource managers at our workshop said that they lack computational
models capable of providing local projections of expected changes.
Without these models, they said that most of their options for dealing
with climate change are limited to reacting to already-observed effects
on their units, making it difficult to plan for future
changes.[Footnote 33] In discussing the coasts and oceans ecosystem at
the workshop, for example, resource managers stated that they need
local-and regional-scale modeling of specific ecosystems and predictive
modeling tools for fisheries management and coastal erosion management
to plan appropriately. Similarly, resource managers discussing the
forests ecosystem said that developing high-resolution models should be
a research goal because current models are not specific enough.
Likewise, resource managers discussing the fresh waters ecosystem
stated that they often do not know how to plan for the effects of
climate change because they lack information on temperature and
precipitation changes expected in their management areas and,
therefore, do not know what management actions will help the resource
unit adapt to the effects of climate change. They agreed that climate
projection methods must be improved, and that regional climate
projections with accurate temperature and precipitation projections,
rather than global-scale projections, would be helpful in more
accurately identifying and planning for the likely effects of climate
change. These managers also said that they need climate predictions on
an ecoregion or site-specific scale. Moreover, resource managers
discussing the grasslands and shrublands ecosystem told us that they
need better regional models to help in the decision-making process.
These managers said that information needs to be packaged to help local
land managers better understand what climate change means at the local
level.
Resource managers interviewed for our case studies also said that they
need models capable of providing local projections of expected changes.
For example, BLM Kingman Field Office resource managers said that, to
make proactive management decisions, they need to know what climate
changes to expect. These managers said that if they could accurately
and confidently predict what changes would occur in the future, they
could adjust their management practices accordingly. Likewise, Chugach
National Forest resource managers stated that they need projections and
models of a high enough resolution to generate decisions. They said
that they currently do not have the necessary information to make
projections, and that it is desirable to anticipate changes and
identify means for effective mitigation or adaptation. Similarly,
resource managers at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary said
that they currently lack adequate modeling and scientific information
to enable managers to predict change on a small scale, such as change
occurring within the sanctuary.
Resource managers at the workshop said that they generally lack
detailed inventories and monitoring systems to provide an adequate
baseline understanding of the plant and animal species that currently
exist on the resources they manage. Resource managers discussing coasts
and oceans said that they need to develop baseline information and long-
term monitoring systems to detect habitat changes over time. They said
that they need to target inventory and monitoring systems on
particularly sensitive ecosystems and species, and focus on indicators
unambiguously related to climate change. In addition, resource managers
discussing the forests ecosystem stated that they need a monitoring
strategy that reflects the key vital signs of forests to inform
management decisions. Similarly, resource managers discussing the fresh
waters ecosystem said that there must be increased investment in
monitoring efforts, particularly in sites identified as likely to be
adversely affected by climate change. These managers also recommended
an evaluation of the current monitoring system for its ability to
detect and predict climate change. They also said that there is often a
lack of a clearly defined purpose for monitoring, and that the link
between data collection and when to take action is not always clear.
They recommended that there be a clearly defined purpose for monitoring
efforts, with clear linkages between data collection and habitat
protection. Resource managers discussing the grasslands and shrublands
ecosystem stated that the lack of baseline information is a key issue
because without it, managers do not know what is changing and how fast
it is changing. They recommended conducting baseline inventories of
species on federal lands and periodically repeating monitoring on a
scale that could provide feedback on changes. Finally, resource
managers at the workshop plenary session emphasized the need to link
environmental information with decision making.
Resource managers interviewed for our case studies also stated that
they need better resource inventories and monitoring systems. For
example, managers at the Chugach National Forest told us that, without
accurate baseline inventory data of the plants and animals in the
forest, it is difficult to determine whether changes to species
populations are within the normal range of variability. Furthermore, an
official at Glacier National Park told us that staff could make various
predictions about how different climate change scenarios might affect
different species, communities, and processes, but without better
status information and some degree of monitoring, they probably would
not be able to detect predicted changes until they are catastrophic and
obvious to everyone. Resource managers interviewed for the other case
studies made similar points.
Climate Change Is a Global Issue, and It Is Difficult to Address Its
Effects at a Local Level:
Resource managers at our workshop pointed out that climate change is
inherently a complex, global issue. These managers added that
greenhouse gas emissions generally originate outside the boundaries of
federal resource units, yet these units are affected by the cumulative
effects of the emissions. They said that local managers cannot control
the drivers of climate change, such as the burning of fossil fuels, but
local action is needed to manage its effects. Furthermore, resource
managers said that federal land units are fixed on the landscape, while
climate change has no boundaries, posing challenges for managing an
administrative unit that does not move as the climate changes. They
said that cooperative arrangements are necessary because climate change
will require managers to work beyond administrative borders. For
example, panelists discussing the fresh waters and grasslands and
shrublands ecosystems stated that interagency coordination and
collaboration are necessary to address the effects of climate change.
Furthermore, panelists discussing the forests ecosystem noted the value
of developing a shared vision of key climate change issues and
solutions to these issues.
Officials with whom we spoke in our case studies further emphasized
this point. For example, officials at the Chugach National Forest said
that climate change is a larger issue than one federal land management
unit can address. They further said that climate change is a global
issue that transcends forests and agencies, and that any strategy to
address the effects of climate change should be integrated across broad
landscapes, not individual forests. Similarly, managers at the BLM
Kingman Field Office noted that climate change is a national issue that
is difficult to address locally. Resource managers further noted that
climate change-related effects can interact with and amplify the
effects of other, preexisting environmental problems on a given
resource unit, such as nonnative species and fire, making resource
managers' jobs more difficult. Despite these challenges, some resource
managers said they have taken steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
at their units. For example, resource managers at Glacier National Park
and Everglades National Park told us that they participate in the
Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Friendly Parks Program, which
focuses on reducing parks' greenhouse gas emissions. Glacier also has
an Environmental Management Plan that includes a number of energy
efficiency and renewable energy initiatives. In addition, Glacier
requires the concessioners that run businesses in the park to abide by
certain environmental requirements, some of which affect greenhouse gas
emissions.
Conclusions:
Climate change has already begun to adversely affect federal resources
in a variety of ways. Most experts with whom we spoke believe that
these effects will continue--and likely intensify--over the coming
decades. Some federal resources, depending on a variety of factors, may
be more vulnerable than others. Because this issue is long term,
global, and may affect federal resources in a number of ways, it will
require foresight on the part of federal agencies to prepare for and
minimize the adverse effects of climate change. However, federal
resource management agencies have not yet made climate change a high
priority. BLM, FS, FWS, NOAA, and NPS are generally authorized, but not
specifically required, to address changes in resource conditions
resulting from climate change in either their resource management
actions or planning efforts. However, none of these agencies have
specific guidance in place advising their managers how to address the
effects of climate change in either their resource management actions
or planning efforts. The resource managers with whom we spoke stated
that in the absence of such guidance, they are unsure whether or how to
take the effects of climate change into account when carrying out their
responsibilities. Such uncertainty may, as unanticipated circumstances
arise, force resource managers to set their own priorities, which may
be inconsistent with those of the agencies' management and may result
in misdirected efforts and wasted resources. Because there is growing
evidence that climate change is likely to have wide-ranging
consequences for the nation's land and water resources, elevating the
importance of the issue in their respective strategies and plans would
enable BLM, FS, FWS, NOAA, and NPS to provide effective long-term
stewardship of the resources under their purview.
At least one resource management agency--BLM--has acknowledged if not
the need for, at least the value of, guidance on climate change. In
April 2007, BLM's National Science Coordinator testified in a
congressional hearing that BLM is establishing committees to, among
other actions, develop guidance to address the effects of climate
change in agency management practices. BLM officials told us that the
lack of specific guidance, among other factors, may have limited that
agency's efforts to address the effects of climate change, and that
having such guidance would help to provide a greater impetus to address
climate change effects. In this light, at a minimum, guidance on
addressing the effects of climate change would allow resource managers
to better take into account one of the key factors that is likely to
affect all aspects of the resources they manage.
Recommendation for Executive Action:
To better enable federal resource management agencies to take into
account the existing and potential future effects of climate change on
federal resources, we recommend that the Secretaries of Agriculture,
Commerce, and the Interior--in consultation with the Director of FS;
the Administrator of NOAA; and the Directors of BLM, FWS, and NPS,
respectively--develop clear, written communication to resource managers
that explains how managers are expected to address the effects of
climate change, identifies how managers are to obtain any site-
specific information that may be necessary, and reflects best practices
shared among the relevant agencies, while also recognizing the unique
missions, objectives, and responsibilities of each agency.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
We provided a draft of this report to Agriculture (FS), Commerce
(NOAA), and Interior (BLM, FWS, and NPS) for review and comment. We
received written comments from all three departments. These comments
are included in this report as appendixes V, VI, and VII, respectively.
In addition to the comments addressed in the following text, each
department also provided technical comments, which we have incorporated
into this report as appropriate. While we have acknowledged many of the
departments' comments regarding efforts they are undertaking to address
climate change, we did not have sufficient time to verify the accuracy
of the information presented in either their letters or technical
comments prior to issuing this report.
In its written comments, Agriculture's FS agreed with our
recommendation, acknowledging the need to develop clear, written
communication for resource managers that explains how they should
address the effects of climate change, and the need to coordinate with
other departments and agencies on resource management practices in
preparing this guidance. FS said that the agency will work to address
clarity in communicating climate change mitigation and adaptation
strategies to field units.
With regard to the draft report's contents, FS stated that the report
did not adequately capture the scope and urgency of the agency's
commitment to climate change adaptation, mitigation, and research. FS
listed a number of initiatives that were omitted, including research
measuring forest-based carbon, participation in the California Climate
Action Registry, efforts to reduce the agency's own carbon emissions,
and other efforts. Although we commend FS for undertaking these useful
activities, an examination of mitigation and research activities was
beyond the scope of this report, which focused primarily on management
actions.
FS also stated that our examination of one national forest (the Chugach
National Forest) is inadequate as a proxy for the 193 million acres of
diverse ecosystems managed by FS, and that 12 national forest plans do,
in fact, consider the effects of climate change on existing programs
and local resource values. The agency further noted that forest plans
are revised every 10 to 15 years to incorporate new scientific
information and management strategies. Although we used only one forest
as an illustrative example in our report, FS resource managers
participating in several workshop sessions and the case study said that
they had limited guidance from their agencies about whether or how to
address the effects of climate change in management actions and
planning efforts. Furthermore, these officials said that efforts to
address climate change were lacking, due to a general absence of
guidance and differences in interpretation and implementation of broad
resource management authority. FS headquarters officials also confirmed
that they have not provided specific guidance on addressing the effects
of climate change. We also believe that, out of 155 national forests
and 20 national grasslands, 12 forests with plans that consider the
effects of climate change is not a high percentage; we encourage all
175 units managed by FS to incorporate climate change into their plans
when they next update them. FS also pointed out that we neglected to
mention efforts under way at the Chugach to treat thousands of acres in
the forests to mitigate the threat posed by spruce bark beetles. In the
second objective of our report, we sought to identify challenges that
resource managers face in addressing the observed and potential effects
of climate change. These challenges include the priority of the climate
change issue, the lack of agency guidance, and the lack of site-
specific data. Although we believe it is important to react to
individual changes observed at the site level, such as treating forests
to mitigate spruce bark beetle outbreaks, the larger issue--that is,
the absence of a coordinated response to climate change in agency
guidance--remains.
Finally, FS stated that we did not give adequate recognition to FS's
Four Threats to the Health of the Nation's Forests and Grasslands, a
messaging tool that disseminates the strategic view of the agency. (The
Four Threats identified by FS are fuels and fires, invasive species,
unmanaged recreation, and habitat fragmentation.) FS commented that the
Four Threats include two aspects of climate change discussed in this
report: forest fire and invasive species. Although we agree that at
least some of the Four Threats may be related to climate change, we
believe that climate change is a larger, overarching issue that should
be addressed in a more comprehensive manner.
In commenting on a draft of this report, Commerce's NOAA agreed with
our recommendation. In this regard, NOAA stated that the agency will
work toward clarifying written communication to resource managers to
explain how they are to address the effects of climate change on
federal resources and identify how they are to obtain site-specific
information that may be needed to implement these efforts. Furthermore,
NOAA stated that the agency will continue to work with relevant federal
resource management agencies on a range of climate change and land
management issues and, as applicable, strive to share best practices.
With regard to the information presented in the draft report, NOAA
noted that we did not present information on several cross-government
initiatives and NOAA management actions to address climate change. For
example, NOAA stated that we did not examine the current state of
modeling and observation systems, such as the Global Earth Observation
System of Systems and the National Integrated Drought Information
System, or the agency's contribution to the collaborative efforts with
federal, state, and local partners, including the U.S. Climate Change
Science Program. Although we recognize that NOAA has a well-developed
research and monitoring program, a detailed review of NOAA's many
research programs was beyond the scope of our work: the focus of the
second objective of our report was to obtain the views of federal
resource managers on the challenges they face in addressing the
observed and potential future effects of climate change in their
management actions and planning efforts. In this regard, a number of
NOAA managers at our November workshop, at our site visit, and at NOAA
headquarters told us that resource managers need more localized, site-
specific information, and that there is often a disconnect between
physical science research and implementation activities at the site
level. Thus, while NOAA may be undertaking a number of initiatives,
these initiatives do not appear to address the site-specific
information needs of the on-site resource managers.
NOAA also said that the Reef Manager's Guide, prepared by NOAA with
Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, details
strategies to help local and regional reef managers reduce threats to
coral reefs, and that NOAA staff implement some of these ideas.
Although we agree that the Reef Manager's Guide contains many useful
suggestions for managers in their efforts to respond to coral
bleaching, we do not believe that it is a substitute for official
agency headquarters guidance. Similarly, we applaud NOAA's involvement
with the Nature Conservancy's Florida Reef Resiliency Program, aimed at
measuring the extent of coral bleaching and improving the ability of
reefs to survive bleaching events. However, we continue to believe that
NOAA needs a more comprehensive approach to managing for the effects of
climate change throughout the entire sanctuary system.
In its comments, Interior agreed with our recommendation, and said that
the department will be using the information in the report to ensure
that the department is addressing concerns it shares with GAO regarding
climate change. Interior also pointed out that it had already taken
steps to assess the effects of climate change on public lands by
convening a task force involving nearly 100 people, including the
department's assistant secretaries and other top leaders as well as
career scientists, superintendents, refuge managers, and others.
According to Interior, the task force is examining how possible climate
changes would affect disaster management, water resource management,
and habitat management and is evaluating, among other things, new
responses to manage changing landscapes. Furthermore, according to
Interior, the task force is currently reviewing the development of
accurate modeling and the weight to put on modeling relative to the use
of historic data and agrees with our recommendation that the department
will need to provide direction on how to implement these new tools as
they are developed and validated. The task force is also evaluating how
Interior might set priorities for generating essential information to
create baseline assessments of plants and animals to appropriately
manage the species the department oversees.
As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies to interested
congressional committees; the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and
the Interior; and other interested parties. We will also make copies
available to others upon request. In addition, the report will be
available at no charge on the GAO Web site at [Hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-3841 or s [Hyperlink, stephensonj@gao.gov]
tephensonj@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional
Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this
report. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix VIII.
Signed by:
John B. Stephenson:
Director, Natural Resources:
and Environment:
[End of section]
Appendixes:
Appendix I: List of National Academies Workshop Participants:
November 2, 2006 - Science Issues:
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem:
Virginia Burkett, U.S. Geological Survey, Moderator:
Don Boesch, University of Maryland:
Mark Eakin, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Maryland:
Mark Harwell, Florida A&M University:
Michael Kearney, University of Maryland:
Craig Landry, East Carolina University, North Carolina:
Steve Murawski, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
Maryland:
Forests Ecosystem:
Tony Janetos, University of Maryland, Moderator:
Jill Baron, U.S. Geological Survey, Colorado:
Steve McNulty, Forest Service, North Carolina:
Ron Neilson, Forest Service, Oregon:
Peter Reich, University of Minnesota:
Steve Running, University of Montana:
Brent Sohngen, Ohio State University:
Monica Turner, University of Wisconsin:
Tony Westerling, Scripps/University of California:
Fresh Waters Ecosystem:
Don Scavia, University of Michigan, Co-Moderator:
John Healey, Government Accountability Office, Co-Moderator:
Doug Curtis, National Park Service, Washington, D.C.:
Dan Fagre, U.S. Geological Survey, Montana:
Gordon Grant, Forest Service, Oregon:
Margaret Palmer, University of Maryland:
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem:
Hal Mooney, Stanford University, Moderator:
Barbara Allen-Diaz, University of California, Berkeley:
David Breshears, University of Arizona:
Dennis Ojima, Colorado State University:
David Pyke, U.S. Geological Survey, Oregon:
Norm Rosenberg, University of Maryland:
November 3, 2006 - Management Issues:
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem:
Virginia Burkett, U.S. Geological Survey, Moderator:
Mike Bryant, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, North Carolina:
Billy Causey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
Florida:
Brian Czech, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C.:
Andrew Gude, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C.:
Margaret Davidson, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
South Carolina:
Randall Kosaki, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
Hawaii:
Cliff McCreedy, National Park Service, Washington, D.C.:
Anne Morkill, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Florida:
Forests Ecosystem:
Tony Janetos, University of Maryland, Moderator:
Al Abee, Forest Service, Washington, D.C.:
John Dennis, National Park Service, Washington, D.C.:
Kathy Jope, National Park Service, Washington, D.C.:
Linda Joyce, Forest Service, Colorado:
John Morton, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Alaska:
Al Sample, Pinchot Institute for Conservation, Washington, D.C.:
Jim Sanders, Forest Service, Minnesota:
Bill Sommers, George Mason University, Virginia:
Fresh Waters Ecosystem:
Don Scavia, University of Michigan, Co-Moderator:
John Healey, Government Accountability Office, Co-Moderator:
Dan Ashe, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C.:
Levy Brekke, Bureau of Reclamation, Colorado:
Jeffrey Bromaghin, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Alaska:
Mike Estey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, North Dakota:
Sharon Kliwinski, National Park Service, Washington, D.C.:
Robert Krumenaker, National Park Service, Wisconsin:
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem:
Anne Johnson, Government Accountability Office, Moderator:
Bob Adamcik, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Virginia:
Barbara Allen-Diaz, University of California, Berkeley:
Bud Cribley, Bureau of Land Management, Washington, D.C.:
Pauline Drobney, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Iowa:
Misty Hays, Forest Service, Wyoming:
Julie Thomas, National Park Service, Washington, D.C.:
[End of section]
Appendix II: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
This report examines (1) experts' views on the observed and potential
effects of climate change on federal resources within the four
principal ecosystem types and (2) the views of federal resource
managers on the challenges they face in addressing the observed and
potential future effects of climate change in their management actions
and planning efforts. In addition, four case studies illustrate some of
the effects of climate change on federal resources as well as the
challenges to addressing them.
To select the four ecosystem types, we used a classification system
used by the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the
Environment (the Heinz Center) in its 2002 report entitled The State of
the Nation's Ecosystems: Measuring the Lands, Waters, and Living
Resources of the United States. This classification system is generally
accepted by the scientific community and uses a limited number of
distinct divisions to identify ecosystem types (in contrast to certain
other classification systems). The Heinz Center's classification is
also based on a "land cover" approach. That is, it is based on dominant
vegetation or other physical characteristics, as opposed to a
geographic approach. We found this classification useful because many
natural resource management decisions are differentiated by land type.
The Heinz Center classification system identifies six ecosystem types:
(1) coasts and oceans, (2) farmlands (primarily croplands), (3)
forests, (4) fresh waters, (5) grasslands and shrublands, and (6) urban
and suburban areas. Our work excluded farmlands and urban and suburban
areas because resources within these ecosystem types are generally not
managed by federal agencies.
To solicit experts' views on the potential effects of climate change on
the four ecosystem types, we convened an expert workshop on November 2
and 3, 2006, in collaboration with the National Academies' Board on
Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. The workshop consisted of concurrent
breakout sessions for experts in each ecosystem type, and plenary
sessions in which all participants contributed. The National Academies,
under contract to GAO, helped identify appropriate workshop moderators
and participants, organized logistics, and issued the workshop
invitations. The National Academies and GAO worked together to prepare
the agenda and to identify scientific experts and economists for the
first day of the workshop, using specific selection criteria (described
in greater detail in the following text). GAO identified most of the
federal resource managers for the second day of the workshop because
the National Academies does not interact extensively with the federal
resource management community.
We asked National Academies staff to help us identify four individuals
with the following attributes to serve as breakout session moderators:
(1) experience in leading climate change assessments; (2) a strong
professional reputation that might attract other highly regarded
experts; (3) knowledge of one of the four ecosystem types; (4) a
balanced perspective on climate change (i.e., politically neutral, with
no strong ideological views on climate change expressed in past work);
and (5) a willingness to assist in planning the workshop's substance.
To identify experts for the first day of the workshop on science
issues, the National Academies and GAO agreed on selection criteria,
which included recommendations from other experts, a demonstrated
record of publication in the field, and experience contributing to
climate change impact assessments or other peer-reviewed scientific
reports and articles relating to climate change.[Footnote 34] Other
factors were also considered, such as the individuals' availability on
the date of the workshop. The National Academies and GAO gave
particular preference to individuals recommended by more than one
expert. In addition to ecosystem expertise, we gave priority to those
candidates whose expertise also included an understanding of climate
change (e.g., an understanding of how climate change might affect coral
reefs or forests). We also sought to have an economist in each session.
The National Academies reviewed names in its database of experts and
solicited recommendations from various National Academies officials and
scientists with whom National Academies' staff regularly collaborate.
In addition, GAO identified scientists on the basis of interviews with
climate change experts that we conducted in the early phases of our
work; we had asked these individuals to name others with ecosystem
expertise who might be good candidates for the workshop. Workshop
moderators also suggested participant names. Once a consolidated list
of potential invitees was finalized, it was reviewed by the Chairman of
the Executive Office of the National Research Council, the principal
operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the
National Academy of Engineering.
GAO and the National Academies focused the search for experts primarily
on individuals from government, academia, and nongovernmental
organizations (NGO) because most climate impact-related work is either
funded by these types of institutions or carried out by experts from
these types of bodies. However, since many NGOs have taken strong
positions on climate change, we drew upon this community to only a
limited extent.
To select experts for the second day of the workshop on management
issues, we asked for recommendations from both federal resource
management agency headquarters officials and managers in the field as
well as our workshop moderators. We gave priority to senior federal
resource managers with "on-the-ground" management experience in the
field. We also invited managers from Washington, D.C., headquarters
offices to ensure a balanced perspective. We selected managers who had
a general familiarity with relevant statutes, regulations, agreements,
executive orders, and other management directives aimed at protecting
the resources under their agencies' jurisdictions. We also selected
managers who had a general familiarity with the issue of climate change
and how it could affect one of the four relevant ecosystem types--
although this knowledge was not essential. We sought to have
representation from each major agency that manages resources
corresponding to each of the four ecosystem types. For example, the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Forest Service (FS), U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service (FWS), and National Park Service (NPS) all manage
grasslands, and each of these agencies was represented in the
grasslands and shrublands breakout session. To keep the scope of the
project manageable, we did not include all federal agencies that
oversee federal resources, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the
Department of Defense, the Tennessee Valley Authority, or others
(although we did have one representative from the Bureau of
Reclamation, which manages water resources in the west). We also did
not include Exclusive Economic Zone waters managed by the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Fifty-four scientists, economists, and federal resource managers from
academia, government, and NGOs, attended the workshop. Appendix I
contains a list of the workshop participants and moderators.
Prior to the workshop, we sent all participants an information packet
containing, among other things, graphs showing the range and average of
model projections for the change in monthly temperature (degrees
Celsius) and precipitation (millimeters per day) in the years 2020 and
2090 for 11 U.S. regions under a medium impact Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) scenario. The graphs were based on publicly
available results from the full suite of models used in the IPCC's
Fourth Assessment report. The graphs, prepared for GAO by the National
Center for Atmospheric Research, were intended to provide a framework
for the workshop discussions by bounding the range of possible future
temperature and precipitation outcomes.[Footnote 35] We provided this
material to participants for background information purposes only;
participants were given the option of referring to these graphs when
responding to the questions posed at the workshop. We also sent
participants, as background reading, copies of the IPCC Third
Assessment Report Working Group II's first chapter, entitled "Overview
of Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability to Climate Change." Each
participant was further sent the IPCC Third Assessment chapter that
corresponded to the ecosystem type (e.g., forests or coasts and oceans)
on which the participant was expected to speak.
On the first day of the workshop, 27 scientific experts and economists,
each having particular expertise on 1 of the 4 ecosystem types,
discussed scientific questions related to the potential effects of
climate change on federal resources. (These questions can be found in
app. III.) On the second day of the workshop, also organized according
to ecosystem type, 28 resource managers discussed the challenges,
constraints, and limitations they faced in managing federal resources,
given the potential effects of climate change identified on the
previous day. The workshop was designed to give the scientists the
leading role on the first day and managers the leading role on the
second day. However, in most cases, both sets of individuals
participated in discussions both days because some managers had
scientific backgrounds, and some scientists had experience in resource
management. There were also two plenary sessions addressing questions
of science and management that applied to all four ecosystem types.
Summaries of the ecosystem breakout sessions and the plenary sessions
are presented in appendix III. After the workshop, we sent drafts of
the findings from each of the breakout sessions to participants, giving
them an opportunity to comment on the accuracy of the information.
It is important to note that the expert views represented at the
workshop are the views of scientists and managers, not those of GAO. We
did not independently review articles from the scientific literature or
verify participants' statements. In addition, although the workshop
experts discussed a wide range of possible climate-related effects, we
describe only some of these effects in our report. We also did not
attempt to rank effects according to severity, owing to a lack of
criteria to make such rankings.
To illustrate some of the effects of climate change on federal
resources and possible options for addressing them at federal resource
units, we conducted four case studies, one case study for each
ecosystem type, using a nonprobability approach.[Footnote 36] We
selected our specific case study sites after soliciting selected
experts' views on which federal resources may be most vulnerable to
climate change. The experts we consulted included many of those whom we
invited to the first day of the workshop (including some unable to
attend), as well as others recommended by other experts or individuals
whose names appeared frequently in the peer-reviewed literature for the
relevant ecosystem type. We e-mailed these individuals, soliciting
their views on which specific federal land units they considered to be
most vulnerable to climate change impacts and the nature of any adverse
impacts. In making our final land unit selections, we also considered
responses obtained at the workshop; one of our workshop questions asked
participants which areas of the United States may be most vulnerable to
climate change. Furthermore, we took into consideration land unit
visitation levels, size, location, geographical diversity, ecological
and geological variation, and land unit management agency in making our
selections. For example, we gave priority to larger land units and to
units with high levels of visitation and a range of geographic
features. We also gave priority to units where more than one agency is
involved in management decisions. We further considered accessibility,
since it was important to visit each site. The four units we selected
on the basis of these criteria are the Florida Keys National Marine
Sanctuary in southern Florida (coasts and oceans ecosystem); the
Chugach National Forest in south-central Alaska (forests ecosystem);
Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana (fresh waters ecosystem);
and the BLM Kingman Field Office in northwestern Arizona (grasslands
and shrublands ecosystem). All of these units encompass multiple
ecosystem types. For example, Glacier consists of glaciers, lakes,
forests, and alpine meadows, among other features, while the Chugach
contains a mix of forests, coasts and oceans, and fresh waters
ecosystems.
Management agencies for these four sites include BLM (Kingman,
Arizona); FWS (four national wildlife refuges near the Florida Keys
National Marine Sanctuary, the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge adjacent
to the Chugach, and certain resources within Glacier); and NPS
(Glacier), all under the jurisdiction of the Department of the
Interior; FS, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of
Agriculture (the Chugach and the Flathead National Forest near
Glacier); and NOAA, which falls under the jurisdiction of the
Department of Commerce (Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary). In
addition to the managers and experts at each case study location, we
also spoke with officials from adjacent federal lands. We spoke with
these officials because resource units in our specific case study land
units coordinate with adjacent land units, and the ecosystems supported
by the case studies generally overlap with surrounding federal resource
units. For example, for the Chugach case study, we spoke with FWS
experts and managers from the adjacent Kenai National Wildlife Refuge
as well as staff from FS's Alaska Regional Office in Juneau. For the
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary case study, we spoke with
experts and managers from the Everglades and Dry Tortugas National
Parks as well as FWS experts and staff who oversee four Keys national
wildlife refuges located near the sanctuary. For the Glacier case
study, we spoke with experts and managers from FS's Flathead National
Forest as well as an FWS fish biologist based in the park. At a number
of sites, we viewed firsthand some of the resources discussed at the
meetings.
We also spoke to representatives of some private sector organizations.
For example, for the Glacier National Park case study, we also spoke
with representatives of firms that do business in the park and with
staff from a private foundation. We also spoke with local academic
researchers, state government offices, and representatives of NGOs with
expertise on the respective sites, as appropriate. It is important to
note that the four case studies are illustrative only and not
projectable. That is, physical and management conditions that apply to
a given federal resource may not apply to all federal land or water
units of a similar ecosystem type or managed by the same agency.
Detailed summaries of the individual case studies can be found in
appendix IV.
To assess the reliability of data related to changes in Glacier
National Park, spruce bark beetle infestations in Alaska, and
loggerhead turtle nesting patterns in Florida, we spoke with park
officials, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge officials, and University of
Central Florida researchers, respectively, about data quality control
procedures and reviewed relevant studies. We determined that the data
and expert views obtained were sufficiently reliable for the purposes
of this report.
Finally, in concluding our work, we contacted legal counsel at each of
the five resource management agencies as well as the White House
Council on Environmental Quality, to ascertain the scope and nature of
federal authority and requirements to address the impacts of climate
change in resource management and planning.
In this report, we use the term "federal resources" to refer to federal
lands managed by BLM, FS, FWS, and NPS, and to national marine
sanctuaries and one marine national monument managed by NOAA; the term
"ecosystem" to refer to a system of interacting living organisms
together with their physical environment; the term "resource managers"
to refer to individuals who manage federal resources; the term
"physical effects" to refer to observable changes in the physical
condition of some part of a natural system, including, among others,
extreme weather events--that is, weather events that are rare at a
particular place (this may vary from place to place); the term
"biological effects" to refer to changes in the interaction among
organisms living in a given ecosystem; and the phrase "economic and
social goods and services" to refer to economic resources, such as
revenue-producing industries, including forestry and fishing, among
others, and social or cultural resources, such as recreational
activities, scenic views, and historical artifacts, among others. We
recognize that the various effects of climate change are interrelated,
and that certain effects may belong to more than one category.
We conducted our work between May 2006 and July 2007 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix III: Climate Change and Federal Lands Workshop Proceedings,
November 2 and 3, 2006:
Background:
This appendix summarizes the results of an expert workshop convened by
GAO, in collaboration with the National Academies' Board on Atmospheric
Sciences and Climate, on November 2 and 3, 2006, to solicit experts'
views on (1) the potential vulnerabilities of four ecosystem types--
coasts and oceans, forests, fresh waters, and grasslands and
shrublands--to climate change and (2) the challenges to and approaches
for addressing climate change on federally managed lands and waters
associated with these four ecosystem types. The workshop consisted of
moderated breakout sessions for experts in each ecosystem type, and
plenary sessions, in which all participants contributed. Specifically,
this appendix summarizes the responses of experts and selected federal
resource managers to questions developed by GAO for each session. These
summaries are based on professionally transcribed notes and information
documented by GAO observers. After the workshop, we sent draft
summaries of each of the four breakout groups to participants, giving
them an opportunity to comment on the accuracy of the information. The
summaries below reflect the comments we received from participants. The
length and format of responses may vary by ecosystem type because each
breakout session was moderated independently. A list of workshop
participants and moderators can be found in appendix I, and a detailed
description of the objectives, scope, and methodology describing the
selection of experts and other topics is available in appendix II.
Questions for Workshop Participants:
November 2, 2006: Breakout Session Questions:
Question 1: Based on your understanding of potential climate change in
the United States, how might this ecosystem type be affected over the
near term (~25 years) and over the longer term (50-100 years)? What
might be some of the key ecological effects, economic effects, and
social/cultural effects?
Question 2: Which of these effects are most significant and adverse?
Question 3: Are there certain thresholds beyond which the ecosystem in
the identified areas cannot recover? Please describe the nature and
scope of these thresholds and provide examples.
Question 4: Which areas of the United States may be most vulnerable to
climate change and why?
Question 5: What types of information (e.g., research, monitoring/
measurement) are needed to better understand and prepare for potential
changes on these ecosystems?
November 2, 2006: Afternoon Plenary Session Questions:
Question 1: What key new findings related to the effects of climate
change on ecosystems have emerged in the past 5 or 6 years?
Question 2: What are the gaps in scientists' understanding of how
climate change might affect these four U.S. ecosystem types?
November 3, 2006: Breakout Session Questions:
Question 1: Given some of the potential climate-related effects on this
ecosystem described at yesterday's session, what might be the
implications for your unit, including how it is currently used and
managed?
Question 2: What are the challenges, constraints, and limitations
associated with adapting to the effects of climate change on federal
lands and waters?
Question 3: What land management practices or approaches to planning
may be considered when responding to the effects of climate change?
Question 4: What is the most important type of information (research,
monitoring/measurement) needed to better understand, prepare for, and
address the effects of climate change on federal lands? What resources
will be required to achieve this?
November 3, 2006: Afternoon Plenary Session:
Workshop participants provided suggestions for matters of congressional
consideration related to challenges land managers face with regard to
the effects of climate change on their lands and waters.
Day 1: Breakout Session Questions and Responses:
Question 1:
Based on your understanding of potential climate change in the United
States, how might this ecosystem type be affected over the near term
(~25 years) and over the longer term (50-100 years)? What might be some
of the key ecological effects, economic effects, and social/cultural
effects?
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Below is a summary of participants' responses to Question 1, with
particular focus on coasts and oceans. Panel members noted that the
primary (direct) and corresponding secondary (indirect) effects and
impacts of a changing climate were likely to be the following:
* Accelerated sea level rise:
- Inundation and permanent loss of coastal wetlands and barrier
shorelines, including loss of island communities (other U.S.
possessions, low-lying atolls, etc.)
- Increased saltwater intrusion, degradation of fresh and brackish
coastal waters, and low-lying ecosystems; this could impact the
drinking water supply:
- Drowning/Migration of submerged aquatic vegetation and vegetated
shorelines:
- Interaction of climate impacts with shoreline development via impact
on infrastructure and development on federal land; increased coastal
erosion, necessitating retreat or armoring of coastal communities with
impacts on ecological systems, historic lands, and cultural sites:
- Loss of storm buffer for low-lying areas:
- Increasing wave power/energy and increased vulnerability to storm
surge and flooding:
- Increased erosion and retreat of shorelines around bar areas and
estuaries:
- Increased sediment transport into nearshore habitats:
- Invasion of marine and exotic species into estuaries (e.g., oyster
predators in the Chesapeake Bay):
- Impact on tourism, recreation, and leisure (e.g., loss of beaches):
- Migration of mobile species could create conflicts on private lands:
- Federal and state legal relationships/conflicts--impacts on legal
regimes?
- Effects on protected species, such as loss of turtle and shorebird
nesting habitats:
* Increased storm intensity and frequency:
- Exacerbate all effects identified above:
- Physical disturbance - storm surge, shore erosion, wave run-up, and
wind (e.g., shore erosion, vegetation inundation, and damage to coral
and other reefs):
- Damage to infrastructure and cultural resources:
- Altered timing and volume of fresh waters delivery to estuaries
resulting in changes in salinity (impacts change in precipitation
regime), flushing rates of nutrients, turbidity, flow regime, and many
other variables:
- Shifts or loss in the extent of barrier islands (e.g., creating more
inlets, reducing dune systems, and declining aerial extent):
- Interaction with coastal developments (e.g., interference of barrier
island migration):
- Increased runoff and land-based pollution (e.g., nutrients,
sediments, turbidity, and debris):
- Changes in regional storm patterns:
* Increasing air, ocean, and coastal water temperatures:
- Loss of sea ice and coastal permafrost[Footnote 37] in Alaska; loss
of ice platforms used by marine mammals and seabirds; and loss of
subsistence for Alaskan natives:
- Mass coral bleaching events and disease events:
- Pest systems--increase in incidences of harmful algal blooms;
increased outbreak of pests, disease, and pathogens (e.g., increased
microbial activity could affect shellfish, fish, corals, sea turtles,
and some sea grasses):
- Migration or loss of species in combination with ocean acidification
(e.g., corals or other calcifying organisms):
- Changes in stratification regime (layers of habitats)--could affect
primary productivity of oceans:
- Changes in hydrologic and salinity regimes of coastal systems due to
increased glacial melt:
- Changes in timing of snowmelt/accumulation:
- Loss of ecological functions along shoreline:
- Economic impact on marine, coastal, and recreational (tourism--
fishing, bird-watching, etc.) industry in all areas:
- Indirect effects on eutrophication[Footnote 38] via increase in rate
of phosphorus release from sediment to water:
- Increase in invasive species and loss of native species due to
changes in temperature:
* Ocean acidification:
- Possible reduction in calcification rate of corals and other calcium
carbonate-based species:
- Environmental ecological niche shifts (impacts of changing ecosystems
on the oceanic food chain)--changes in plankton communities:
- Change in distribution of species:
- Erosion (physical and chemical) of carbonate reef structures; this
has economic impacts and reduces coastal protection from storms:
- Feedback on global biogeochemical cycles:
- Above will impact tourism and commercial and recreational fishing.
- Will change resource extraction environments:
* Changes in ocean currents and thermohaline circulation[Footnote 39]
- Affects upwelling, nutrient dynamics; change in biogeochemical
cycling (e.g., increase in dead zones), phytoplankton productivity, and
productivity of fish-based ecosystems; loss of marine mammals, fish,
and birds:
- Changes in thermohaline circulation--could provide large-scale
feedback on global climate systems (there is higher uncertainty about
this effect, but the consequences would be extreme):
- Impact on land temperature regimes, precipitation, and wind:
- Changes in the distribution of species, including changes in larval
stages:
- Changes distribution of marine debris and pollution:
* Changes in wave climate:
- The group agreed that the effects of "Changes in wave climate" would
be the same as those listed under "Accelerated sea level rise" and
"Increased storm intensity and frequency."
* Changes in precipitation regime:
* Changes in salinity regime in estuaries and coastal waters:
- Changes in quality, quantity, timing, and rate of fresh waters
delivery:
- In general, wet areas will get wetter, while dry areas will get
drier, affecting groundwater, fresh waters availability, surface water,
and drinking water supplies.
* Changes in water-quality-related incidents, such as harmful algal
blooms, anoxic (oxygen deficient) zones, pathogens, diseases, and
habitat quality:
* Changes in hydrologic regimes interact with water quality and water
management (e.g., dams, canals, flood protection, and reservoirs):
* Mosquito and disease vectors:
* Changes in coastal runoff, sedimentation, and erosion:
* Ability of ecosystems to flush pollutants and nutrients:
Panel members also identified the following two "high-order" primary
and corresponding secondary effects. The group noted that the timing
and magnitude of these effects is less certain than other effects
previously listed.
* Climate variability:
- Natural variability in storms, currents, and other climate factors
have important ecological impacts.
- Natural variability interacts with long-term climate change in all of
these impacts.
- Long-term climate change influences climate variability.
- Climate variability can be an indicator of the consequences of
climate change (e.g., El Niņo simulates warmer climates for much of the
globe).[Footnote 40]
- Creates uncertainty for economic decision making and resource
management:
- Makes it difficult to understand if goals are achieved if climate
variability is considered--management is more difficult:
- Interaction of climate variability and change has impacts on long-
term economic investment and infrastructure development.
* Changes in biogeochemical cycles:
- The group agreed that the results of "Changes in biogeochemical
cycles" were similar to some changes already listed, especially those
referring to currents and upwelling, stratification, runoff, and
precipitation regimes.
Forests Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
See Question 2 (Day 1).
Fresh Waters Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Workshop participants discussed the pervasive nature of climate change
events and their belief that no single event is attributable to a
climate-related cause, but the composite of several events points
toward climate-related causes. Therefore, over time, one would expect
to see a higher number of incident-based phenomena, including forest
fires, storms, and chronic phenomena, such as species migration. Many
believed that it was important for people to understand the nature of
the timing problem--that different types of resource management
decisions must be made across different time horizons. Some decisions
will have to be made in terms of variables that land managers do not
fully understand.
* Reduced snowpack and early snowmelt:
- Snow and ice serve as natural reservoirs in mountainous areas and
northern regions of the United States, gradually supplying water into
the summer months. Much of the west relies on spring snowmelt to
provide a steady stream of water into summer months, when demand is
highest; however, warmer temperatures and a shift of the winter
precipitation regime from snow to rain are expected to cause reduced
snowpack and early snowmelt. "Rain-on-snow" events increase the
potential for flooding, as rainwater and melted snow cause very high
runoff rates in winter and early spring. Because of this temperature-
driven shift of precipitation (from snow to rain), there is an
increased variance in annual streamflow volumes, with greater flow in
winter months and decreased streamflows in summer months, and increased
reliance on groundwater stores (which are themselves affected by
precipitation changes).
- High runoff in winter and early spring is likely to increase soil
erosion, enlarge stream channels and increase channel instability,
increase sediment load, and increase turbidity in rivers and streams.
If a high runoff event follows dry periods, high nutrient flux is
expected, as nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural fertilizers and
decayed organic matter will be washed into streams. The extra nutrient
load may stimulate plant growth (eutrophication), resulting in oxygen
depletion in the water body, and the increased turbidity will likely
reduce ecosystem productivity. Furthermore, disturbance events, such as
peak streamflow events, are likely to occur and are expected to
adversely affect the biodiversity of aquatic species, particularly
insects.
- The reduction of summer streamflows will limit the amount of habitat
available for every species dependent on the stream, since reduced
streamflow and reduced stream connectivity inhibits an aquatic species'
ability to move through an area. Low summer streamflows will limit
hydropower generation capacity, and it will be necessary to balance
human and ecological demands for water resources. The
phenology[Footnote 41] of critical biological functions, such as fish
migration and reproduction, may be disrupted by changing patterns of
water flow or availability, according to one expert commenting after
completion of the workshop. Reduced summer flows can limit habitat
directly by decreasing available habitat area, in addition to reducing
connectivity, according to another expert commenting after the
workshop. Furthermore, according to one expert commenting after the
workshop, reduced summer streamflows will result in a contraction of
the stream network and a reduction in the density of headwater streams.
Since most of the total length of the stream network is in these
headwater streams, there is likely to be a fairly dramatic decrease in
the amount of flowing surface water late in the summer, meaning that
streams will dry up sooner, according to this expert.
* Increased temperature of lakes, reservoirs, and rivers:
- Higher land surface temperatures will increase temperatures of
surface water bodies and will cause warmer runoff to enter streams,
raising the temperature of receiving waters. For example, increased
temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit have been observed in water
bodies in the east after storm events. Increased water body
temperatures may include the following adverse effects: increased risk
of toxic algal blooms; reduction in summer habitat or increased
juvenile mortality of cold water and headwater obligate aquatic
species[Footnote 42] (e.g., trout, salmon); or possible invasion of
ecosystems by opportunistic warmer-water exotic species[Footnote 43]
(this may have significant economic consequences). For example, the
nonnative zebra mussel has extended its range in the Great Lakes as
lake water temperatures have warmed. Furthermore, temperature changes
may result in the introduction of disease or extirpation (elimination
of a species or subspecies from a particular area, but not from its
entire range), particularly if the species cannot migrate to other
areas.
- Warmer temperatures speed up metabolic processes and deplete the
water of its dissolved oxygen. The increased productivity in lakes may
lead to increased rates of hypoxia (conditions of low oxygen in water),
reducing ecosystem health.
- Lake mixing cycles and stratification of lake water are temperature-
driven processes, which are necessary for nutrient cycling (turnover)
and ecosystem health. If temperatures do not drop low enough in winter
months, lake mixing may be reduced or stopped altogether.
- Reduced winter ice cover on large lakes, such as the Great Lakes, may
alter "lake effect" snow patterns, resulting in more rain and less snow
in areas down wind or down weather. Reduced ice cover also allows for a
great deal of evaporation from the lakes through winter months,
reducing the springtime water levels in the lake. This is likely to
affect the shipping industry by opening routes in the winter, but
restricting routes in the summer if lake levels are too shallow. If
water levels of the Great Lakes are shallow during summer months and
require smaller ships or dredging in lake inlets, substantial costs may
ensue.
- Cold temperatures and lack of biological activity also help to
preserve submerged cultural resources, such as shipwrecks (e.g., Lake
Huron). Similarly, the United Nations has been looking at preservation
challenges at archeological sites around the world, due to increased
decay and erosion resulting from climate change.
- An FWS representative said that the fisheries in Alaska may be
vulnerable to climate change effects. Many species are adapted to cold-
water conditions, and temperature increases and seasonal shifts may
adversely impact fisheries resources upon which commercial, sport, and
subsistence fishers all depend. (Note: Subsistence is also an issue in
and near the Great Lakes, regarding treaty-related Native American
harvesting rights.) Critical aspects of fish reproduction, such as
incubation time for eggs and juvenile growth and survival, are
temperature-related. The metabolic rate of aquatic organisms, such as
fish, increases with increasing temperature, thus more of a species'
energy will be used for maintenance functions, rather than for growth
and reproduction. Fish diseases can be more virulent under warm-water
conditions, and there have been recent observations of severe pathogen
problems in the Yukon River. Furthermore, cold-water adapted species
are likely to be susceptible to threshold-type temperature effects. For
example, mass die-offs of migrating salmon have recently been observed
under warm water conditions in western North America. Salmon also play
an important role in the energy and nutrient cycle in many northern
streams, and if salmon abundance declines substantially, the
availability of energy and nutrients to numerous aquatic and
terrestrial species, such as insects, birds, and bears, will be reduced
accordingly. In general, most climate forcing ecosystem impacts are
occurring in higher latitudes, where ecosystems are simpler and
potentially more vulnerable to both change and disturbance.[Footnote
44]
* Rising sea levels:
- Coastal areas that rely on groundwater supplies will have to be
careful not to overdraw from the aquifer to avoid saltwater intrusion
and contamination. This is particularly important in water-stressed
areas of the southwest. Also, coastal wetlands may become contaminated
with salt, killing off grasses that would normally assist in the water
purification process.
* Damage to infrastructure:
- Increased storm surges or flow volumes may damage infrastructure,
including roads, offices, and housing built in floodplains. Experts
acknowledged the importance of maintaining public access to public
lands, but they questioned societal decisions made to construct
facilities on sites that may be vulnerable. According to one expert
commenting after completion of the workshop, it is important to
identify high hazard zones and then determine what to do with
infrastructure that is currently sited there and to build this kind of
thinking into future planning and development decisions.
Nonclimate-Related Effects:[Footnote 45]
* Reduced nutritional quality of leaves:
- Increase of atmospheric CO2 results in recalcitrant[Footnote 46]
leaves, which can be less nutritional or palatable for herbivores.
Less Certain Effects:
* Ecosystem services impacted:
- Wetlands also purify water and provide spawning ground for amphibians
(e.g., vernal pools).[Footnote 47] However, they depend on high-flow
events associated with heavy rainstorms or high runoff events to
disperse seeds. Changing surface water-flow regimes will result in
unanticipated changes in wetland conditions, threatening some.
* Rising snow lines at high elevation are expected to result in a
longer growing season with increased forest growth at these elevations.
Water will likely be stored in the increased biomass and transpired
back into the atmosphere, rather than running off into streams.
Ephemeral streams[Footnote 48] are expected in these areas. According
to one expert commenting after completion of the workshop, rising snow
lines will result in increased forest growth with an associated
increase in evapotranspiration, resulting in less water available in
the soil, further reducing streamflows and the density of streams on
the land.
* Resiliency of a system may be compromised.
* Regime shift--it is possible to have a fundamental change in the way
an ecosystem is put together, such that it is very difficult to return
to a prior state.
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session
Responses:
The grasslands and shrublands breakout group collaboratively developed
the following summary statement that describes the potential effects of
climate change on this ecosystem type:
* Grasslands, shrublands, and tundra are all at risk of having a
fundamental shift in dominant vegetation type and/or loss of that
system, and these changes are likely to be sufficiently large to have
effects that cascade through many ecological, economic, and social
systems.[Footnote 49] These effects are most likely to occur in the
long term (50 to 100 years), but there is risk that they can also occur
in the near term. In addition, existing ecological problems, such as
wildfires, invasive species, and nitrogen deposition, would be
exacerbated by climate change.
The group also noted the following:
* Tundra systems are temperature-sensitive (i.e., temperature is the
fundamental driver for change).
* Shrublands are relatively more water-sensitive than grasslands and
tundra.
* Grasslands are both temperature-and water-sensitive.
* Climate models are weakest in predicting precipitation.
Breakout group participants further agreed that:
* Climate change will have impacts on all of the lands throughout the
country, and some of these impacts will have implications for the
integrity of grasslands. There will be increasing pressure on public
lands for different uses for reasons related to climate change. Such
potential uses include water storage and development of renewable
energy sources. All of the effects described below are effects that
will be observed in the next 25 years but will be intensified in the
longer term.
The group noted that the primary (direct) effects of a changing climate
were likely to be the following, listed in the general order in which
they were discussed:
* Increased CO2 emissions levels:
* Increased temperature:
* An increase in extreme events (i.e., weather events that occur
infrequently, such as drought, heat waves, heavy rainfall, and
tornadoes):
* Altered seasonality of precipitation (i.e., more or less
precipitation in the summer or winter):
* Increased wildfire frequency and severity:
* The melting of mountain glaciers, which will affect systems
downstream:
Next, participants identified a number of existing problems that will
be exacerbated by climate change (referred to as secondary effects).
These problems are also listed in the general order in which they were
discussed:
* Influx of invasive species:
* Increased nitrogen deposition from atmospheric pollution (especially
in Southern California):
* Ecosystem fragmentation: migration corridors for flora and fauna
could be cut off:
* Loss of coastal prairies due to increase in mean sea level (i.e., as
sea levels rise, saltwater will encroach on coastal prairies, turning
them into coastal wetlands):
* Greater desertification in certain areas, such as the shortgrass
steppe of eastern Colorado and farmed portions of the Nebraska
sandhills[Footnote 50]
* Earlier snowmelt, altering the amount of water available to plants at
critical times; earlier snowmelt will also affect the amount and timing
of water available to rivers:
* Phenological changes, such as plant flowering or bird migration; the
growing season will lengthen in the north and shorten in the south;
pollination could be out-of-sync with flowering:
* Amplification of drought effects:
* Changes in distribution of plants that photosynthesize during the
cool season (referred to as C3 plants) and plants that photosynthesize
during the warm season (referred to as C4 plants):
* Increases in the number and intensity of wildfires (although in some
shortgrass systems, wildfires might actually be less frequent, because
there is less fuel):
* Increased competition between people and natural systems for water;
stress on property rights as people and agriculture migrate in response
to a changing climate; increased pressure to use land for different
purposes, such as human settlement, water storage, or energy
development:
* Increases in pest outbreaks, especially pests that emerge under
warmer or drier conditions (e.g., bark beetles in woodland systems,
grasshoppers that thrive under drought conditions, various fungi, as
well as diseases caused by bacteria, parasites, and viruses):
* Loss of or decline in certain ecological communities, in some cases
leading to extinctions (e.g., alpine[Footnote 51] tundra, prairie
pothole[Footnote 52] communities, vernal pools):
* Decrease in native biodiversity in many areas and new assemblages of
species living together (i.e., new communities will emerge with unknown
dynamics):
* Changes in the quantity and quality of forage (plants available for
livestock or wildlife grazing):
* Changes in soil moisture dynamics:
* Changes in soil organic matter dynamics:
* Loss of tundra and of Arctic permafrost:
* Shift from nonvascular to vascular[Footnote 53] plants in parts of
the Arctic:
* Increase in airborne dust (particulate matter) as a result of
drought:
* Increase in tropospheric ozone[Footnote 54] formation, which may harm
vegetation:
* Change in dominant vegetation types, providing opportunities for
subdominant species:
* Increase shift to dominance or replacement by invasive species (both
plants and animals):
* Changes in issues associated with wildland/urban interface (fire,
pests, human/wildlife interactions--e.g., when coyotes or bears migrate
from the natural to the urban environment):
Question 2:
Which of these effects are most significant and adverse?
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Panel members identified the impacts they believed to be most
significant and adverse. The group did not categorize such impacts
according to their separate ecological, economic, or social effects
because it believed that the impacts affect all three categories of
effects.
* Inundation and permanent loss of coastal wetlands and barrier
shorelines, including loss of island communities (other U.S.
possessions, low-lying atolls, etc.)
* Loss of sea ice and coastal cryosphere (coastal permafrost) in
Alaska; loss of ice platforms used by marine mammals and seabirds; and
loss of subsistence for Alaskan natives:
* Mass coral bleaching events and disease events:
* Changes in biochemical cycling (e.g., increase in dead zones);
phytoplankton productivity; productivity of fishery ecosystems; and
loss of marine mammals, fish, and birds:
* Changes in thermohaline circulation:
* Changes in salinity regime in estuaries and coastal waters:
* Economic impacts: recreational and commercial fishing, quality of
life, cultural/maritime heritage, shorebirds, marine recreational
coastal fishing, migratory water fowl, hunting, tourism, and coastal
development and infrastructure (docks, housing, etc.)
Forests Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Before addressing the posed questions, forests ecosystem workshop
participants suggested a list of items commonly viewed as valuable
forest services. Participants suggested this as a first step toward
answering Question 2, Question 1, and Question 3 (below). Valuable
services forests provide include the following:
* Ecological:
- Carbon storage:
- Biodiversity/Composition:
- Ecosystem processes:
* Economic:
- Timber:
- Water (quality, quantity):
* Social/Other:
- Recreation:
- Scenery:
- Living area:
Forests ecosystem workshop participants generally agreed that the
scientific community has reached consensus that climate change will do
the following:
* Cause forest fires to grow in size and severity. Fires already have
increased in size in areas such as Alaska, Northern Rocky Mountains,
high elevations, and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Climate variability
and other fire management approaches, such as suppression, also have
affected the southwest. It is likely that other areas in the west, such
as the Pacific Northwest and the Colorado Rockies, could see
temperature-driven fire activity in the future. One expert added, after
completion of the workshop, that climate and demographic changes are
likely to increase fire risk to communities in the east.
* Affect air quality. For example, increased ozone pollution and
increased smoke from forest fires will impact air quality.
* Affect species composition--tree species, species that depend on
trees, and vegetation. For example, sugar maple, white bark pine at
high elevations, and subalpine spruce fir forests in the Rockies have
already experienced changes.
* Affect phenology, disconnecting some critical species interactions,
such as pollination and seed dispersal, and creating the opportunity
for other, unpredictable changes:
* Cause a reduction in permafrost, decreased snowpack, and increased
glacial melting:
* Affect water regimes, which are critically important to the
ecosystem. Changes in precipitation, storm intensity, temperature
increase, evaporative demand, timing of snowmelt, groundwater level,
and/or flashing may occur.
* Impact wind disturbance activity, an important ecosystem trigger.
However, exactly how wind patterns will change is uncertain. Impacts of
hurricane-caused timber blowdowns and subsequent buildup of down and
dead fuel is a concern in the southeast.
* Produce more surprises in terms of unanticipated consequences and
interactions with other environmental stressors. For example, increased
nitrogen in conjunction with insects and climate can result in
significant forest diebacks.
* Result in increased temperatures, which will increase insect and
disease infestation range and extent. Three recent examples are the
recent spruce beetle, the mountain pine beetle, and the southern pine
beetle infestations.
In addition, one workshop participant added the following:
* There are positive effects of climate change. For example, changes in
precipitation (increases), or distribution (to dry areas), or increases
in temperature in cold areas where such are limiting, or a combination
of such, will enhance forest growth and development. Thus, some deserts
and/or marginal forest areas could become highly productive forests. In
general, there is an ebb and flow of ecosystem types over time.
Fresh Waters Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Participants identified the following effects as among the most
significant and adverse:
* Variability of runoff volumes:
- Droughts will have the greatest impact with the least ability to
mitigate. Floods can be problematic for river areas and the people
living within those areas (e.g., due to increased channel changes, such
as widening streambeds and floodplains, and instability), although some
potential mitigation is possible, through construction of dams, etc. An
NPS representative believed that an increase in extreme runoff (and
drought) events would lead to more human emergencies, greater costs,
and disruptions to operations.
* Rate of climate change vs. rate of (invasive) species shift:
- Although the relative rate of climate change versus the rate of
species migration is not always known, experts expect invasive species
to have a relative advantage in a changing climate because they tend to
be more adaptive. Some experts have said that invasive species may
compromise the resiliency of a system or may impact economic resources
of an area, etc.
* General temperature increase:
- Temperature increases are most likely to threaten cold-water species,
such as trout and salmon, and amphibians.
* General reduction of water supply:
- Reduced supply and increased demand due to population growth is
likely to result in competition between human and ecological uses.
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session
Responses:
The group identified the effects that they believed to be most
significant and adverse. They defined "most significant" as the effects
that are relatively certain to happen.[Footnote 55] They categorized
such impacts according to ecological and economic/social effects.
Most Critical in Terms of Ecological Effects:[Footnote 56]
* Extinction of rare ecosystems, such as alpine tundra, California
chaparral, and blue oak woodlands in California[Footnote 57]
* Regime shifts[Footnote 58]
* Changes in soil content, organic matter, and moisture:
* Disappearance of wetlands:
* Shift in biomes from one type to another or from one location to
another.[Footnote 59] For example, there will likely be a change from a
shrub grassland system to a tree-dominated system in upper elevations
at some locations and a change to an annual grassland system in lower
elevations.
* Large-scale, transregional effects that extend beyond the region
where they occur and feed back into climate change. (That is, things
that happen in a local context have larger impacts on the Earth's
climate system.) Examples of transregional effects with feedbacks
include dust storms, wildfire, and methane release from the tundra.
(Methane is a greenhouse gas.)
* Simplification of certain ecosystems through loss of species
diversity (e.g., replacement of native species by invasive species that
become monocultures) or loss of endangered species. Examples include
the shift from a shrub grassland to an annual grassland system in the
sagebrush biome and the loss of forbs (wildflowers) in the California
native grasslands.
Most Critical in Terms of Economic and Social Effects:
* Changes in wildfire frequency and severity, with associated costs of
fire-fighting and rehabilitation after fires:
* Potential loss of national parks and forests with named features/
species: for example, Glacier National Park (with no glaciers), Saguaro
National Monument (with no saguaro cacti), Joshua Tree National Park
(with no Joshua trees), and Tallgrass Prairie Reserve (with no
tallgrasses):
* Loss of refuge function/purpose and the economic impact associated
with the refuge. For example, if certain FWS wetlands dry up, the
waterfowl hunting industry may be hurt in those areas, with economic
implications for local communities. Waterfowl reproduction may be
reduced. The refuge may thus no longer be relevant for the original
purpose for which it was established.
* Increased frequency of extreme events, such as drought and fire, and
the associated cost of the loss in productivity, wildlife, livestock,
recreation, or other land-use activities:
* Exacerbated urban/wildland interface (i.e., increased costs of
fighting fires and rehabilitating land, and property loss):
* Reduced Native American use of lands and revenue from natural
resources on their lands (e.g., livestock, and reindeer and caribou
herds in Alaska):
* Changes in water supply (more water in some areas than others),
possibly leading to greater competition for water, with economic
impacts for ranchers and some communities situated near federal lands:
Question 3:
Are there certain thresholds beyond which the ecosystem in the
identified areas cannot recover? Please describe the nature and scope
of these thresholds and provide examples.
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Panel members provided the following examples and descriptions of
various thresholds within the coasts and oceans ecosystem that, if
breached, will be difficult to recover from:
* Corals: Clear temperature threshold above which bleaching and
mortality occur. For tropical corals, the bleaching threshold is
generally more than 1 degree Celsius over the average temperature of
the warmest summer month at that location. Mortality results from
accumulated thermal stress influencing various factors, such as
bleaching and disease.
* Arctic/Subarctic coastal ecosystems: A 1-to 2-degree-Celsius increase
in temperature would result in a change in ice formation dynamics, sea
ice, permafrost, and glacial melt. For example, if sea ice retreats to
the point where the diving depth of the seals is exceeded, the seals
will die. Another example is fragmentation of ice packs for walruses
and polar bears, which increases the energy needed for foraging. This
impacts juvenile survival in walruses and polar bears.
* Coastal wetlands: Coastal wetlands have both salinity and sea level
rise thresholds. In coastal fresh waters wetlands, salinity of 5 parts
per thousand would result in a loss or shift of ecosystem type and a
die-off of vegetation. The coastal fresh waters marsh would cease to
exist in some areas. For brackish coastal wetlands, shifts in salinity
will lead to shifts in species composition. If salinity levels rise
above approximately 20 parts per thousand, there will be significantly
less diversity. For a sea level rise threshold for coastal wetlands,
tidal inundation could be high enough to transform the system to open
water. When the sea level rise exceeds the ability of plant communities
to grow vertically through accretion, then the community can turn to
open water.
* Climate regime shifts: Several shifts have already been observed
where complete shifts in ecosystem structure and services have changed
relatively rapidly over a few years. This is an ecosystem dependent and
a nonlinear response. Examples include the Northern Pacific and some
fisheries.
* Ocean acidification: When oceanic carbonate ions drop below 200
micromoles per kilogram (approximately 425 parts per million
atmospheric CO2), corals will no longer be able to build reefs faster
than they naturally erode. Elimination of coral reef ecosystems, many
types of plankton, and fundamental shifts in food chains could result.
Entire ocean food chains could change, influencing important fishing
industries.
* Invasive species and pests: Many have their own thresholds. Loss of
certain events, such as low salinity or low temperature, would wipe out
certain species and introduce invasive species. For example, marine
oyster predators invade oyster-growing waters when the oyster bars do
not have periodic low salinity events. There is also a threshold for
the capacity to control invasive species. If biological thresholds are
exceeded, invasive species will persist. For example, some invasive
species are freeze-intolerant.
* Islands and flood-prone coastal areas: There are some critical sea
level rise and storm thresholds above which the islands and flood-prone
coastal areas would be inundated. Some examples include insular areas,
including Freely Associated States in the South Pacific, Louisiana, and
Florida, and Alaskan communities. Some island territories have a
maximum elevation of a few meters or less.
* Loss of fresh groundwater and low-lying islands: A threshold at which
water supplies are contaminated by saltwater intrusion. The threshold
for this depends on the island.
* Change in fishery productivity: Due to differential temperature
preferences of predators and prey, there are different threshold
temperatures for different animals. For example, in the mid-Atlantic
region, the upper geographic limit is 18 degrees and moving northward
for some types of clams, limiting the distribution range in the
southern geographic region.
Forests Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Forests ecosystem workshop participants identified the following
regarding climate-related ecosystem thresholds:
* Habitat specialists, such as the spotted owl, are more at risk.
* Climate extremes, such as drought and temperature, threaten certain
species, such as the pinyon pine.
* High-elevation red spruce forests and whitebark pine are at severe
risk of extinction.
* Endemic (native) species:
Fresh Waters Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
The fresh waters group of experts described thresholds as very context-
specific, often complexly nonlinear, and difficult to identify in
prospect (i.e., easier to identify in retrospect, after exceeding the
threshold). Although thresholds are valuable conceptual frameworks,
they may not turn out to be accurate because there are often
synergistic effects between two or more variables. The group tried to
identify thresholds that are sensitive to physical parameters (e.g.,
freezing points, etc.), but it did not identify many clear-cut examples
of thresholds. One participant noted that ecologists use the word,
"threshold" to describe physical parameters that stray from the
traditional path of an ecosystem.
Some experts questioned the importance of identifying thresholds,
although they acknowledged the value of understanding the issues
surrounding thresholds and identifying the types of thresholds that
could be crossed, and the factors that could contribute to approaching
a threshold. Land managers believed that it may be useful to set aside
lands to serve as buffers to mitigate potential damages associated with
reaching a threshold.
Whereas land managers are accountable for protecting endangered species
and upholding agency mission, they believed that they may be driven
more and more to managing toward the protection of "niche" species, or
managing against invasive, "opportunistic" species. They expressed
concern that the threshold question may be species-specific, rather
than a biodiversity issue. They also believed that there may be a false
security in "managing to thresholds" (versus "managing at levels
beneath thresholds"). The fresh waters scientists and managers agreed
that an understanding of thresholds is important so that early-warning
signals that a threshold is approaching may be developed.
The fresh waters group of experts identified the following thresholds:
* Temperature threshold (stratified lakes):
- Lakes will not thermally stratify and "turnover" in the spring if
winter temperatures do not drop below 4 degrees Celsius. Lake turnover
is an important temperature-driven process that helps to oxygenate
waters and cycle organic matter and nutrients through the water column.
This threshold is presumably more significant in large lakes and has to
do with the depth of the lake and latitude.
* Temperature threshold (cold-water species):
- According to an expert commenting after completion of the workshop,
the mortality rate of some cold-water species, such as salmon,
increases dramatically above certain temperatures.
* Stream network connectivity:
- If streams dry up earlier within the annual hydrologic cycle, the
threshold itself may shift as a result of changing precipitation
patterns and/or warmer temperatures associated with climate change.
Year-round streams may become ephemeral streams, small ponds may become
vernal pools, etc. We may see a dramatic reduction of nitrogen removal
from microbes in streams and wetlands, and a possible loss of species
(e.g., salamanders). Areas with greater precipitation will likely
result in increased connectivity (which opens migration corridors for
invasive and endemic species). An expert commenting after completion of
the workshop said that there is not a clear threshold for stream
network connectivity. The expert said that the area necessary to
sustain certain streams will be larger if more water falls as rain in
the winter with less snowpack.
* Snowline in high elevations:
- Topographically driven and elevation-controlled incremental change in
the rain-to-snow ratio affects the position of the snowline (the
dynamic position where snow typically accumulates on the landscape) for
areas with snow-dominated precipitation in the west. If the climate
forces the snowline to move up in elevation, there will be a radically
nonlinear decline in snow area, likely to cause huge changes in fresh
waters systems in those areas. Migration corridors may open (for warm-
water species), or species habitat may become fragmented (especially
true for cold-water species). Even if migration corridors exist, they
would have to be temperature-appropriate for species migration and
interaction. Land use/Land management systems, such as dams, canals,
and construction projects, increase this effect of habitat
fragmentation. With added terrestrial connectivity (due to less winter
snow cover), there is possibility of a bark beetle invasion across the
United States (i.e., achieve continental connectivity). One expert
commenting after completion of the workshop said that bark beetle
invasions would be triggered by warmer temperatures that allow the
beetles to reach existing forests to the north that are connected
across Canada to eastern forests. The expert said that beetle invasions
have nothing specifically to do with less winter snow cover because the
connectivity is already there. According to the expert, it has been too
cold for the beetles to survive until recently.
* Presence of keystone species[Footnote 60]
- Land managers may want to manage to protect the habitat of these
species, which have a disproportionate positive impact on ecosystem
processes (e.g., beaver, Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs). An NPS
representative asked, "Under what conditions will species migrate out
of particular national parks?" A species shift could have social
ramifications, since park visitors value the experience of seeing
species within the park. In some cases, federal land acquisition has
been motivated by the presence of particular species, which may migrate
to unprotected areas, according to an expert commenting after
completion of the workshop.
* Indicator species:
- Temperature-or climate-sensitive species may be indicators of
impending thresholds; enormous regional shifts are possible in systems
with a high degree of connectivity, but this is not necessarily true
for species that cannot easily migrate to other areas (i.e., insects
can fly, fish cannot easily migrate).
* Wildfire frequency:
- Wildfires are strongly dependent on the degree of spring "wet-up"
conditions and the sequence of wet and dry years, since presence of an
adequate amount of moisture can protect against burning. Fire is a huge
driver of ecological change, so anything that changes the fire regime
is likely to have ramifications and ripple effects through feedbacks
into hydrological, geomorphic, and temperature response. This threshold
is expressed in terms of years (i.e., years between fire events).
* Frequency of storm events:
- Humans have installed a great deal of infrastructure in the west to
manage water resources, including dams. Increased storminess will
adversely affect aging infrastructure. With thousands of small dams in
the United States, climate change may exacerbate existing stresses of
aging infrastructure and inadequate water supplies in growing areas.
Rain-on-snow events, characteristic of "warm" snowpacks, are a recipe
for big floods and may result in damage to docks, roads, or other
infrastructure on or adjacent to streams, lakes, and coasts. One expert
commenting after completion of the workshop said that rain-on-snow
induced floods generally result in increased damage to river-related
infrastructure, not coastal infrastructure.
* Social tolerance threshold:
- Panelists expressed concern that society may become less tolerant for
taking action to mitigate climate change, such as spending money or
reconstructing infrastructure (levees) to address climate change
issues.
* Minimum flow rate in rivers:
- As metropolitan areas grow, water demand increases, resulting in a
decrease in water levels. If we do not keep minimum flows available for
aquatic species, there will be more problems for species survival;
natural storage facilities (lakes, reservoirs, and streams) may not be
sufficient if water demand increases.
* Water quality degradation:
- Water quality is likely to decline if harmful algal blooms, bacteria,
botulism, etc., occur as a result of increased temperature. This will
likely result in the increased cost of water treatment.
* Temperature:
- Increased temperatures are associated with an increased rate of
disease outbreaks. The temperature effect may be compounded by a low-
flow effect--thresholds may not be based on a simple change of a single
variable, but a complex interaction of several changing variables
(e.g., gypsy moths and acid rain--acidification of the system weakened
the vegetation in the system, making it vulnerable to invasion by gypsy
moths). This point is characteristic of the (aquatic) system's
behavior.[Footnote 61]
* Climate change impact on ecosystem services:
- For example, wetlands absorb nutrient load--we can allow a certain
amount of nitrogen runoff, if passing wetlands before reaching lake,
but if we lose the wetlands, the system no longer has as much capacity
to absorb nitrogen; if the water availability is intermittent, the
wetland may not be as efficient at removing nitrogen--terrestrial
systems may be more nitrogen-burdened.
* Occurrence of snow avalanches:
- Snow avalanches bring nutrients and debris down to streams with
direct effect on stream chemistry. The regular disturbance of snow
avalanches is ecologically important at high elevations, allowing
herbaceous plants to grow in tree-laden forests. A reduction in
herbaceous plants results in reduced grizzly bear habitat (a culturally
valued animal). Greater variability of winter runoff volumes, from high
snow followed by rain, is likely to result in more snow avalanches and
increased frequency of landslides and debris flows. This is a threshold-
driven phenomenon sensitive to small changes in precipitation with the
potential to result in extreme events in soil erosion.
* Salinity level of aquatic systems:
- fresh waters inundation to saltwaters--for example, through increased
runoff volumes in early spring--rapidly decreases salinity. This may be
detrimental to some species, such as sea grass.
* Development threshold at low elevations:
- Older federal lands tend to be high elevation, lower elevation areas
(run-out zone where debris flows end up) are often outside of federal
jurisdiction. However, lower elevation areas may be vulnerable to
adverse effects of climate change, and it may be necessary to consider
development thresholds in lower elevation areas, floodplains, etc.
* Human construction/changes to ecosystem:
- Experts believed that stream systems in the west are managed in ways
that might "trump" climate change effects that we anticipate. For
example, many man-made dams currently create a wider range of flow than
anticipated with climate change. Land managers identified examples of a
dam's role in isolating populations versus opening migration corridors,
and they asked whether dam operators should change practices in light
of climate change. If dams are removed from an area, or if they can no
longer function, a migration corridor is opened for nonnative species
to move beyond the dam area. In the Great Lakes, dam removal has opened
corridors for species migration from the lakes into river systems.
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session
Responses:
The grasslands and shrublands group of experts defined a threshold as
"the point at which an ecosystem cannot recover without substantial
input in time and energy." The group agreed that the causes of the
threshold changes will be complex, and that some changes will occur
quickly and obviously, but others will occur gradually and insidiously
and may be overlooked until it is too late to address them. Among the
key thresholds identified by the group were the following:
* A shift from tundra to shrubs in the Arctic, resulting in less snow
to reflect sunlight, which will lead to other warming-related effects,
such as the release of methane:
* Permafrost melting will also affect the biological chemistry and the
integrity of the tundra systems.
* Increase in the rate of invasion of annual grasses, changing
shrublands to grasslands and changing the fire regime. Example: BLM
lands in the western United States, from the Canadian to the Mexican
borders.
* Tree die-offs triggered by drought and exacerbated by temperature,
leading to a shift from woodland to shrubland or to grassland.
Examples: midwestern savannas or the southwestern pinyon juniper
woodlands.
* Transition to high-erosion conditions could occur through the drought-
induced loss of grasslands. Example: entire United States.
* Disruptions in biological interactions as a result of changes in
temperature and growing seasons. (That is, the life cycles of some
mutually dependent organisms may change, affecting the ecosystem food
web.) Example: entire United States.
* Seawater intrusion on coastal prairies. Examples: southern Louisiana
and Texas.
* Loss of glaciers, changing the hydrologic flow in downstream systems:
Question 4:
Which areas of the United States may be most vulnerable to climate
change and why?
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Below is a list of specific types and examples of systems or habitats
related to coasts and oceans that panel members considered most
vulnerable to climate change:
Specific types of systems or habitats: Coral reefs;
Examples (locations): Florida Keys Protected Areas - Florida Keys
National Marine Sanctuary, Dry Tortugas National Park, Everglades
National Park (for temperature); U.S. Virgin Islands National Park
(bleaching); the Caribbean; Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National
Marine Monument (inundation--already lost islands--and ocean
acidification); Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (undisturbed, 2
meter elevation); Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary; and
Biscayne National Park.
Specific types of systems or habitats: Arctic systems;
Examples (locations): Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; BLM National
Petroleum Reserve; Kenai Fjords National Park; Gulf of Alaska/Bering
Sea/ Aleutians (regime shift, ocean circulation, biogeochemical
cycling, and acidification); Pribilof Islands (sea ice); and 20 other
coastal parks and refuges on the coast in Alaska.
Specific types of systems or habitats: Coastal wetlands;
Examples (locations): Delta National Wildlife Refuge; Jean Lafitte
National Park and Historic Preserve; Southeast and Southwest Louisiana
National Wildlife Refuge complexes; Blackwater National Wildlife
Refuge; Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge (sea level rise, storm
vulnerability, and salinity regimes); National Estuarine Research
Reserves (Texas, coastal North Carolina, Florida, etc.); Everglades
National Park; San Francisco Bay Delta; and the Chesapeake Bay.
Specific types of systems or habitats: Barrier islands;
Examples (locations): Fire Island National Seashore; Gulf Islands
National Sea Shore; Cape Hatteras protected lands (shoreline
management); and other National Seashores--Assateague Island, Texas
Coast, Corpus Christi, etc.
Specific types of systems or habitats: Low-lying islands and coastal
lands;
Examples (locations): Pacific Freely Associated States (Marshall
Islands, Palmyra, and Northern Mariana Islands); Florida Keys;
Northwest Hawaiian Islands (Midway, etc.); Johnston Atoll; Wake Island;
and Kwajelin Island.
Specific types of systems or habitats: Maritime forests;
Examples (locations): Ace Basin South Carolina; Coastal Louisiana
Refuges and Jean Lafitte National Park; St. Mark's National Wildlife
Refuge; Florida Everglades; Big Cypress National Park and Preserve;
Pine Island; National Key Deer Refuge; Savannah coastal refuge
complexes; Cape Romaine National Wildlife Refuge; national estuarine
research reserves; Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge; and Cumberland
Island National Seashore.
Specific types of systems or habitats: Continental shelf ecosystems;
Examples (locations): Exclusive Economic Zone; California current;
Oregon coast; North Pacific; Gulf of Mexico (climate regime shifts,
biogeochemical, and storms); North Atlantic (e.g., Georges Bank and
Gulf of Maine); and sanctuaries and national estuarine research reserve
sites.
Forests Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Forest ecosystem workshop participants identified the following areas
as more vulnerable to climate change:
* Higher latitude and mid-to high-elevation areas:
* Ecotones (also know as transition zones)--boundary zone between
different types of ecosystems, such as upper or lower timberline:
* Western United States--at risk of increased fire, pest/pathogen
outbreak, and changes in heat and water regimes:
* Eastern United States--at risk of drought, hurricane damage, and
forest fire:
* Alaska:
Fresh Waters Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Prior to identifying areas considered to be most vulnerable to climate
change, the workshop participants briefly discussed a definition of
vulnerability. The group based its responses on vulnerabilities likely
to have an impact on important ecological processes and on human
quality of life, and areas for which there are viable management
response options or proactive responses.
In general, experts identified areas along the west coast; southwestern
United States; ephemeral habitats, such as the Prairie Pothole region
of the Great Plains; coastal wetlands at risk of saltwater intrusion;
and wetlands and areas with warm snowpack and low groundwater storage.
They also identified areas with large groundwater and surface water
systems, since they have some of the highest vulnerability to change.
The following list of vulnerable sites was generated at the workshop
and from preworkshop surveys sent to scientists and land managers:
Specific types of systems or habitats: Streams/Rivers;
Examples (locations): Klamath River/Upper Klamath, Oregon; McKenzie
River, Oregon; Willamette River; Rio Grande; Tennessee River; Chattooga
River; Trinity River Ecosystem; Flathead River; Salmon River; Columbia
and Snake Rivers; Colorado River; Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers;
and streams in urban areas (heat island effects).
Specific types of systems or habitats: Lakes;
Examples (locations): Great Lakes (20 percent of the world's accessible
fresh waters); high- elevation lakes, such as Crater Lake, Diamond
Lake, Mono Lake, Lake Tahoe, and other lakes in the Cascades or Sierra
Nevada mountains.
Specific types of systems or habitats: Wetlands/vernal pools/headwater
streams;
Examples (locations): Florida Everglades--risk of saltwater intrusion,
Prairie Pothole Region, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, and Yukon Delta
National Wildlife Refuge.
Specific types of systems or habitats: Cryosphere and areas with warm
snowpack;
Examples (locations): Glacier National Park and Cascades National Park.
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session
Responses:
Below is a list of specific types of grasslands or shrublands that the
group considered most vulnerable to climate change, along with some
specific sites:
Specific types of systems or habitats: Tundra;
Examples (locations): Alaskan Arctic and alpine (Rocky Mountains and
Sierra Nevada).
Specific types of systems or habitats: Sonoran desert system;
Examples (locations): Saguaro cactus ecosystem (Arizona).
Specific types of systems or habitats: Sagebrush biome (steppe);
Examples (locations): All federal lands in intermountain west.
Specific types of systems or habitats: Pinyon juniper woodland;
Examples (locations): Southwestern United States.
Specific types of systems or habitats: Remnant prairie biome and sedge
meadows (small parcels);
Examples (locations): Great Plains (Neal Smith National Wildlife
Refuge, Iowa) and various FWS and NPS lands.
Specific types of systems or habitats: "California complex" (large
regions of the state);
Examples (locations): BLM, FS, and NPS lands in California.
Specific types of systems or habitats: Gulf coastal prairies;
Examples (locations): Southern Texas, Southern Louisiana.
Specific types of systems or habitats: Midwest oak savanna;
Examples (locations): Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge, Minnesota;
Neceeda National Wildlife Refuge, Wisconsin.
Question 5:
What types of information (e.g., research, monitoring/measurement) are
needed to better understand and prepare for potential changes on these
ecosystems?
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Panel members provided the following list of various types of
information and activities that are needed to understand, prepare for,
and address the potential changes to the coasts and oceans ecosystem:
* Develop basic baseline environmental characterizations:
* Long-term monitoring:
* In situ physical monitoring, monitoring the carbon system:
* Integrated risk assessments, including ecological, sociological, and
economic factors:
* Long-term assessment of responses of ecosystems to variable climate
conditions:
* Comprehensive suite of ecosystem indicators ("red flags") to develop
time series data. Need to be linkable to describe causality. Target
observations on particularly sensitive ecosystems and species for which
changes are already occurring. Focus on indicators that are
unambiguously related to climate change.
* Long-term record, focus on historical and paleoclimatic records to
describe past changes:
* Integrate ecological modeling with economic/behavioral modeling:
* Habitat characterization to detect changes over time. Interface with
land-margin, land-ocean margin habitat data.
* More accurate hydrographic and topographic/bathymetric (water depth)
data. Water depth data are often of poor resolution.
* Assessments of how climate change is likely to impact lands and
associated resources:
* Characterization from genetic/microbial to landscape-scale
conditions:
* There are four components of research needed on climate change: (1)
physical changes (this has been the bulk of the effort so far), (2)
ecological impacts, (3) social/economic impacts, and (4) adaptation/
mitigation. The focus should now be shifted to ecological, social/
economic, and adaptation/mitigation research. We need to focus on
vulnerabilities and mitigation/adaptation. How have systems changed in
the past and how can we expect them to change in the future? The U.S.
Climate Change Science Program should focus more on the ecological and
societal impacts of climate change than it currently does. Need to
focus research on regional and local scales.
* Need for risk communication--illustrate how climate change affects
individuals, better communication with the public:
* Adapting today's management strategy to account for applied science-
-ecosystem approach:
* Research and development programs to develop mitigation techniques
and strategies that are cost-effective:
* Supply the science needed to allow local management decisions to
account for climate change in the background, both short-term and long-
term considerations:
* National database of the timing of biological phenomena:
* Vulnerability and risk assessment of the value of historic sites and
other assets and recreational or commercially valuable species on
federal lands:
* Better analytical management tools for ecosystem management - these
need to be dynamic so they can evolve over time. For example,
predictive modeling tools for fisheries management or coastal erosion
management that show impacts on property values, etc.
* There is currently an emphasis on reducing uncertainty. The desired
level of uncertainty appears lower than the level of uncertainty
applied in everyday decision making. There are tools in place to allow
decision making under ambiguous risks. Develop robust policies that
perform well in the worst case and better than alternatives in the best
case.
* Tools for management, such as sea level rise estimates and projected
land/sea boundary across the United States. For local management - need
topography and bathymetric data. Where are shorelines in relation to
commercial structures, etc? Storm surge projections, etc. Look at
synergistic effects.
Forests Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Panelists ran out of time before they could answer Question 5.
Fresh Waters Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
In answering this question, the group considered the types of
information needed to monitor or detect current manifestations of
climate change and to predict future climate conditions. The following
statements represent broad categories of needed information identified
during the group discussion and some overarching recommendations for
further research and development:
* Develop early-warning signals, or "red flags"
- Although many monitoring programs exist, and much scientific data are
generated, there is often a lack of a clearly defined purpose for
monitoring, and the link between data collection and action points is
not always clear. There is a lack of contextual sophistication for the
collected data, and data are not analyzed to indicate when managers
should begin to be concerned about changes or take action to mitigate
changes. Therefore, managers recommended that there be a clearly
defined purpose for monitoring efforts, and clear linkages between data
collection and habitat protection. A panelist opined that the national
parks and federal lands are good environments for detecting the effects
of climate change, since they are relatively isolated from other
effects.
* Assess and build on the current monitoring system:
- Many monitoring systems in place today, such as systems to monitor
stream flow, precipitation, soil, etc., were not designed specifically
with climate change in mind. The panelists recommended that a "gap
analysis" be performed to evaluate the current monitoring system for
its ability to detect and predict climate change. They believed that
current monitoring networks do not collaborate, and they recommended
that a list of parameters (e.g., gas fluxes, soil moisture, and basic
water chemistry) be established, and that these parameters be monitored
at various sites throughout the country.
* Manage for resilience:
- Panelists believed that it was important to manage aquatic systems so
that they can "withstand the unexpected" with respect to climate
change. They suggested that managers consider ways of providing buffers
for systems to restore characteristics of unimpacted systems, despite
the stresses of climate change. For example, if an area is likely to
experience increased flooding, management options might include
building a dam or moving houses or businesses from the flood zone. When
deciding between management responses, it is important to consider how
the particular adaptation action may affect other ecosystem processes.
Managers identified the need to know when to try to prevent changing
conditions versus when to adapt to them. To make such management
decisions, it is important to develop technical modeling and detective
capacity to know which management decisions will maximize benefits.
Participants identified the need to build institutional capacity,
improve record-keeping, deploy scientists and researchers on-site, and
improve modeling capacity to summarize broad-scale changes.
* Regional scale climate predictions are needed:
- Managers need climate predictions on an ecoregion or site-specific
scale. Managers said that they often do not know how to plan for the
effects of climate change because they lack information on the types of
physical changes (i.e., temperature and precipitation changes) that are
expected in their management areas. Therefore, they do not know what
management actions will help the system adapt to the effects of climate
change. The scientists suggested using the current monitoring networks
or developing well-distributed monitoring networks to create a series
of nested monitoring stations to monitor snow-water equivalent extent
and groundwater stocks. Panelists believed that interagency
coordination and collaboration are necessary, and that there must be an
increased investment in monitoring efforts, particularly in sites
identified as likely to be adversely affected by climate change.
If changes in temperature and precipitation were detected and
understood at a regional scale, managers could compare projections of
climate models with observed changes. Managers need to consider what
the response of waterfowl and wetland extent is likely to be with
respect to a range of climate projections, and they will need to make
decisions based on how much land must be set aside to support wildlife
through added stresses of weather extremes.
* Collaboration between scientists and land managers:
- Workshop participants believed that it was important that scientists
and land managers work together at early stages of the planning
process, and that federal lands would benefit from having scientific
expertise on-site, (i.e., to serve as park interpreters, naturalists,
and data analysts). FWS land managers said that it is difficult to
detect changes in wetlands, because the technology to determine and
monitor wetland extent is expensive and requires specialized skills,
including flyover photography and geographic information system
analysis.
* Crosswalk between land-use change and water quality:
- If hydrologic aspects, such as streamflow variability, are better
understood and linked to ecological responses, models can be used to
project ecological responses to physical changes in runoff volumes,
whether as a result of climate change or land-use changes.
Panelists agreed that land management and planning are not just related
to the question of future climate conditions, but also about land-use
changes, and they believed that there is a general lack of
understanding in the relationship between land-use change, land
management, and erosion and deposition processes. Some suggested that
managers should view anticipated change in the context of anthropogenic
stressors that are already present and likely to be exacerbated by
future anthropogenic and climate stressors. One scientist from FS
suggested that the Congress should look at the projected changes in
temperature and precipitation overlaid with projected population
growth. By developing "vulnerability maps" that incorporate societal
impacts, managers might be able to view areas under stress and consider
the added stress of climate change when making management decisions.
* Study synergistic effects of extreme weather events and multidecadal
events:
- Panelists identified the need to study the synergistic effects of two
dynamic systems--extreme weather events (such as intense storms) and
multidecadal events.
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session
Responses:
The group agreed that the most important types of information or
research needed include the following:
* Improved precipitation modeling to better understand and prepare for
temperature and precipitation changes on these ecosystems.
Precipitation modeling is currently one of the greatest weaknesses in
projecting future climate change effects.
* Research and consensus on the criteria and indicators of ecosystem
change or thresholds, with specific research on identifying monitoring
methods to help scientists detect change thresholds:
* Information on the economic value of grassland and shrubland
ecosystem services:
* Better information on the location and rate of desertification:
* Information on positive feedback (i.e., the interaction of climate
change on natural systems that can lead back to an intensification of
climate change itself):
* Experiments on interactions between climate change and other
ecological drivers, such as those previously identified (e.g., nitrogen
deposition, etc.)
* Synthesis of information collected by the Long-Term Ecological
Research and the proposed National Ecological Observatory Network
(NEON).[Footnote 62] Are these programs in a position to provide
answers to climate-related questions?
* Data on land use and the number of livestock grazing on federal lands
(to be able to distinguish between ecosystem effects related to
livestock grazing versus effects related to climate change):
* Research to improve understanding of the mechanisms that trigger
complete regime changes. Is there just a single trigger, such as
nitrogen deposition, management style, and El Niņo, or are there
multiple triggers?
* Conversion of shrubland to grassland (i.e., the ratio of annual alien
grasses to native perennial plants that triggers a conversion to an
annual grassland system in some areas) as well as research to improve
understanding of the mechanisms that lead to a complete regime change:
* Conversion of grasslands to shrublands or woodlands, due to shifts in
precipitation timing and intensity, altering water availability to
favor deep-rooted woody species:
* Research on the consequences of alpine community disruption:
* Research on the consequences of a transition to high-erosion
conditions through the drought-induced loss of grasslands:
* Research to determine conditions to predict tree, grass, and forb
mortality.
* Research to clarify the factors influencing the trends and direction
of change in the controls of soil moisture and soil organic matter on
groundwater hydrology:
* Research on phenological changes, including development of a U.S.
phenological network:
* Research on saltwater intrusion on coastal prairies:
Day 1: Afternoon Plenary Session Questions and Responses:
In this session, workshop participants were asked two questions. The
first question was to identify key new findings related to the effects
of climate change on ecosystems that have emerged in the past 5 or 6
years (i.e., since the publication of the National Assessment of the
Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change in 2000 and
the IPCC Third Assessment Report in 2001).[Footnote 63] For the second
question, we asked the participants to identify the gaps in scientists'
understanding of how climate change might affect the four U.S.
ecosystem types. This session was moderated by Dr. Virginia Burkett of
the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Dr. Burkett also moderated the
coasts and oceans breakout group.
Question 1 and Responses:
What key new findings related to the effects of climate change on
ecosystems have emerged in the past 5 or 6 years?
Participants identified the following new findings that have emerged in
the past 5 or 6 years:
* 2005 Caribbean coral bleaching event:
- Results from Virgin Islands National Park: About 47 percent of
previously healthy Caribbean corals are now dead due to bleaching and
disease, both associated with thermal stress (increasing temperature).
Prior to 2005, the first massive loss of corals was in 1990. Global
events also occurred in 1997 and 1998. Documentation of 2005 bleaching
events elsewhere corroborated that sea surface temperatures are causing
coral die-offs. This phenomenon is not only limited to tropical areas,
but is also beginning to affect temperate waters such as the northwest
Hawaiian Islands. Also, many corals not typically associated with
bleaching have been affected, like elkhorn coral, recently listed as
threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
* Climate regime shift in the Pacific:
- Documentation exists about the climate regime shift in the Pacific
and its impacts that have cascaded up the food chain, ultimately
affecting fish populations and phytoplankton communities and resulting
in a loss of marine mammals and seabirds.
* Ocean acidification:
- Increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations result in drops in pH
(acidification) in near-surface waters. The rate of acidification has
been more rapid than anticipated. Near-surface ocean waters have
already dropped to levels that cause live plankton to dissolve. Recent
findings have shown drops in pH in near-surface waters that are
occurring much more rapidly than anticipated in response to increased
carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. This has caused live
plankton to dissolve their calcareous skeletons.
* Arctic change:
- There is more evidence of sea ice retreat, accelerating glacial melt,
measurable coastal erosion, and declining populations of polar bears,
Beluga whales, walruses, ice seals, and other Arctic mammals. See the
Arctic Climate Impact Assessment for more detailed information on this
issue.[Footnote 64]
* Hypoxia off the Pacific coast:
- The "dead zone" off the Pacific coast, while not proven to be related
to climate change, is an example of future events that could
potentially represent a major, new, unanticipated climate change
consequence.
* Intensification of tropical cyclones:
- Recent evidence suggests that sea surface temperature increases are
related to the intensification of destructive tropical cyclones.
* The Stern Report:
- This report, published in late October 2006, is a global assessment
that discusses the causes and consequences of climate change
(externalities in public goods are valued on a global level) with long-
term and persistent impacts (intergenerational inequity).[Footnote 65]
Uncertainties and risks are pervasive (ambiguity reigns, given large
uncertainties). There is a serious risk of major irreversible,
nonmarginal changes ("Act now or it will cost a lot more later").
* Faster and more heterogeneous sea level rise:
- Satellite Altimetry Measurements of sea level change have enabled
global ocean and coastal trend analysis.
Published/Documented Changes Since 2000:
* Observational evidence (National Aeronautical and Space
Administration data) suggests that the Greenland Ice Sheet is breaking
up faster than any models projected, with major implications for sea
level rise. This implies that current models are not competent to deal
with the rate of loss of both the Greenland Ice Sheet and also the West
Antarctic.
* Warmer springs have resulted in earlier snowmelt, longer summer
drought, and increased wildfire activity in forest ecosystems where
fires are limited by drought, rather than fuel in the western United
States. The bottom line is a 300 percent increase in the frequency of
large fires and a 600 percent increase in area burned, comparing 1970-
1986 with 1987-2003. Dr. Tony Westerling acknowledged that if he had
changed the time periods of comparison, the previously mentioned
percentages would have changed significantly. He chose these years
because he had 34 years of data, and he cut that time period in half.
* Unprecedented ocean-oscillation changes from 1987-1988 took place
that affected many systems. These have been well-documented since 2000.
* An unprecedented pine bark beetle migration across British Columbia
heading east has been observed. Migration patterns have been driven by
warm winters. Similarly, the southeastern United States has seen
southern pine beetle migration into red spruce area caused by drought,
nitrogen deposition, and beetle infestation. There have also been
shifts in the intensity and extent of the spruce bark beetle in the
Pacific Northwest and Alaska caused by an accelerated life cycle from 2
years to 1 year. New England sugar maples have been damaged by pests as
well.
* There has been a major loss of glaciers in the western United States
and Alaska, coupled with other kinds of ecosystem changes. Loss of
glaciers is not simply an iconic signal of climate change.
* Early estimates of the role of terrestrial ecosystems as a carbon
sink (through CO2 fertilization) are less than thought.
* There have been multiple observed shifts in species distribution of
both animals and plants. Examples include manatees in the Carolinas and
Mid-Atlantic and polar bear decline.
* A paper by Thomas, et al. (2004), which is the most cited paper in
environment and ecology in the last 2 years, shows that climate change
has caused changes in species and extinctions over the last 30
years.[Footnote 66]
* Die-off of pinyon pines across the southwestern United States--
magnitude of the die-off has been tied to warmer temperatures.
Cascading effects include the infestation of beetles.
* Dust storms coming out of the Great Basin impact the rate at which
snow melts during the season. Both grazing and drought are contributing
causes of dust storms and are becoming more frequent.
* There have been documented increases of net primary production in
both temperate and boreal forests related to natural factors.
* There is evidence of increased turnover rates in tropical forests.
This is considered, by some, to be an indication of some kind of
climate shift, possibly climate change. Turnover rates in undisturbed
primary forests have increased all around the world.
* There is well-documented evidence of the impacts/consequences of
permafrost thaw in Arctic ecosystems and economies.
* There is documentation of temperature-induced drought die-back in
boreal systems in Alaska and Canada.
* There has been a decline in the duration of lake and river ice cover
throughout the northern hemisphere associated with increasing
temperature.
* There has been an increase in continental runoff in North America.
* There has been an increase in shrub cover in the grasslands of
Alaska.
* There has been wetland drying in Alaska.
Question 2 and Responses:
What are the gaps in scientists' understanding of how climate change
might affect these four U.S. ecosystem types?
Participants identified the following gas in scientific understanding
of climate change effects:
* The role of elevated CO2 in mitigating temperature-induced drought
stress and die-back in forest ecosystems:
* The interactions of climate, nitrogen, and CO2:
* The ability to model and project amount, timing, and distribution of
rainfall, especially for all grasslands, scrublands, deserts, and
rangelands:
* The ability to downscale and upscale climatic predictions to a level
of specificity that is useful for resource managers (modeling at the
appropriate scale):
* Currently, much data are collected among different entities. If all
of the data that are being collected could be inventoried and put in
one place, a lot could be done with these data.
* Will federal forest lands make it easier or harder to meet some kind
of international obligations to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG). What if
federal forest lands are more susceptible to fire?
* Many questions exist about carbon sequestration.
* We need to know the direction of the net ecosystem exchange for
forests in the United States.
* The mechanisms that control the loss of atmospheric carbon (carbon
sinks) are not well-understood and carbon turnover is not well-modeled.
Models might falsely project an elevated level of carbon storage.
* There is uncertainty about the interactions among snow, groundwater,
streamflow, and vegetation in reducing flow regimes of the future. In
other words, how do these different elements of the hydrologic cycle
interact in a climate-challenged world?
* How flexible (plastic) will individual species be in adapting to
climate change? Phenotypic plasticity of species is rarely discussed in
the modeling community, but is a significant consideration in the real
world. How are these differences associated with climate gradients?
* What is the interaction of climate change and demographic changes in
assessing future vulnerability to climate change?
* Sensitivity analysis of water balance--how much precipitation is
needed, and at what timing, to balance an increase in temperature? This
coupling between terrestrial ecosystems and water resources is in the
early stages of modeling and development.
* Use the modeling technique previously mentioned to assess how
important precipitation uncertainty is given expectations about
temperature.
* Aquatic ecosystems--we are probably experiencing longer durations of
late summer, low streamflow that is degrading aquatic ecosystems, but
no papers quantifying this have been released.
* Management--how will land managers begin to address climate change
issues? It is a science issue of determining the most effective way of
addressing and coping with these changes.
* Have scientists and managers come to consensus on the criteria or
indicators of ecosystem thresholds? We need research identifying
adequate research tools so that we can identify thresholds before they
happen.
* What are the changed use patterns of federal lands? How does this
affect infrastructure? How will this affect the staffing and services
that the land management agency provides to the public? What are the
strategies for addressing these issues?
Day 2: Breakout Session Questions and Responses:
Question 1:
Given some of the potential climate-related effects on this ecosystem
described at yesterday's session, what might be the implications for
your unit, including how it is used and managed?
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Panel members provided examples of implications on various land units
based on the climate-related effects of the scientific panel:
* Lose acreage (inundation): On refuges, acreage will be lost due to
storm events in combination with sea level rise (increase in storm
surge) - Coastal plain of Louisiana (hardwood - swamp - fresh waters
marsh - barriers islands). Land is being lost in all of these. This is
a possibility for all federally managed lands that are prone to
flooding. Applies across the board (including national seashores and
other coastal assets), but may manifest differently, especially with
human development impacting the ability of species to migrate. There
are 157 coastal refuges - Atlantic and Gulf coast salt marshes are the
key ecosystem type that is threatened by sea level rise - impacts
ability to support shorebirds and other species. Models of sea level
rise identify areas that will be impacted. The United States Geological
Survey Coastal Vulnerability index and maps are a good source for this
information.
* Complete loss of low-lying islands: Islands of 1-to 3-meter elevation
may be lost. This could result in the loss of critical habitats and,
therefore, the loss of species that have no capacity for migration.
* Transition of habitat: Inundation and saltwater intrusion will cause
different species to take over or existing species to move. For
example, the pine rockland habitat community in the lower Florida Keys
is shrinking due to declines in the extent of the fresh waters lens. As
a habitat is lost, the species that live in that habitat are lost as
well. Beach erosion is also a problem for some species, such as turtles
that nest on eroding beaches. Coastal development is also putting
pressure on some habitats. Federal lands are one of the last remaining
undisturbed habitats for some species, but these refuges can only
protect fragments of ecosystems. However, development, combined with
sea level rise, impact some refuge areas (e.g., Assateague Island).
Federal lands are also a unique tool to educate the public about
habitats and species. If these lands are lost, a very valuable
educational tool will be lost.
* Saltwater intrusion into fresh waters table: Dramatic effects on low-
lying islands. For example, the only population of key deer is limited
to the lower Florida Keys because this is the only area with fresh
waters. The fresh waters lens loss is affecting species. Intrusion into
surface water as well for long periods of time changes habitats and
species that are supported.
* Loss and alteration of intertidal habitats and sessile species (such
as sponges and coral polyps): Some species cannot move, so if certain
habitats are lost, the species is lost. Some man-made structures, such
as causeways, cause considerable alteration to natural areas. For
example, Hurricane Wilma's storm surge of 6 feet led to extensive
flooding.
* Due to the broad realm of federal holdings, including holdings such
as the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), there is a great potential for
adaptive management and experiments (some are already under
way).[Footnote 67]
* Other drivers:
- Warm conditions creating low soil moisture conditions (brown marsh
events):
- What happens to recreational usage, economy, and competition for
water resources when we start to respond to climate change? Per capita
density is heaviest along the coast--this compounds the effects and the
ability to respond with management strategies.
- Climate change has not been considered in management plans. In the
Everglades, studies have found that interannual variable precipitation
is most important for the ecosystem. Far more important than the
Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan influence.[Footnote 68] If
the future is drier, the restoration plan reduces vulnerability, but
not enough to offset the impact of climate change.
- Infrastructure for ports and commerce: Engineering impacts--U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers is trying to figure out how to deal with these
issues. Dredged materials' influence on habitat.
- Much more pollution: Sea level rise and storm surges will increase
pollution along highly developed coastlines.
- Coral bleaching: There is an increasing trend in occurrence of
bleaching and related diseases. Beginning in 1978, 1980 (fish die-off),
1982 (first basin-scale bleaching event, linked with climate change
drivers), and 1997--coral bleaching has expanded geographically and
intensified each time. Inshore reefs (1990--lost 65 percent of one
species, the Fire Coral), which are more resistant to bleaching, have
started to bleach. In 2005-2006, the Virgin Islands National Park lost
one-half of its live coral cover to bleaching and disease. Sea surface
temperatures drive coral bleaching. Dissolved oxygen and light are also
important. Higher metabolic rates, lower oxygen levels, and greater
stratification are all related to temperature. Lack of wind, combined
with the previous issues, results in large problems with bleaching. The
Florida Keys and U.S. Virgin Islands reefs would provide a good case
study for this issue.
Panel members provided the following examples of potential effects of
the previous list on the value of federal lands:
* Economic impact--cultural and historical value--impact on Alaska
coastal societies and subsistence-based societies:
* Fisheries lost--subsistence economies, recreational economy, and
major component:
* Outdoor recreation activities (approximately $5 billion in National
Wildlife Refuges alone) will be impacted. Much due to waterfowl
hunting. Some of these species will be impacted.
* Coastal parks--75 million visits per year; $2.5 billion in revenues
and 57,500 jobs generated for local economies.
* Florida Keys--4 million visitors per year, resulting in 14.3 million
visitor days. Visitors to the Keys spend $1.2 billion dollars directly
while visiting. The Keys are dependent on snorkeling, scuba diving, and
fishing ($50-$70 million worth of seafood, totally dependent on a
healthy coral reef system).
* Not limited to subsistence communities. Apalachicola Bay provides 70
percent of the oysters from Florida. The economy is dominated by oyster
production, but now the economy is shifting to retirees and housing
developments. Harmful algae blooms and toxins can limit fisheries as
well as coastal development.
* According to the Department of Labor's National Ocean Economics
Program, the United States' coast accounts for more than 60 percent of
the Gross National Product. State-level data about this topic are
expected to be released (California and Florida also have studies).
Coasts drive the economy of coastal states.
* The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spends significant amounts of money
on federal activities in coastal areas. If federal activities in these
areas are factored in, they have a huge multiplier to economic and
resource effects. Between the Corps and the Department of
Transportation, much money is spent on roads and bridges, etc., so
impacts could be great.
* Not all climate-related changes are bad. For example, the Arctic may
open up, presenting some economic opportunities in the area. Also,
there may be shrimp in the Chesapeake Bay as the ecosystem changes, but
pollution problems must be resolved. Change is a given over the next 50
years, regardless of actions in changing greenhouse gas emissions.
However, changes in emissions can change the rate and extent of the
change. Adaptation is within the realm of influence for some systems.
* General loss of ecological integrity. Degrading ecological integrity.
Need to understand paleoclimatic context.
Forests Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
See Question 2 (Day 2).
Fresh Waters Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Participants identified the following potential climate-related effects
on this ecosystem:
* Change in public use and visitor patterns:
- An NPS representative said that some park visitation levels,
particularly in colder climates, have been restricted by weather
conditions, resulting in a "self-selection" of visitors, based on their
willingness to participate in water activities in cold water. Climate
change is expected to result in a change of visitor patterns and may
also result in a wider use of the land's resources and infrastructure.
As water temperatures increase, there have been more people using the
parks, sometimes in inappropriate or illegal ways. This requires
greater enforcement and rescue efforts, and may require more frequent
replacement of equipment or a change in infrastructure. Because funding
is not related to the number of visitors to a park, the change in
visitor patterns may impose an additional stress on park managers.
According to one expert commenting after completion of the workshop, if
climate change leads to substantial reduction in the abundance of
actively managed species, more-intensive management plans may need to
be developed, particularly on those federal lands where consumptive
uses are permitted (e.g., wildlife refuges).
* Cultural resources at risk:
- An NPS representative said that NPS may face challenges in preserving
many cultural resources that were previously preserved by dry
conditions (e.g., archeological resources in the desert) or cold waters
(e.g., shipwrecks in the Great Lakes). With warmer conditions and the
possibility for increased erosion, cultural resources and landscapes
may be at risk of degradation.
* Reduced supply of water during the summer season:
- A representative from the Bureau of Reclamation said that the
expected reduced summer season supply of fresh waters (due to earlier
and reduced snowmelt volumes), when demand is highest, is likely to be
exacerbated by a lower storage capacity in the winter season (due to
reservoir flood control rules being adjusted to reserve more space,
compensating for elevated snowlines and more of the upstream watershed
participating in runoff generation during threshold storm events,
according to this expert commenting after completion of the workshop).
This will likely cause an increase in the cost of water. Land managers
along the Great Lakes region expressed similar concern, saying that
lake levels may fall during dry periods, requiring dredging near docks,
extending docks, or limiting shipping routes or recreational access to
smaller vessels. Whether dredging or limiting the size of ships in the
Great Lakes, this is likely to have an adverse economic impact.
* Changed migration corridors:
- As runoff volumes and patterns change, migration corridors may open
in some areas and close in others. This migration pattern change may
necessitate additional support for local and regional wildlife, such as
the introduction of migration corridors. Managers asked fundamental
management questions, including whether particular mitigation and
adaptation strategies (such as construction of artificial migration
corridors) were necessary, and, if so, under what conditions. An FWS
manager said that it was important to also consider the risks
associated with implementing particular strategies.
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session
Responses:
Representatives of four federal land management agencies (BLM, FS, FWS,
and NPS) described some of the challenges they face on their land
types. The group generally agreed that, because all grassland and
shrubland ecosystem types are likely to change, there are going to be
cascading effects on public lands. The full group--including
participants from the previous day's discussion on impacts--further
agreed on some management-related issues that apply across all agencies
and developed the following overarching statement:
* Because all of these ecosystems will change, and there will be
cascading effects for all major land management agencies, there are
several issues of concern: (1) managers of individual management units
need to recognize that the entire system is vulnerable to vegetation
change, (2) increased coordination and strategic planning across
isolated units are needed to increase management effectiveness and
minimize ecosystem/species losses due to climate change, (3) agencies
need additional resources to address these issues, and (4) agencies
need an overall mandate and a coordinated approach to address the
climate change issue.
In addition, the group noted the following:
* Agencies cannot easily process new information due to current
bureaucratic structures. (They lack the agility to adapt quickly to new
scientific information.) Climate change will most affect federal lands
and these lands will be the reservoirs containing the species that will
populate the earth in the future. However, climate change is currently
not a priority in agencies that manage the federal lands.
The following is a summary of some of the specific concerns identified
by representatives of BLM, FS, FWS, and NPS with respect to the types
of units they manage:
BLM:
* Land cover conversions are occurring as a result of wildfire in the
Great Basin. The challenge is to reestablish sagebrush cover, which is
very difficult to do, but these cover types are critical from a habitat
and species management perspective. (The same thing is also occurring
in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts, which are losing native cover after
high-intensity wildfires, with the invasion of red brome.)[Footnote 69]
(Note: An NPS representative pointed out that this is also true for
NPS.)
* Water cycles and managing water resources on the rangelands are
issues of concern for BLM. Things are changing, but it is unclear
exactly how, and it is unclear how changes in precipitation will affect
water resources and the habitats dependent on them. (Note: An NPS
representative pointed out that this is also true for NPS.)
* Riparian areas are important on BLM lands, as they represent critical
habitats and water sources for both commercial livestock and
wildlife.[Footnote 70] Small shifts in temperature and precipitation
may cause these riparian habitats to be lost. (Note: An NPS
representative pointed out that this is also true for NPS.)
* A key BLM task, the allocation of forage resources among wildlife,
livestock, and watershed needs, may need to change if resources are
changing (i.e., if temperature and precipitation patterns change). To
date, BLM has not managed with this possibility in mind.
* The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and litigation are major
concerns for BLM. Environmental organizations are attacking BLM on how
it is dealing with climate change, but climate is not on the radar
screen as a policy issue for BLM or other agencies. Paradigm and
cultural changes are needed for agencies to be able to manage and think
about climate change; agencies need to develop processes to adapt.
(Note: An NPS representative pointed out that this is also true for
NPS.)
* If climate warms, fires may become more frequent on areas that have
not historically burned except for in very exceptional years. This will
present challenges for postfire reclamation. (Note: An NPS
representative pointed out that this is also true for NPS.)
* BLM does not manage landscapes. Rather, it manages smaller planning
units and site-specific activities. The agency needs new strategies to
manage on a landscape basis, especially in light of climate change. For
example, BLM should start looking regionally at habitat types,
fragmentation of habitats, and changes in cover types. A large-scale
vegetation map is needed. (Note: An NPS representative pointed out that
this is also true for NPS.)
FS:
* Managing habitat under severe drought conditions will be a challenge.
If droughts become more severe, how should FS manage national
grasslands? How should FS manage for changes in species and habitats
(e.g., sage grouse, other birds, mammals, etc.)?
* Reduction and loss of wooded habitats--including, to name a few,
juniper woodlands, pine woodlands, green ash, and cottonwood flood
plains--is a concern.
* The ESA obligates federal land management agencies to prevent loss of
species, yet species will inevitably shift due to climate change. The
question arises as to how to meet the intent of the ESA while also
managing for the shift in species. (If the FS mandate is to recover an
endangered species, but the systems that support that species no longer
exist, what do we do?):
* Climate change represents a moving target: What are we managing
toward, given that the historical policy has been to manage for the
status quo (i.e., policy to manage for pre-European habitats, mandates
to manage for native species)?
* Invasive species will be a major issue, particularly invasive
cheatgrass and invading bromes.
* Better regional models and multiple scenarios are needed to help in
the decision-making process.
FWS:
* Some rare prairie and savanna types are being lost at a rapid rate.
For example, oak barrens at the northern edge of the United States are
a type of dry savanna that is critical for certain threatened and
endangered species that are being lost. Some of these oak barrens
support threatened and endangered species--such as the Karner blue
butterfly, for example, which is dependent upon lupine, a plant species
that grows in the barrens.
* Phenological relationships may be threatened, especially C3 and C4
plant species composition and relationships and all fauna--both
vertebrates and invertebrates--that are associated with them.
* Species currently on the edge of the range in which they can survive
may become important as future "last survivors" of their species. This
is an issue in the dry areas of the tallgrass region, for example. New
areas may become the main part of the range. As temperature or water
availability changes, favorable habitat may shift from one geographic
area to another. For a nonmobile species, such as plants or certain
invertebrates, rare outholdings may serve as sources for repopulation
if new areas become favorable to its growth. For example, a species in
a warm, moist area of midwestern grassland that is becoming hot and dry
may cease to exist where it was previously most common. A small
population existing in a cooler area with a shorter growing season in
suboptimal conditions for the species may become the main part of the
range if that area becomes warmer, with an extended growing season.
* Riparian areas may be threatened as a result of both drought and
temperature increases. This could have implications for certain
species, such as sandhill and whooping cranes, for which water habitats
are important for migration. "Funneling points" where birds congregate
prior to migration may disappear.
* Lowland oak savannas (rare ecosystem) that occur in oxbows (a bend in
a river) and wet areas will be threatened if water disappears or if the
timing of water changes (e.g., if snowmelts come earlier). Timing,
frequency, and intensity of wildfires may also threaten these savannas
as the environment becomes drier.
* Sedge meadows (wet areas partially covered by water) and fens (rare
communities with upwellings of water and certain pH levels) may be
vulnerable. (Note: An NPS representative pointed out that this is also
true for NPS.)
* Invasive species will become a problem. In particular, there are two
kinds of invasives in tallgrass prairie areas: (1) those, such as
smooth brome and sweet clover, that are persistent but can be managed
with fire, herbicide, and mechanical means and (2) those, such as
sericia lespedeza that are specifically difficult to control, due to
deep, spreading roots and specific defense systems of the plant. If
climate becomes warmer in areas that now have cold winters and extended
periods of snow cover, and winters become shorter and warmer, a longer
growing season will develop. Invasive species that could not bloom and
make seed in shorter growing seasons will be successful in reproducing
by seed and will spread rapidly. Intensive control of these species by
chemical, mechanical, or biocontrol treatment will be necessary in new
areas. (Note: An NPS representative pointed out that this situation is
also true for NPS.)
* "Invisible" species (e.g., soil microorganisms, mychorrizal fungi,
butterflies, and other invertebrates) that are critical to ecosystem
functioning and, in some cases, for crop pollination, may become
endangered.[Footnote 71] (Note: An NPS representative pointed out that
this is also true for NPS.)
* Wildland/Urban interface issues may emerge, particularly with respect
to fire management. Rising temperatures may be associated with more
wildfires, including corn stubble fires that are difficult to put out
and that sweep across the landscape. (Incentives in the farm bill
encourage increased production of corn, so this may be a greater issue
in the future.) There are also more houses in the danger zone. (Note:
An NPS representative pointed out that this is also true for NPS.)
* It is very difficult for organizations and bureaucracies to cope with
climate change, since these bureaucracies are driven by so many
competing interests. It will take very strong direction from very high
up to get agencies to address climate change. (Note: An NPS
representative pointed out that this is also true for NPS.)
* Managers need to be aware of unknowns and cascading effects as a
result of thresholds and things of which they are as yet unaware. They
cannot manage for these things. (Note: An NPS representative pointed
out that this is also true for NPS.)
* The skills and abilities to reconstruct natural systems need to be
developed so that buffers can be developed in critical areas for
effective connection of land management areas.
* FWS has guidance for many things, such as maintaining biological
diversity and integrity, for habitat management planning, and for other
issues. However, there is no guidance on how to deal with changing
realities, such as those associated with climate change. Current FWS
plans assume a steady-state, rather than a dynamic, "moving target"
environment. The biological integrity policy directs management for
"historic conditions" (i.e., prior to European settlement). It is
unclear what FWS will do with refuges whose purposes are no longer
functional or if the conditions FWS is managing for are no longer
achievable. How should this be addressed in planning? What kinds of
lands should FWS be acquiring (or not acquiring)? (Note: An NPS
representative pointed out that this is also true for NPS, and that NPS
needs a similar translation in planning for climate change.)
* The current FWS approach to addressing climate change is ad hoc and
piecemeal. Each region deals with climate change in a different way.
There are even differing views at high levels on what the agency should
be saying. There is no agencywide assessment of what the agency is
going to do regarding current policies and practices. It may be useful
to have a systemwide approach to planning, including a plan for
strategic land acquisition. Policy development can take years, which
means the agencies may not be able to respond in an appropriate time
frame. (Note: An NPS representative pointed out that this is also true
for NPS.)
* The FWS mandate is to manage for historical landscapes with shrinking
budget and staff, but the historical landscape is not what it is going
to be in the future. Is money being put into the right places, given
expected changes? Is it even possible to save some species? Is some
form of triage necessary? What does it mean if a particular refuge's
purpose is no longer relevant? (Note: An NPS representative pointed out
that this is also true for NPS. Park managers are to "protect for
future generations."):
* Lack of baseline data is a key issue; without it, managers do not
know what they are losing and how fast. The cost of baseline data is
high. Protocols for monitoring are also needed (e.g., for monitoring
phenological changes and rate of increases of invasive species). A
mechanism for interpretation of these data is necessary for the agency
or for managers to make informed decisions about adaptive management.
(Note: An NPS representative pointed out that this is also true for
NPS.)
* Managers also need guidance and acquisition policies to maintain
connectivity among different public lands (i.e., FWS needs acquisition
policies to maintain connections and corridors between parcels that
have been separated by agriculture, etc). Again, this speaks to the
need for a cohesive land acquisition strategy that reflects climate
change projections. (Note: An NPS representative pointed out that this
is also true for NPS. While NPS may not need to acquire more land, it
may need to investigate options for providing corridors for species
movement and connectivity.)
* FWS is also unprepared for the increasing pressures of using federal
lands for other things, such as wind energy, bioenergy, pressure for
water storage, competition for water use, and development of oil and
gas resources. There will be pressure to put these installations on
different public lands (FWS, BLM, and FS). A push to put things on
private land may still affect refuges because animals that migrate
through would be affected. (Note: An NPS representative pointed out
that pressure from development is also an issue for NPS, although it is
easier for NPS to say "no" than it is for FWS.)
NPS:
* The NPS management policies address individual issues, but the agency
has no explicit guidance on climate change, except that NPS "can't
change the weather" (i.e., practice cloud-seeding.) The Park Service's
Organic Act, which created NPS and defines its mission, is very
general. There is no mention in the act of ecosystems or climate
change; the guidance to protect resources is implied.
* Because guidance in the Organic Act is implied, different managers
have different ideas on how to interpret the Park Service's Organic Act
with respect to climate change, since the act, which was created in the
early part of the 20th century, does not explicitly address climate
change. Therefore, some managers will attempt to address climate-
related issues, and others will not. In addition, each individual park
has enabling legislation that gives additional guidance along with the
Organic Act. Thus, each park has its own set of mandates based on the
type of park, and there is no single, coordinated approach. The public
approval process is also inconsistent. For example, if climate change
is mentioned in the course of the public comment process for park
general management plans, NPS addresses the issue. However, if it is
not brought up, it is not addressed.
* Since federal lands are not contiguous, and there is development
between habitat corridors, agencies could cooperate more, particularly
with respect to planning corridors for endangered species. The
Cooperative Ecosystem Study Unit (CESU) is an existing tool that has
not been fully utilized but could be utilized to conduct regional-
scale, cross-ownership boundary climate change effects.[Footnote 72]
* More adaptation is needed in the national parks. Planners should be
trained to take possible climate change into consideration. However,
this may be challenging because every park has different enabling
legislation. NPS currently sponsors a Climate-Friendly Parks initiative
with the Environmental Protection Agency. The goal of the initiative is
to educate park personnel so they can educate the public. Emissions
inventories are conducted for member parks and included in
Environmental Management Systems (EMS).[Footnote 73] The focus is on
greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, not necessarily adaptation,
although bigger culverts have been suggested for under the Going-to-
the-Sun Road at Glacier National Park to accommodate waters resulting
from faster, more concentrated melting of snow or ice, and NPS has
built portable bathhouses on some barrier islands where severe storms
and flooding are problems. Also, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was moved
in response to rising sea levels. (At the time, they called it merely
"coastal erosion, but it is also a result of sea level rise, a climate
change effect.)
Question 2:
What are the challenges, constraints, and limitations associated with
adapting to the effects of climate change for this type of federal
land?
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Panel members discussed multiple challenges facing land managers in the
coasts and oceans ecosystem in adapting to the effects of climate
change. Panel members gave the following examples of challenges based
on management guidance, planning processes, and other general
challenges and constraints:
Management Guidance:
* Wildlife refuges: Created under a variety of acts and executive
orders. Some refuges have their own enabling legislation. The Refuge
Improvement Act is one recent example in the system history that looks
beyond certain species in a more holistic manner. Refuges often have no
specific guidance. This issue is being raised more often in the
planning process. FWS briefing statements for next 5 or 6 years,
address certain places. There are rapidly developing models to project
sea level rise. Also have increased consideration of climate change in
land acquisition processes. This is driven by managers and planners.
$20-$50 million per year for land acquisition, trying to shift paradigm
inland and upland in general to catch transition zones to accommodate
marsh migration. Little support from political leadership to address
these issues comprehensively. No leadership example set in agencies to
sit down or even use specific terms in political statements.
* Marine sanctuaries: No formal guidance, but open to talking about
climate change if there are quantifiable data.
* NPS: No specific climate change-related guidance, but must base
decisions on best available science. This is based on statutory
guidance in the Thomas Bill.[Footnote 74]
* Common theme: Guidance is bottom up, not top down. It mainly comes
from constituents through the planning process.
Planning Process:
* Wildlife refuges: The public is starting to call for consideration of
climate change in the planning process. Comprehensive Conservation
Plans (CCP)--have started to address climate change impacts in more
recent plans.[Footnote 75]
* Climate change vulnerability issues have begun to get consideration
in some planning efforts. For example, collaborating with state
agencies to redefine the purposes of shellfish leasing from harvesting
to conservation and buying commercial fishing licenses.
* Marine sanctuaries: Management plans are being rewritten. Each
sanctuary has advisory councils that bring up concerns. Climate change
has been a driving factor in the Florida Keys since the early 1990s.
This process is bottom up.
* In general, the planning process is midlevel or below in the federal
government--bottom-up guidance is driven by constituents. The states
are taking the lead in some cases (e.g., California).
Challenges and Constraints:
* Some federal lands have static boundaries and, in some cases, very
specific purposes. This limits management options.
* Global changes and local impacts: On a local scale, managing
particular units, not a lot of control over the big drivers. Certain
changes will happen, such as temperature increase. Local action is
needed to manage these impacts. With big climate changes out of
management control, managers have responsibility and jurisdiction to
control the local factors that they can potentially influence. Need to
look at local management regimes in light of climate change. New
options need to be examined, such as buying upstream land or
establishing local planning boards.
* Dollar limitations: FWS land acquisition dollars have declined from
about $125 million in 1999 to $10 million more recently. This impacts
the ability of FWS to manage the lands it has, let alone buy additional
lands. Furthermore, the agency is spending more on current holdings to
expand and adjust.
* Preserving ecosystem values and services: One way to do this is to
build resiliency into current holdings by protecting areas that are
minimally impacted, and to identify additional lands--resources that
are not federally controlled, but that can be influenced through
federal interaction with other landholders.
* Institutional: There is a lack of top-down leadership. The federal
legislative branch has the opportunity to take the leadership role and
fill the vacuum. There are also impediments within agencies. Management
impediments exist between field and higher-level leadership (if any
higher-level leadership exists). Conflicting agency missions--
different agencies have different missions. Some agencies focus on
conservation, others extraction.
* Education and public buy-in (climate literacy): Most people do not
understand the long-term nature of climate and think it is too complex
to understand. When they see the "debate" they do not understand the
fundamentals and think there is actually uncertainty regarding whether
climate change exists. This does not reflect scientific consensus.
Within the scientific community, there is no debate over the reality of
climate change and its human cause. The climate change issue is not on
the public agenda. This issue needs to be posed by showing its impact
on the economy and everyday activities. Coastal community resilience
indicators and self-assessment tools are being developed to assist
coastal communities to plan for impacts. Remarkable recent change in
public awareness of climate change has occurred in some areas, but
other areas do not have much public enthusiasm about climate change.
There is an EPA study about perception, discontinuous appreciation of
the issue after Hurricane Katrina. People perceive that Katrina was
associated with climate change. This has recently led to a much greater
appreciation of climate change.
* Lack of information: The Thomas Bill requires NPS to manage resources
using the best available science. Established inventory and monitoring
networks are based on bioregions. Models and indicators are needed to
track ecology. Climate is playing a role. Local-and regional-scale
modeling of specific ecosystems, not artificial boundaries, is
important and necessary to plan appropriately. Barriers also exist with
state, local, and other land-use management agencies. When the
information is available, it is easier to designate protected areas and
preserve ecosystems. To demonstrate performance of reserves, more
information on the functioning of systems and species connectivity and
better understanding of other stressors, such as bleaching and disease,
are needed. Is leadership paying attention to the information
available?
* Shift from historic paradigm to looking to the future: For example,
should money be spent on prescribed burning to preserve pine rockland
that will not exist in 50 years? It is important to set up a system for
future managers.
* Scientific debate (endless debate after science has been established
as well): Gives decision makers a reason not to make a decision.
Adaptive management needs to take over--needs to move with the majority
of scientists, both at the management and leadership levels. For
example, out of 928 papers, none disagreed with IPCC's assessment.
Scientific debate is over; however, public debate is ongoing.
* Setting aside protected areas conflicts with economic goals: For
example, fishery extraction is limited or prohibited in protected
areas, just as timber extraction is prohibited on some terrestrial
protected areas. This raises two questions: Is there an ecological
limit to the production and consumption of goods and services? Is there
a conflict between increasing production and consumption of goods and
services (i.e., economic growth) and ecological health? If so, then
protected areas and conservation lands will be encroached upon or
degraded as long as economic growth ensues. This implies that
biological conservation and environmental protection entails
macroeconomic policy reform.
* Economy is primarily driven by fossil fuels: With fossil fuel
combustion constituting the primary source of greenhouse gases, and
with an economy that is 85 percent fossil-fueled, ceteris paribus,
economic growth entails more global warming. Does the goal of economic
growth trump the need for a stabilized climate? Does the pursuit of
economic growth, which imperils the stability of global climate,
likewise imperil future economic prospects?
* Need for an integrated approach: Climate change, land-based sources
of pollution, habitat and hydrologic alteration, invasive species, and
overfishing are the major management challenges. There is a need for
integrated approaches to deal with all of these challenges. EPA
completed a relative risk analysis of stressors across the country and
came up with the previous factors, plus invasive species, as management
challenges.
* Burden of proof to take actions: The burden is on federal land
managers to prove that conservation areas work. Land managers are
constantly defending themselves against consumer groups. For example,
protected areas are important to sustain fish harvests. Marine reserves
and limiting the taking of species ("takes") can help. In the tropics,
this is much more important to demonstrate that the reserves work. In
temperate and higher latitude areas, marine reserves and limiting takes
do not always work because of differences in ecosystem functions due to
highly mobile fish species. In tropical areas, fish are there because
of the reefs. On other fishing grounds, fish are mobile; but some
reserves have worked. This is known as spatial nature. In tropical
areas, fish are site-attached.
* Conflict between federal and state water management: About 85 percent
of existing protected waters are state waters. If resource managers can
agree on commonly held conservation goals, needs, priorities, and
threats, they will have more commonalities than differences: Oceans are
connected. We need to transcend administrative authority barriers. All
share the same threats and issues. If these were drivers of debate,
jurisdictional authority issues would go by the wayside.
* Ocean/Land interface: Improve management of land-based resources as
they relate to the coasts (coastal watersheds). Need to maintain
critical streamflows for anadromous fisheries (e.g., Sacramento River
National Wildlife Refuge for Chinook and Coastal Alaska).
Forests Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Forests ecosystem workshop participants from FWS, FS, and NPS
identified the following management challenges and constraints:
FWS:
* Climate change will demand a paradigm shift on how FWS approaches its
mission--essentially, species conservation/preservation--due to
paradigm shifts in climate regime and the related impacts on species.
* The 1997 Refuge Improvement Act directs the National Wildlife Refuge
System to "ensure that the biological integrity, diversity, and
environmental health are maintained for the benefit of present and
future generations of Americans." The impacts of climate change will
impose an enormous burden on the National Wildlife Refuge System,
depending on how "biological integrity, diversity, and environmental
health" are interpreted.
* Examples of unprecedented change abound in the Kenai National
Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, including anomalies related to fire events,
glacial retreat, tree line rise, wetland decrease, species shifts, and
insect infestations.[Footnote 76] Other wildlife refuges may face
similarly unpredictable or unexpected disturbances, so managers may
need to make preparations/plans on the basis of assumptions that are
fundamentally different from the past. The appropriate document for
managers to develop would be a CCP.
* Many National Wildlife Refuges and Waterfowl Management Areas are
inherently at risk due to small size, sensitivity (many are wetlands),
and location (i.e., coastal).
FS:
* There will be a need to revisit assumptions about regeneration,
management, and system resetting activities.
* Climate change will require a reexamination of the multitude of
fragile partnerships developed for the protection/preservation of land
use (e.g., the Northwest Partnership to secure viability of spotted owl
habitat was hindered by massive fire damage).
* Climate change will require managers to work beyond administrative
borders, so arrangements that encourage groups and organizations to
come together are needed.
* The body of legislation that regulates day-to-day management was
developed in the social context of the 1970s. Managers today are still
bound to backward-looking viewpoints, while climate change issues loom
tomorrow.
* Of the major ongoing fire management activities, some are not being
developed with climate change or long-term monitoring in mind. For
example, LANDFIRE, an interagency project generated by the 2000
National Fire Plan, does not address monitoring effectively and does
not incorporate the concepts of climate change.
NPS:
* Climate change may cause NPS to reexamine its role in view of its
fundamental mission, which in part involves "conserving wildlife and
historic objects for future generations."
* Climate change will affect the ability of NPS to fulfill its mandate
to preserve certain species, which may not be able to migrate away and,
therefore, will face die-off.
* Climate change will challenge NPS's ability to achieve some broad
mission goals, such as maintaining visitation levels and preserving
cultural resources, in view of increased climate variability, such as
storms, floods, fires, and extreme heat and cold.
* Climate change will challenge NPS's ability to manage insect
outbreaks and invasive species events.
Common Challenges:
* Federal land systems are fixed on the landscape, while climate has no
boundaries, posing challenges for managing an administrative unit that
does not move with the climate.
* In some cases, policies and laws, geared toward responding to events
as they occur, constrain the ability of managers to incorporate
anticipated events into planning and to incorporate climate change
within the context of natural diversity.
* Managers lack risk assessment or approaches that allow for the
inclusion of climate change and demographic change in planning
activities.
* Political pressure to do something, regardless of whether it is
likely to be effective in reducing the actual risk or whether it was
appropriate for that system, can be a challenge.
* Defining "natural variability" by looking at snapshots of the past is
not appropriate; regardless, the future will be different, whether it
is considered "natural" or not; no accurate predictions exist; and
preparing for the future in the face of this uncertainty is
challenging.
* Climate change effects will exacerbate other environmental stresses
and already existing problems.
* There is some degree of disconnect about the nature of agencies'
mandates with respect to climate change and, accordingly, differences
in the interpretation and implementation of such guidance at the
management level.
* Managers operate in an administrative environment that is highly
fragmented. Stakeholders include FS as well as landowners, state
agencies, and industry. Climate change effects span large areas,
creating problems that defy remedy along administrative lines. No one
has all the information, which punctuates the importance of having
infrastructure in place to develop a shared vision of issues and
solutions.
* The social interface between research and management is lacking. For
example, social factors play an important role in determining which
fires are suppressed and which are not. Although researchers may
provide rational, scientifically based recommendations to managers,
legal and social constraints may take precedence.
Fresh Waters Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
fresh waters ecosystem workshop participants identified the following
management challenges and constraints:
* Various water rights laws create problems.
- According to a USGS scientist, certain western water allocations and
rights were established during a relatively wet period in the history
of the United States (the wettest 15-year period in the history of the
United States). As water resources become scarce, and competing demands
increase, NPS and FWS land managers face pressure regarding use of
water resources, and several of the land managers expressed concern
over whether enough water resources would be set aside for ecosystem
functions. An FWS land manager said that the agency has a very limited
ability to convincingly state water requirements to protect fish
habitat and aquatic ecosystems. Land managers believed that competing
demands for water resources are largest in areas of rapid development,
such as Las Vegas, Nevada. Other water-stressed areas include
groundwater reserves under parts of Nebraska and Kansas. Land managers
believed that a collaborative effort to equitably assign water rights
was necessary, otherwise public lands would suffer. Some suggested that
the Congress should reassess the mandates regarding water allocation.
- A USGS representative said that it will be increasingly difficult to
obtain hydrologic information from USGS because funding for the
agency's stream gauging network and hydrological data is being
eliminated. According to the USGS representative commenting after
completion of the workshop, many core monitoring efforts are being
reduced unless USGS can find funding through other, nonagency budget
means. A NPS representative believed that the eastern United States
already faces water challenges, and that human demand for water puts
added strain on eastern aquatic ecosystems.
In addition to complexities associated with various water laws and a
dearth of hydrologic data, managers face reduced management options if
interrelated water supply systems are affected, and increased
complexity regarding mitigation of protracted droughts or reservoir
spills.
* Organic Acts and some statutory requirements are explicitly vague.
- NPS is asked to manage land such that it is "unimpaired for the
enjoyment of future generations," and FS is required to manage in order
to maintain "favorable conditions of flow." An FS scientist explained
that it is difficult to manage flow regimes with respect to a historic
range or variability because of the added stress associated with
climate change and increased demand for water resources. Many land
managers believed that the mandates are vaguely written and not
specific to ecological preservation. An FWS land manager said that land
managers react based on statutory requirements, which presumably
reflect human societal values; however, other land managers believed
that the general public and the Congress do not have a clear
understanding of the purpose of the federal lands.
* Management planning horizons and climate change are on different
timescales.
- NPS and FWS officials said that planning can be difficult with so
much uncertainty about future climate conditions. Accountability
structures that have emerged over the past decade are very short term
in nature. For example, land managers are typically accountable for
things on a year-to-year time frame, and "long-term" planning horizons
are commonly just 10 to 15 years. An FWS land manager explained that he
is required to create a general management plan on a 15-year planning
horizon, which he believed was too short for incorporating management
practices for addressing long-term climate change, although he also
believed that decisions beyond the 10-to 15-year time frame would be
very speculative. An NPS superintendent suggested that management plans
may help address this timing issue by including a section on long-range
issues expected beyond the time frame of the plan. For example, long-
term planning in coastal areas will need to consider rising sea levels,
and consider whether the management decisions being made today are also
relevant for the future. This will require adaptability and will
require that each management agency consider how climate change may
affect its mission in the long term.
* Land management has historically been intuitive.
- Because climate is expected to change more rapidly than in the past,
managers will have a difficult time making assumptions about future
conditions to justify anticipatory land management practices, and any
assumptions will have to be justifiable. Managers believed that land
management has historically been intuitive, and they expressed concern
over their ability to react quickly if they were to reach a threshold
and experience a relatively quick, dramatic change. Land managers cited
the example of the whooping crane, whose population decreased to such a
low level in the past that FWS had to embark on an intensive program of
management. The agency is improving models to help determine
continental population objectives to help make management decisions.
* Political hazards are associated with discussing climate change.
- Land managers and scientists believed that it is not politically
profitable to talk about climate change. An FWS representative said
that climate change impacts are not explicitly addressed in agency
strategic plans, but may occur at a unit level, for example in the
Kenai or Blackwater National Wildlife Refuges' management plans. An NPS
representative agreed, saying that the agency may discuss "sea level
rise" rather than referring directly to climate change. NPS has decided
to talk about the effect of climate change, such as the sustainability
of parks, and has implemented programs, such as "Climate Friendly
Parks," to mitigate those effects.
Participants generally stated that land managers have to accept the
notion of climate change in order to develop a recovery plan. For
example, regarding the polar bear, land managers must decide whether to
list the species under the ESA, based on what is likely to happen to
the species as a result of climate change.
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session:
Grasslands and shrublands ecosystem workshop participants identified
the following management challenges and constraints:
BLM:
* BLM does not have any policy from the national office to the field
offices on dealing with climate change. The only offices that are
having to address climate-related issues are probably in Alaska,
dealing with NEPA environmental impact statements on oil and gas
leases. (Note: An NPS representative pointed out that this is also true
for NPS.)
* A possible entree for bringing up climate change might be through
updates of the agency's planning guidance. BLM-wide monitoring policy
might be another way to address for climate change, even though climate
change is not mentioned directly in those documents. (Note: An NPS
representative pointed out that this is also true for NPS.)
* BLM field offices address their situation with respect to current
climate conditions. However, they are trying to weave in some
flexibility through the concept of adaptive management so decisions can
be adjusted in response to changing conditions. It might be possible to
use scenario-building, in which the agency looks at different scenarios
to help prepare for various possible outcomes. However, BLM does not
have much predictive modeling capability, although it might be possible
to contract with universities (or use the CESU tool) to acquire this
expertise. (Note: An NPS representative pointed out that this is also
true for NPS.)
* BLM has been involved in seed-banking for about 5 or 6 years through
its fire rehab program. The agency collects native seeds for this
purpose, and some of the seeds go to a botanical garden for
storage.[Footnote 77]
FS:
* There is no real direction trickling down of guidance from the FS
Chief's level. FS talks about sustainability but does not discuss
climate change per se.
* One of the barriers to managing for climate change on national
grasslands is that some FS lands are intermingled with private or state
lands. Therefore, even if FS buys off on climate change, it is
necessary to have the private landowners on board and in agreement.
Being able to manage a system with the fragmented ownership and
landscapes is a challenge; it is difficult to impart an understanding
of what climate change means to private landowners and having them
believe it.
* The way the public involvement process works on multiple-use federal
lands can really complicate discussions like adaptive management. There
is a general mistrust in some circles of FS use of the adaptive
management concept.
* Another challenge is that the process for planning is outpaced by the
speed of scientific information coming in. Science is coming down the
pike faster than it can be processed. The agency will start its
planning process, and new information will come in that cannot be
addressed because the planning process will not allow for it.
* Land management planning is complicated by this country's litigious
society. Certain groups are able to obtain scientific information and
sue the agency for taking or not taking certain actions; these groups
can sue quicker than an agency can incorporate new science.
* FS may recognize that climate change is important, but the agency
does not see it as urgent. A demonstration of urgency might make the
agency view the issue as a priority.
FWS:
* Lack of staff and funding and the overall downward trend in support
for conservation make it difficult for FWS managers to even maintain
the status quo in terms of the work that needs to be done. (Note: An
NPS representative pointed out that this is also true for NPS.)
* Seed-banking could be one adaptation option, but presently there is
no direction from supervisors to do it. (Note: An NPS representative
pointed out that this is also true for NPS.)
Question 3:
What land management practices or approaches to planning may be
considered when responding to the effects of climate change?
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Panel members provided examples of steps that can be taken in land
management planning that are important to consider in order to better
respond to the effects of climate change:
* Planning for resilience on a large scale: Set relatively undisturbed
areas aside to limit impacts. Identify more resilient communities to
help preserve them for the future. Marine reserves are a promising
management tool for adapting to climate change by managing for
resilience. Remove the effects of fishing as a stressor. For example,
Australia set aside one-third of reefs as protected areas. Showcase
Marine Protected Areas[Footnote 78] that are multiagency (state and
federal) state partnerships as "poster children" to decision makers.
Such partnerships can demonstrate the effects of reserves.
* Best practices: National Association of Counties, etc., to adopt best
practices for lands management. Look at the past and the future.
Prioritize investment of resources on habitats that may be impacted in
the future. Consider the past, but plan for the future.
* Needed: A coastal manager's guide to climate change similar to A Reef
Manager's Guide to Coral Bleaching,[Footnote 79] a 2006 report on ways
that local managers can help make coral systems more resilient to
manage stresses during bleaching events and plan for future bleaching
events. Workshops and training courses are in development. Managers
need a coastal land manager's guide and training course for how to plan
for, adapt to, and mitigate climate change on federal holdings.
* National Estuarine Research Reserve Conceptual Models: Climate change
is important, but not the only thing that is important. Climate change
creates multiple stressors, but other stressors also affect the coastal
system. Emphasize cumulative stressors within the ecosystem management
context. Plan needs to be in context with other stressors. Integrate
watershed-level planning with coastal management adaptation.
* Manage fishing and its impacts on marine and coastal environments:
* ESA critical habitat designations: Can prevent extinctions and
provides land acquisition authority for the National Wildlife Refuge
System.
* Legislation to create refuges: Use the following as a model to
protect marine areas: wildlife (ecosystem services) first, wildlife-
dependent public uses, where appropriate, based on compatibility
assessments. Using the management paradigm of limiting fishes in order
to limit commercial harvests. Other agencies have different missions.
Need regional demonstration projects.
* Natural capital banking: Optimize the ratio of natural capital
existing in a state of ecological integrity to the ratio of
manufactured capital and consumer goods that flow from the stock of
natural capital. Create a balanced account to optimize the public
welfare. What about things that cannot easily be measured economically?
Resource economists are working on this--need improved methodologies
for valuing ecological services.
* Cooperative conservation approach: Beyond government jurisdiction--
adopt a seamless approach for managing coastal zones and marine waters
that allows for adaptation to climate change (migration, etc.) Need to
include public, private landowners, and interested constituents. Manage
the greater ecosystem. Also need this approach for monitoring programs.
* Restore hydrology and wetlands functioning: This can be done, for
example, by constructing weirs (small dams) and increasing the land's
capacity to adapt to changes. Learn about anticipated future conditions
and build/remove infrastructure as necessary. Remove ditches, roads,
etc., as necessary. "Retreat" (i.e., moving man-made structures) is an
option.
* Change incentives for building in high-risk areas, for example, by
mapping erosion zones. Higher resolution coastal mapping of flood,
erosion, other high-risk zones. Offer tax incentives for conservation
easements or to move to different areas? In North Carolina, people can
be reimbursed for destroyed coastal property, but the property will
then be placed in public hands. Rolling easements (past example: Upton-
Jones Amendment).[Footnote 80] In Louisiana, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency has provided funds to wetland mitigation projects for
storm protection. This program should be expanded beyond wetlands.
Mitigation pays 4:1 across the country, but 7:1 in coastal areas. The
cost of adapting now would be less than paying later.
- There is a tremendous lack of investment in adaptation at this time,
but investment in the future may change this ratio. We may not be able
to spend our way out of this problem.
* Florida coastal control line: Line drawn around the boundaries where
overwash is expected. Setback lines in combination with building
requirements and permitting in areas at risk. For example, the Maryland
Critical Areas Act is intended to stop eutrophication of the bay with
setbacks, but serves a similar purpose. These concepts should be
enhanced using scientifically based lines.
* Florida water management districts: Management boundaries are based
on watershed boundaries. These districts have taxation authority.
Boundaries are contiguous with natural boundaries, allowing the
districts to address watershed-scale issues.
* United Kingdom Climate Impacts Program: Good model for what can be
done at a national and local level to enhance adaptive capacity. This
program provides a Web site [hyperlink, http://www.ukcip.org.uk/] and a
monthly newsletter, and each political subdivision in the United
Kingdom has a devoted team to help people adapt in all sectors. One
potential suggestion to the Congress: Create a Climate Impacts Office,
which would be distinct from Climate Change Science Program and the
Climate Change Technology Program, and create a climate change
extension program in every county.
* Coastal Barriers Resources Act: Private lands are demarcated as
relatively immune to development. Delivery of the program is
problematic due to top-down approach. This is a half-hearted fix to the
problem.
* Work with insurance and financial industry to construct incentives
for mitigation and adaptation. Need to also focus on what could be, not
just what has already happened. Also need to include incentives for
other coastal areas at risk, including New York, etc.
* Need to build a community of practice. Expand the community of
practice, such as local land trusts, and expand influence.
Forests Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Workshop participants contributed the following ideas with regard to
management options for addressing or mitigating climate change effects:
* A monitoring strategy that is affordable and reflective of some of
the key vital signs of forests is needed to inform management
decisions.
* One approach is to conduct vulnerability assessments to identify
characteristics associated with species loss, and to pay special
attention to those species most threatened.
* The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has launched the Long-Term
Ecological Monitoring Program in cooperation with FS's Forest Inventory
and Analysis Program, in which vegetation data are coupled with
wildlife sampling to produce a spatial explicit, comprehensive species
inventory. The program has already resulted in the identification of
new species to science and the modeling of species distributions.
* The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge also helped launched the Alaska
Landscape Cumulative Effects Simulator, a stock-and-flow model to which
several stakeholders--public, private, and nonprofit agents, and other
communities and groups--contribute. The main objective of the simulator
is to provide a strategic-level land planning tool by identifying and
examining landscape change drivers, including climate change, in the
context of other management issues to provide an effective strategic
land planning tool.
* What is needed is a national data repository and a separate Bureau of
Statistics to provide a holistic portrayal of the status of the
landscape. This will facilitate collaboration and address the issue
that the sum of local level choices may result in a suboptimal or
counterproductive aggregate outcome. In one instance, individual agency
actions resulted in threatening the spotted owl in the Pacific
Northwest. A holistic view also will address the issue that, although
information is abundant, much of it is not comparable or compatible.
Some did not agree with this approach.
* While research needs to be conducted iteratively over time to reach a
level of certainty, managers need information in real time to make
decisions. The needs gap may be closed by using better communication
tools.
* FS tools developed for broad-scale application do not have capability
at the species level, which managers would like. Developing such high-
resolution models should be a research goal.
* One approach to scenario modeling is to use it to convey
possibilities to the public, to change expectations and alleviate
pressure on land managers, which provides more freedom to make the
correct decision.
* The concept of moral hazard, the idea that climate change is
inevitable, should not be used as a reason for inaction.
* The question of where to invest resources has been ignored. Should a
billion dollars be put toward trying to slow the rate of climate
change, fending off its effects, or adapting?
* Five basic management strategies are being submitted for
consideration in an upcoming paper: (1) reduce GHGs by sequestering
carbon, (2) resist climate change by legislating that the landscape
remain as it has been historically (this approach is increasing in cost
and is likely doomed to fail), (3) create resilient landscapes that can
revert to their previous state after a disturbance, (4) respond to
climate change by anticipating change and seizing opportunities, and
(5) conduct triage by acknowledging priorities in conservation efforts
(this approach would be legislatively challenging).
* There is a need for an agreed-upon suite of indicators that address
social, economic, and ecological vital signs of the sustainability of
forest lands. The research community can help identify such indicators
by leveraging ongoing developmental systems, such as the Sustainable
Forest Roundtable process.
* FS is testing a program that utilizes a combination of high-elevation
aircraft and helicopters to produce low-cost imagery at a half-a-meter
resolution that can be linked to models and indicator systems, thereby
providing scalability.
* The nation's satellite system currently is not equipped to improve
the problem of out-of-date National Forest land cover information.
There is no operational commitment to conduct regular reporting on the
actual state of land cover. It will be at least 5 to 7 years before 30-
meter resolution data become available.
* Land managers are heavily dependent on technology platforms for
information, but as technology changes continuity and reliability
become a serious issue; there is a need for better integration of
existing inventory monitoring programs that are scaled at the landscape
level.
* The Healthy Forest Restoration Act has brought people together to
manage fuel treatment strategically, rather than on an acre-by-acre
basis.
* An ecological risk assessment framework, in which a desired outcome
is identified and trade-offs discussed with stakeholders, is better
than a "support-this-but-not-that" triage approach, which limits
options and discussion.
Fresh Waters Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Land managers had some difficulty in identifying management practices
for specifically addressing the effects of climate change. They said
they are likely to draw on historic practices, although the frequency
of the use of each practice may change. In general, they saw
opportunities for public outreach and collaboration across federal
agencies.
* Opportunity for public outreach and education:
- Managers of federal lands said that the federal lands with visitor
centers provided an opportunity for people to learn about the benefits
that protected areas provide to the public. A USGS official said that
several USGS employees were told explicitly not to interpret climate
trends for the public, but NPS officials said that they had more
latitude for public outreach and education as part of the park
interpretive experience. The management structure at each park has
flexibility to include public outreach efforts, and workshop
participants said that each park should take advantage of this. Land
managers said that the Congress should mandate that parks incorporate
public outreach and education as a low-cost, effective part of
management practices. Participants also said that land management
agencies should jointly fund facility investments and minimize energy
use.
* Use of historic record for planning:
- A scientist from USGS suggested that land managers look at
paleostudies, including the National Tree Ring Database, to understand
past climate variability and hydrologic responses. Because some
ecosystems have already gone through analogous changes as are expected
with climate change, land managers can learn from past periods of
drought during the past several hundred years. If severe droughts of
the past are becoming the "norm" of the future, land managers should
address this in management plans. The scientist believed that the
historic record may be a better planning tool than current general
circulation models, since many of the climate models are poor
predictors of precipitation.
* Collaboration among federal land management agencies:
- A representative from NPS said that BLM has fragmented landscapes and
migration corridors because of a mandate requiring the agency to
expedite energy development. Panelists generally agreed that this could
have been avoided, if BLM were required to cooperate with other federal
land management agencies as part of the energy development efforts.
- Panelists further identified "economies of scale," including examples
where it is more efficient for agencies to work together. They cited
the National Interagency Fire Center as a successful model of incident
management (e.g., fire suppression).[Footnote 81] Although an FWS
representative said that collaboration among agencies can be
inefficient, since agencies have differing missions and priorities.
However, the panelists generally agreed that the agencies have some
common interests with respect to climate change, which may necessitate
the need for fire protection, cooperative snow surveys, groundwater
data collection, regional model development, and data collection and
dissemination, in general. An FS representative believed that USGS has
a clear role to support agencies' need for water resource (hydrology)
data, and to coordinate and share information. He believed that USGS
was developed to address emerging needs and issues, but this function
has recently been outsourced. For example, approximately 28 percent of
USGS stream gauges have been eliminated over the past decade, and the
current USGS long-term monitoring and research function is a user-pay,
client-based system that is less useful than many university-level
efforts.
- Panelists generally agreed that monitoring and research functions
related to climate change are inherently governmental functions,
because of the need for national-scale data that must be beyond the
range of a single appropriations cycle or contract period.
* Physically manipulate the environment:
- Although land managers discussed the possibility of physically
managing and manipulating an animal habitat to maintain species health
in a location where the environment would no longer naturally support
the species (presumably due to changed water availability), this option
was not viewed as optimal because it may require considerable
infrastructure investments.
* Reevaluate the concept of ecological succession:
- Experts believed that climate change impacts will result in species
shifts, and may require a paradigm shift in the way that land managers
think about and react to invasive species. For example, invasive
species in a particular region may become the norm under a new climate
regime. When treated as an invasive species, rather than part of
natural ecological succession, there is a tendency to make value
judgments (based on an ecological response, rate of disturbance, etc.)
and fight against the species. Land managers considered what control of
invasive species is likely to resemble in the future, and the degree to
which managers should continue to manage (against) invasive species. An
FS representative believed that land managers need to throw out the
idea of what species should and should not be on a landscape, because
the world (of pandemics, microbes, and seed dispersal) is changing
faster than any other time in (documented) history.
* Development of adaptive management strategies:
- Managers generally agreed that the current management structure on
federal lands does not provide the flexibility needed to mitigate or
adapt to climate change impacts. Land management plans generally cover
a 10-to 15-year time frame, although some managers considered whether
they should also be looking at a 50-year time frame, and how to handle
the uncertainty associated with long-term climate effects and planning.
- FWS managers and others believed that an adaptive, or anticipatory,
style of management and decision making would be necessary to reflect
learning that takes place over time (e.g., with respect to climate
change and ecological responses). This would require managers to state
assumptions regarding the future conditions of a system and manage on
the basis of those assumptions. The assumptions can later be verified
against observational data and used for improving regional models.
- According to participants, a good adaptive management framework
should involve a clear set of assumptions, which are checked against
real, observed situations. For example, if a resource manager must make
productive habitat for wintering populations of endangered whooping
cranes, he or she should do this on the basis of assumptions of what
the landscape will look like 5, 10, and 15 years in the future.
Although this style of management is not specifically managing for
climate change, it helps an agency meet its mission (i.e., protecting
species habitat).
- Some panelists believed that they currently lack a clear
understanding of the baseline from which to adapt, because they lack
adequate scientific information about their management area. However,
they thought it would be useful (to the Congress) if agencies would
state their assumptions about what they expect their areas to look like
in the future and how that is likely to affect visitation, employment,
and economic resources of these areas.
- FWS has a successful adaptive management model for migratory birds
that is highly driven by climate considerations, such as the
availability and timing of water in prairie pothole regions. An FWS
representative said that the model is transferable, and that the agency
is moving toward adaptive management in many of its program areas.
* Possible modification of agency mission or management statutes:
- Land managers expressed concern that climate change might present
such a large challenge that an agency may face difficulty in fulfilling
its mission. They considered ways of incorporating climate change into
a management process and believed that agencies may need to consider
changing land management practices (FS, NPS) as a potential means of
mitigating effects of climate change. For example, FS may consider
managing in a way to specifically free up water supplies.
* Build public-private partnerships for environmental stewardship:
- An FWS representative spoke about the possibility for public-private
partnerships between federal land managers and private energy companies
wanting to purchase carbon credits by planting trees. For example, FWS
reforested 3 to 4 million acres in the lower Mississippi valley in the
past few years, at the expense of the private sector. This partnership
helped FWS to meet its goal of habitat restoration and provision of a
recreation area, and the industry met its goal of carbon sequestration
(carbon credits).
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session
Responses:
The group's responses to this question, in the general order discussed,
are below:
* Conduct seed-banking (storing seeds of endangered plant species for
later planting).
* Educate agency staff and the public on the significance of federal
lands and how climate change might affect these lands (internal and
external outreach).
* "Protect what you can"--that is, manage current stresses, such as
invasive species, pests, and pathogens, because climate change will
only make these worse.
* Analyze and synthesize existing information on the effects of climate
change on federal lands in each ecoregion. Make a list of the lands
that will likely be impacted by climate change in 25 to 100 years under
various kinds of scenarios.
* Improve coordination among land agencies; interconnectivity needs to
be explicitly valued where management goals could be combined to ensure
sustainability. (Connect smaller land parcels to create a region of a
size that enables the resilience of species. Strategic land easements
or purchases could create larger corridors.)
* Adopt adaptive management scenario planning (contingency planning)
for climate change.
* Quantify the following:
- the most adverse and significant effects under Question 2, and the
effects on the most vulnerable areas identified under Question 4, and:
- the reduction in the flows of goods and services due to climate
changes.
* Take action at the highest levels of government to integrate climate
change into planning and decision making at all federal land management
agencies. Improve coordination among agencies on management for climate
change, leading to a concerted national approach (following the model
of the interdepartmental Coral Reef Task Force or the Invasive Species
Task Force).[Footnote 82]
* Conduct baseline inventories of species on federal lands to determine
their type and health. Periodically repeat monitoring on a scale that
can provide feedback on changes. Have a method of interpretation that
can allow managers/decision makers to develop effective land management
and connectivity strategies.
* Find a specific and tangible "success story" for each agency that
shows that the federal land management community is making progress to
help get some traction for the climate change issue.
Question 4:
What is the most important type of information (research, monitoring/
measurement) needed to better understand, prepare for, and address the
effects of climate change? What resources will be needed?
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Land management panel members agreed with the information needs
identified with the scientific panel. See Day 1, Question 5.
Forests Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Forests ecosystem workshop participants identified the following as
information and/or research needed to better understand and prepare for
the potential climate change effects on forest ecosystems:
* Information related to biology and biogeography of forest pests and
pathogens--factors that cause life cycles to accelerate, interactions
with natural enemies, and phenology of infestation outbreaks:
* Interactions between disturbance events and monitoring of forest
establishment after disturbances, especially the potential for forest
composition to change substantially:
* Information on water balance, related to temperature-induced drought
thresholds:
* Remote sensing, especially from LANDSAT and Geostationary Operational
Environmental Satellite platforms that provide indicators of seasonal
to interannual stress--particularly with regard to fire and other
disturbance phenomena--and related to this, a family of models that are
based on actual land cover--not potential vegetation--and that are more
closely integrated with decision-making models and that are spatially
relevant at the 30-to 100-meter level:
* High-elevation monitoring of climate, soil moisture, and streamflow:
* Monitoring and assessment of the amount of residual aquifer
groundwater available throughout the country:
* Stream gauging network needs to be improved:
* Optimize monitoring systems for early impacts:
* Ecological studies of all the species likely to be engaged in
responding to climate change. (One expert disagreed with this
approach.)
* Role of CO2 in water balance, vegetation density, ecosystem water-use
efficiency, and the role of elevated CO2 in ecosystem carbon storage:
* Identification of thresholds and susceptible areas for fires in the
future, including a map of where future events may occur:
* Information regarding the direct effects of CO2 and increases in
primary productivity; experimentation that manipulates CO2, ozone, and
N levels:
* Data on the impact of high CO2 levels on root turnover rates:
* A set of high-level indicators of forest health, including average
temperature, precipitation, distribution, timing, and dieback:
* Tune NEON for ability to detect ecological responses to climate
change:
* Monitoring information that integrates extreme events:
* Research how people perceive the relative risk of climate change
compared with federal land resources:
* Phenology-monitoring network that ensures federal lands are
appropriately integrated:
Fresh Waters Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session Responses:
Fresh waters ecosystem workshop participants identified the following
as information and/or research needed to better understand and prepare
for potential climate change effects on fresh waters ecosystem:
* Need for better understanding of current anthropogenic stressors:
* Stream systems in the west are managed for other purposes in ways
that are likely to "trump" climate change effects that we anticipate
(e.g., dams out west create a wide range of flow). Human-induced
changes may "swamp" climate change effects--how should our water
management practices be changed, if at all, in light of climate change?
An NPS representative said that millions of dollars are spent on
infrastructure on federal lands, but asked whether federal land
managers are adequately addressing the effects that climate change
might have on these investments in the future. Panelists suggested that
the Congress may want to consider requiring that climate change be
considered in environmental impact analyses (environmental impact
statements, environmental assessments, etc.) required under NEPA. This
could be mandated by changes in the regulations promulgated by the
Council on Environmental Quality. One official commenting after
completion of the workshop said that this sentiment was directed at
proposed projects requiring an environmental impact statement where (1)
climate is significant in the project's context and (2) the look-ahead
horizon is long enough where significant climate change is projected to
occur. This official said that federal agencies plan projects where
NEPA is required but conditions (1) and/or (2) are not met.
* Need for better understanding of current ecological stressors:
- Existing ecological problems, such as fires, invasive species, and
nitrogen deposition, may be exacerbated by climate change.
- The panelists believed that a "model-based" capacity to think about
ecological succession would be helpful in making management decisions.
* Develop a national-scale program to establish linkage between water
availability and ecological demand:
- A national-scale program to establish ecological flows for rivers and
wetlands would provide a knowledge base with the ability to respond to
management questions--for example, regarding the amount of water needed
to protect particular species, the (seasonal) timing of the water
demand, and the relationship between water flow (availability) and
demand. This would provide a science-based system for making management
decisions regarding surface water-flow variability and the ecological
response.
- Workshop participants explained that the NEON network is dedicated to
the study of phenology, or the interaction between climate and
biological systems. They strongly advocated for the creation of a
national phenology network dedicated to observing and recording "on-
the-ground" changes over time and sharing those observations with other
resource managers. One expert commenting after completion of the
workshop said that NEON has not actually been established yet, and that
other observatory networks, including the Critical Zone Observatory
network and the Hydrologic Observatory network are also in the works.
According to this expert, all of these networks are still in the
"request for proposal" phase (with NEON being out in front) and all are
highly vulnerable to lack of funding in the NSF budget. Another expert
commenting after the completion of the workshop wanted to make clear
that NEON and the national phenology network are not one and the same.
The expert said that some of the same scientists are involved, but the
two networks would be separately funded and managed.
* Establish consistent data collection, management, and storage and
access standards:
- Several federal agencies collect ecological data, each with its own
data quality standards. Workshop participants recommended that existing
data be cleaned up and formatted uniformly, and that current and
ongoing data collection efforts be standardized. Participants
acknowledged that some data may be useful to a wide range of agencies,
while other data may be agency-specific. They suggested that a
monitoring program be developed to collect data on "vital signs" (of
ecosystem health). An expert commenting after completion of the
workshop said investment in data translation tools designed to make
data sharing easier was a better idea than enforcing some uniform data
format. This expert said that encouraging data sharing preserves agency-
centric creativity and control when it comes to information management,
and that requiring a specific data format would be a bad idea, forcing
many agencies to change their information management structure.
Furthermore, the expert said that requiring a standard format would
likely cost more than encouraging the development of information
sharing tools using existing data formats.
* Need for regional climate models:
- Experts generally agreed that climate projection methods must be
improved and that regional climate projections with accurate
temperature and precipitation projections, rather than global-scale
projections, would be helpful in more accurately identifying (and
planning for) the likely effects of climate change. Federal land
managers believed that phenological records, or documented ecological
responses to changes in environmental conditions, would complement
regional models and would be helpful in better understanding the
relationship between projected climate change and plausible ecological
responses. Although FWS collects some phenological information, it does
not currently have a system to compile this information and make it
readily accessible to answer questions about species' tolerance for
seasonal shifts and any other possible limiting interactions.
Participants agreed that hydrological and ecological models are needed
to couple these systems with climate models at a scale that supports
land management decision making.
* Guidance for incorporating climate change into management plans is
needed:
- Most managers did not know how to build climate change into the
management process, but believed that there is the need to do so. They
identified the need for direction or guidance on how to incorporate
climate change into management plans, and what set of tools may be
useful in addressing climate change.
* Need for financial support:
- An NPS representative referred to a previous GAO report when
discussing the "decimation" of NPS's operating budget. He said that NPS
has less money to fulfill its mission, and that it is difficult to
assign additional resources to long-term problems, like climate change,
when performance is evaluated on an annual basis.
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem Workshop Breakout Session
Responses:
The group's responses to this question, in the general order discussed,
are as follows:
* Need information on what will happen in specific regions. In
particular, information is needed on flora, invertebrates, soil
conditions, surface water, and groundwater. (It is very likely that
this will not require new research, but rather a synthesis of
information that already exists. The information needs to be packaged
for a local land manager to be able to see what the global change means
for him or her at the local level.)
* Managers need to better understand how the management actions of
today will interact with climate change so they will know how their
actions will affect either the climate itself or exacerbate the impacts
of climate change.
* Need better information on temperature and precipitation changes from
which models can be developed. Or vice versa--managers need better
models to anticipate the temperature and precipitation change.
* Need better guidance at all levels on the effects and impacts of
climate change and the appropriate agency responses to those impacts.
Sometimes the appropriate response is to do nothing. The genius is
knowing when that is.
Day 2: Afternoon Plenary Session:
At the end of the second day, GAO Director John Stephenson convened a
plenary session in which he asked all participants for ideas, from big
to small, that might be of interest to the Congress. Suggestions could
include ideas for future hearings or specific items of legislation that
might be constraining managers' ability to act. Below are the
suggestions that came out of this plenary session.
Workshop Participants' Suggestions for the Congress:
* Consider the poor condition of the civilian satellite program. This
program is to the point that continuity of basic earth observation is
on the verge of failing.
* Examine the current body of legislation that constrains natural
resource managers to manage lands/waters with respect to historical
conditions (rather than in light of conditions that may be very
different in the future). Review and possibly revisit specific acts as
appropriate.
* Examine prescribed fire fuel management policies. Spatial, budget,
and temporal targets are too narrowly defined. Land managers cannot
shift resources from one area to another to meet immediate needs.
* Explore Canada's national park system as a model. Parks Canada has a
very explicit ecological integrity mandate. Specifically, the Congress
should add guidance to give NPS a mandate for ecological integrity,
along the lines of what Parks Canada has (but do not reopen the NPS
Organic Act).
* The Council on Environmental Quality should provide guidance that
federal agencies should consider climate change in analyzing proposed
actions in environmental documents.
* The NEPA process can be a hindrance in managing for climate change.
NEPA requirements begin when an agency takes action, so there is an
incentive for agencies not to take action because NEPA costs agencies
money.
* The Congress should empower the Council on Environmental Quality, or
a special committee, to develop a multiscale monitoring and evaluation
framework (National Indicator Initiative) that could be used in
existing planning efforts at the regional level. Then, these indicators
should be migrated into the respective mission statements of affected
federal agencies. For example, FS would deal with indicators for
forests and rangeland information would be dealt with by BLM or the
Natural Resources Conservation Service. Information from shared
indicators that are common across the landscape would be aggregated for
all to use.
* The Congress should establish a Bureau of Environmental Statistics
and a central environmental data repository to be used by agencies,
universities, etc.
* The Congress should enforce Title II of NEPA, which requires the
administration to submit to the Congress a report on the status and
trends of the nation's resources, the foreseeable trends in impacts,
and the adequacy for filling the human and economic requirements along
with remedies for deficiencies in resources.
* The Congress should request and fund a report detailing climate
change on all federal lands. What are the impacts likely to be for all
federal lands? People will then have a clear idea what scientists and
land managers are talking about when there is information available
about "their" federal lands. (That is, the Congress should request and
fund an effort similar to the Millennium Ecosystem Reports.)[Footnote
83]
* Develop a metric that builds on the Bureau of Economic Affairs'
accounting efforts to capture the value of maintaining natural capital.
There needs to be a supplementary way to account for the value that
natural system services and flow of ecological services provide (i.e.,
develop a federal environmental accounting initiative). This can help
managers identify what is being lost as a result of climate change.
* Many land management policies and regulations operate under the
assumption that federal land managers manage on their own lands only
(and that the effects of land management are confined to those lands).
Climate change should be managed at the regional scale or above.
Statutory authority and incentives are needed to work outside and
beyond individual lands for the common goal of adaptation. The Southern
Appalachian Biosphere Reserve is an example of such an arrangement.
Some statutory authority to make such arrangements would be useful. The
structure of the national fire centers and multiagency, collocated
budget directors is also useful.
* There needs to be a cross-agency, cross-governmental assessment of
the capability of our current EMS. How effective are current networks
for measuring and predicting climate change? This network needs to be
optimized to collect and analyze data that are relevant to climate
change.
* Federal land managers need legislative direction to account for
climate change when making land management decisions.
* NOAA needs an Organic Act; this act should include language requiring
direction on managing lands in anticipation of climate change.
* The Congress should promote planning at the highest level of the
executive branch that recognizes the potential impacts of climate
change and promotes integrated, cross-agency approaches to addressing
these impacts, including a functional review of the current legal and
policy frameworks that drive land management decisions.
* The Congress should direct and provide funds for federal land
managers to develop prototype management documents on how to address
climate change in the immediate future.
* Land managers need the ability to forecast the effects of climate
change on their lands. The United States needs better short-term
general circulation model forecasts. Land managers also need the
ability to forecast natural resources' response to climate change.
* Land management agencies need to reconcile their divergent missions.
(Note: Another panelist thought this was a bad recommendation, and that
the land management agencies should continue to embrace their different
missions but come together to address the impacts of climate change.)
* The moderator of the coasts and oceans breakout session referred GAO
to her group's answers to Day 2, Question 3 of the workshop notes.
* Develop climate impacts offices at the county level (or through
extension programs), based on the United Kingdom's climate impacts
program. Each office in the United Kingdom's program has a Web site, a
monthly newsletter, and a staff that helps stakeholders deal with
climate change.
* The Congress and federal agencies should encourage on-the-ground
entrepreneurship and creativity to address climate-related problems.
These kinds of creative responses can then "bubble up" through
management.
* The Congress should authorize the preparation of a "Stern Report"
that focuses on the United States. (The Stern Report is a 700-page
report released on October 30, 2006, in Britain, stating, among other
things, that climate change will cause tremendous economic and social
disruption.)
* The Congress should fund an objective assessment of the conflicts and
outcomes of the Healthy Forests initiative.
* A mechanism to raise the visibility of climate change among the
American people is needed. In particular, the constituents of the most
politically powerful Members of Congress should be alerted to the
potential negative effects of climate change--and not just on federal
lands.
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Four Case Study Profiles:
Coasts and Oceans Ecosystem: The Florida Keys National Marine
Sanctuary:
Site Characteristics:
We selected the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, managed by
NOAA, as our coasts and oceans case study. The sanctuary is part of the
south Florida ecosystem. The coasts and oceans ecosystem, according to
the Heinz Center, includes habitats such as coastal wetlands, coral
reefs, seagrass meadows, shellfish beds, and ocean waters as far as 200
miles from the U.S. shoreline. The south Florida ecosystem consists of
a mosaic of subtropical habitats connected and sustained by water.
The sanctuary is home to coral reef systems that are part of a marine
ecosystem, including a variety of plants and animals. The sanctuary's
extensive nursery areas, feeding grounds, and spawning grounds support
a multimillion dollar commercial fishing industry that lands nearly 20
million pounds of seafood and marine products annually. Approximately 4
million visitors come to the nearby Florida Keys each year, providing
tourist revenue and economic benefit to the region. FWS manages four
National Wildlife Refuges in the Florida Keys. These refuges are
located within the boundaries of the Florida Keys National Marine
Sanctuary but are separate and distinct units from the sanctuary and
managed under different authorities and mandates. One of these refuges,
the National Key Deer Wildlife Refuge, is home to 22 federally listed
endangered and threatened species, 5 of which are found nowhere else in
the world. (The other three Keys refuges within the sanctuary's
boundaries are Crocodile Lake, Great White Heron, and Key West).
National Key Deer and the other refuges were established to provide
habitat and protection for threatened fish, wildlife, and plants. The
refuges also protect globally imperiled habitat, including pine
rockland and tropical hardwood hammock.
The sanctuary's ecosystem is also closely linked to other south Florida
ecosystems, including those of the Everglades and the Dry Tortugas
National Parks. North of the Keys, the Everglades provides drinking
water for 5 million people and supports a diverse range of flora and
fauna, including 14 endangered species. Each year, more than 1 million
visitors come to the Everglades National Park, managed by NPS,
contributing to the region's $13 billion annual tourism industry. Dry
Tortugas National Park, which is situated more than 70 miles west of
Key West, is also under the jurisdiction of NPS and includes a cluster
of 7 coral reef and sand islands.
The three agencies managing these federal units--FWS, NOAA, and NPS--
coordinate with one another in managing their resources. For example,
FWS and NPS assisted NOAA in the development of the comprehensive
management plan for the sanctuary. These federal agencies also
coordinate with certain state agencies, universities, and NGOs.
Climate Change Effects:
Sanctuary scientists told us that climate change may increase sea water
temperatures in the area of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
and may cause sea levels to rise. Climate change could have a range of
ecological effects as warming sea temperatures could harm coral reefs,
which are the foundation of rich marine ecosystems in the area, and
rising sea levels could threaten low-lying animal and plant species.
Officials also told us that climate change could result in increased
storm activity, which could threaten humans as well as plant and animal
species. Furthermore, officials noted that the ecological effects
brought on by climate change could have a negative impact on the
economic and social goods and services supported by the South Florida
ecosystem.
NOAA officials told us that climate change has already contributed to
the degradation of coral reefs, the key component of the complex marine
ecosystems that support the Florida Keys' ecology and economy.
According to NOAA scientists, if the climate--and sea temperature--
warm, the reefs could be increasingly vulnerable to coral bleaching, a
stress response that occurs when the corals expel the algae that live
within the coral tissues and give the healthy corals their color.
Bleaching, which turns the corals white, has affected the sanctuary
with increasing frequency. Corals can recover from bleaching events if
the stress is not too severe and long-lasting, but the stress on corals
caused by coral bleaching has led to secondary problems, such as coral
diseases. The corals are first stressed by the conditions that lead to
coral bleaching, which is directly related to increased sea surface
temperatures, and then afterward may succumb to a variety of coral
diseases. A NOAA scientist told us that, as a result of climate change
and seawater temperature increases, coral reefs could bleach every
year, starting around midcentury. NOAA officials stated that climate-
related factors, in conjunction with other environmental factors that
stress the ecosystem, such as pollution, disease, and overfishing, may
make coral reefs increasingly vulnerable to bleaching and degradation.
Many other species in the surrounding marine ecosystem, such as fish
and crustaceans that depend on the reefs for food or shelter, may be
threatened by widespread bleaching. Officials stated that, in the long
term, the deterioration of coral reefs and the attendant loss of
biodiversity could be "devastating."
A University of Miami scientist who has been studying coral reefs and
climate change for 11 years told us that coral reefs are also
vulnerable to ocean acidification, which occurs when increased carbon
dioxide levels decrease carbonate ion in the seawater; carbonate ion is
a substance that corals need to build their skeletons. By 2050,
carbonate ion could be 34 percent less abundant, according to this
scientist.
FWS officials told us that various habitats found on the Keys Wildlife
Refuges may be vulnerable to climate-related changes and other factors
that stress the environment. These officials stated that endangered
species, such as the Key deer and Lower Keys marsh rabbit, may have
greater difficulty surviving as a result. In addition, rising sea
levels and increased storm surges after hurricanes that may result from
climate change can cause saltwater intrusion on land, which can
overwhelm sources of fresh waters that support the ecosystem's plant
and animal life. Increasing salinity can change where fire occurs as
well as the distribution of species, according to FWS officials.
FWS officials said that increased storm activity that may result from
climate change will pose a threat not only to humans on the low-lying
islands, but also to many animals--including sea turtles--which may
find it difficult to lay eggs on eroded beaches. NPS officials pointed
out that hurricanes, exacerbated by higher sea levels, will do more
damage if they become more frequent as a result of climate change. An
NPS official indicated that eight major hurricanes occurred in a 14-
month period in 2004 and 2005, something that had not occurred in at
least the previous 100 years.
NPS officials told us that the low-lying Everglades ecosystem is
particularly vulnerable to potential sea level rise because portions of
the park are currently just a few feet above sea level. These officials
indicated that the ocean front is already encroaching further inland,
pushing the salt content higher in border areas and traditionally fresh
waters areas, a concern because many fresh waters species cannot
tolerate increased salinity. NPS officials noted that increased
saltwater intrusion will affect the endangered Florida manatee, a fresh
waters species, as well as the crocodile, which flourishes in brackish
water. Wading birds are also vulnerable to such changes, since as
salinity increases, their key food source--fish--also decreases. Other
species, such as shrimp, blue crab, and spiny lobster, are likewise
affected by salinity.
NOAA managers told us that the South Florida economies that depend on
the reefs to support such activities as snorkeling, diving, and
tourism, may be adversely affected by coral bleaching. Other economic
activities, such as fishing as well as cultural resources, including
Native American artifacts and historic buildings, may also be
vulnerable, according to NPS officials. For example, Fort Jefferson,
the 170-year-old military fort on Dry Tortugas National Park, could be
severely damaged by increased frequency and intensity of hurricanes and
sea level rise. Similarly, shipwrecks and other submerged artifacts
valued by divers could be harmed. According to an NPS official, there
may be over 1,000 shipwrecks located around the Dry Tortugas National
Park.
Management Challenges:
Managers with whom we spoke from all three agencies near the Florida
Keys National Marine Sanctuary face some common climate change-related
management challenges. For example, these managers said that they lack
information about climate change, suggesting that making decisions in
the face of uncertainty is difficult. NOAA managers stated that
determining specific relationships between climate and its effects
against a complex background of other interactive environmental
stressors is nearly impossible. Therefore, prioritizing where and how
to focus conservation efforts remains difficult. NOAA officials also
noted that they currently lack adequate modeling and scientific
information that would enable managers to predict change on a small
scale, such as that occurring at the sanctuary. FWS officials stated
that more research is needed in a number of areas, including acres lost
to sea level rise. In addition, more monitoring of water levels, water
salinity, fauna, and vegetation--especially indicator vegetation
(plants that provide clues as to overall ecosystem health)--is needed.
Furthermore, an NPS manager said that more information is needed to
reduce uncertainty on the expected rate of sea level rise.
Another common concern expressed by these managers is a lack of climate-
related guidance from their agencies' headquarters. NOAA managers, for
example, indicated that the agency has no specific guidance on how to
address the effects climate change, and that most of their guidance is
focused on meeting the many daily challenges they face, such as
designating no-boating or no-fishing zones to protect sensitive areas.
FWS officials commented that, although climate change is embedded in
general discussions on ecological issues, it is not explicitly
addressed; there is little or no guidance specifically on climate
change. According to an NPS official, how to interpret limited guidance
and deciding what, if anything, to do about the effects of climate
change is difficult. Nonetheless, overall management authority is broad
and gives managers some flexibility to act as they believe appropriate
to protect the resources under their jurisdiction.
Officials also noted a number of planning and resource challenges to
addressing the effects of climate change on their land and water units.
FWS and NPS officials indicated that they operate in the context of a
10-to 20-year planning process, but that they would need at least 50
years to adapt to climate-related effects. They stated that it is
unclear how to account for such a long-term issue within a short-term
planning horizon. FWS officials also stated that FWS budgets are being
cut, and that biologist positions are being lost. NPS officials said
that funding reductions and loss of research stations pose challenges
to conducting the research necessary for appropriate decision making
relating to climate change issues.
NOAA officials indicated that the limitation that the agency places on
discussing climate change is a significant challenge to addressing
climate-related issues. NOAA officials stated that the agency's control
of the message on climate change is rigid, and that, in general, the
agency prefers to focus on more immediate concerns. NOAA officials
further said options to address climate change at a local level are
limited and reactive; the issue must be addressed at a national and
global level. Likewise, NPS staff stated that, to address the effects
of climate change, it is necessary to address the source--greenhouse
gas emissions--at a national and international level.
Forests Ecosystem: The Chugach National Forest:
Site Characteristics:
We selected the Chugach National Forest in south-central Alaska as our
forests ecosystem case study. According to the Heinz Center, the
forests ecosystem consists of land areas of 1 acre or more that are at
least 10 percent covered by trees. This includes areas in which trees
are intermingled with other cover and both naturally regenerating
forests and areas planted for future harvest.
The Chugach--the nation's second largest national forest--covers
approximately 5.5 million acres. The Chugach is a contiguous,
interconnected unit, which also includes private, state, and other
federal land. It encompasses a wide variety of habitats that support
over 232 vertebrate species, including brown bear, lynx, moose, wolf,
and wolverine populations. However, only about 18 percent of the land
area is forest vegetation and approximately 35 percent of the area is
covered by perennial snow and ice. The Chugach has three distinct
geographic areas: the Kenai Peninsula region (21 percent of the land
area); the Prince William Sound region (48 percent of the land area);
and the Copper River Delta region (31 percent of the land area).
Southeast of Anchorage, the Chugach is a recreation area for activities
such as fishing, wildlife-viewing, and hiking and receives
approximately 8 million recreation visits per year. The Chugach also
serves as a primary resource for subsistence hunting, fishing,
trapping, and gathering activities for many south-central Alaskan
residents. Furthermore, the forest also supports extraction activities,
including mining.
The Chugach is located next to or near several other land units,
including the Chugach State Park, Kenai Fjords National Park, and the
Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The Chugach's staff, therefore,
coordinates with multiple stakeholders in managing the forest,
including FWS, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, and several
Alaska native corporations.
Effects of Climate Change:
The Chugach scientists and managers described a variety of changes
currently affecting the lands they manage that may be attributable to
climate change. In this regard, they attributed a number of changes in
the forest ecosystem, at least in part, to the warming and drying of
the climate on the Kenai Peninsula area of the forest. For example, the
peninsula has been the center of a spruce bark beetle outbreak that has
killed large numbers of Sitka, White, and Lutz spruce trees on 4
million acres in south-central Alaska. In lowland areas of the
peninsula, lake levels have declined by as much as 1 meter, and many
ponds documented in aerial photographs from the 1950s are now grassy
areas with spruce and hardwood trees. In the Kenai Mountains, the tree
line has risen an average of 1 meter per year during the past 5
decades. Furthermore, many glaciers in the region have been retreating
since the 1850s, but the pace has greatly accelerated in recent years
in response to a warming and drying climate. For example, one large ice
field in the Kenai Peninsula has lost 70 vertical feet and 5 percent in
surface area in the last 50 years. As they have continued to melt and
recede, the runoff from many glaciers has created glacial lakes, which
capture glacial sediment and decrease the amount of sediment going into
glacial rivers. As a result, the rivers are transforming from glacial,
multiple channel systems to single channel meandering systems that can
have considerable impacts on fish habitat, riparian and floodplain
vegetation, and water quality. Officials at the Chugach also told us
that they have observed an increase in the frequency of severe storm
events, along with a seeming increase in lightning strikes and fires
caused by lightning in recent years.
In addition to changes that the region is already experiencing,
managers and scientists told us that they were concerned about a
variety of potential effects from climate change that may impact the
Chugach in the future. For example, although invasive species have not
been a problem to date in most of Alaska, occurrences of invasive
species could increase in response to disturbances associated with
climate change, according to these officials. Furthermore, as habitats
shift, sensitive and rare species could be adversely affected.
Hydrological changes resulting from climate change could affect salmon
fisheries and spawning habitat. Although the impacts are not yet known,
climate change could affect tourism and recreation activities in the
region, according to the Chugach officials. For example, any changes in
snow cover will affect the mix of motorized versus nonmotorized
vehicles permitted on forest land. In addition, tourism and property
could be negatively affected by more frequent extreme events that may
result from climate change, such as wildfires.
Management Challenges:
Managers from both the Chugach National Forest and the Alaska Regional
Office of FS told us that they were unaware of any requirements for or
guidance on considering climate change in their planning and management
efforts. Furthermore, due to budgetary constraints, managers at the
Chugach said they have little flexibility to address the effects of
climate change because climate change activities have, to date, not
been funded in annual budgets. Alaska Regional Office officials added
that once the budget is set by FS headquarters, individual land units
do not have the flexibility to modify funding priorities.
Chugach managers also told us, however, that they can respond to the
effects of climate change, but that their responses are reactive and
not predictive. However, they stated that they would face difficulty
basing management decisions on forward-looking projections about the
potential effects of climate change because of the lack of reliable
models of future conditions in the forest. This lack of information
makes it difficult to anticipate potential effects caused by climate
change. However, these officials noted that better modeling and
communication about risks could help them better anticipate changes.
Finally, Chugach officials told us that because climate change is a
global issue, individual forests cannot effectively address climate
change in a piecemeal manner. Officials with whom we met stated that
any strategy to address climate change needs to be integrated across
broad landscapes, not individual forests. These officials said that
they hoped that the National Forest system will develop a method to
monitor climate change effects on a large scale.
Fresh Waters Ecosystem: Glacier National Park:
Site Characteristics:
We selected Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana near the
Canadian border as our fresh waters case study. The fresh waters
ecosystem, according to the Heinz Center, consists of streams, rivers,
lakes, ponds, reservoirs, fresh waters wetlands, groundwater, and
riparian (riverbank) areas. Water sources such as glaciers and
snowfields in mountain systems, according to park officials, are also
considered to be part of the fresh waters ecosystem.
Encompassing more than 1 million acres, the park features forests,
alpine meadows, mountains, glaciers, rivers, streams, and lakes. It is
home to a number of endangered and threatened species, including bald
eagles, bull trout, gray wolves, and grizzly bears. In recent years,
approximately 2 million people visited the park annually. According to
an estimate from the early 1990s, once the Going-to-the-Sun Road, one
of the park's main attractions, opens in the spring, the daily economic
benefit of the park to the surrounding region would be $1.1 million;
today this figure would probably be considerably more, according to
NPS.
Bordering the park are the Flathead and Lewis and Clark National
Forests, managed by FS. NPS and FS cooperate on regional activities,
such as wildland fire and river management. FWS also participates in
the management of some wildlife resources within the park's boundaries.
NPS also coordinates with USGS, which has a field research station in
the park, and various Canadian organizations that oversee resources
north of the U.S. border.
Climate Change Effects:
A USGS scientist told us that the average temperature in western
Montana has increased over the past century. While the northern
hemisphere has warmed 0.6 degree Celsius during that period, the
mountainous areas of the park have warmed 1.6 degree Celsius. Spring,
measured by such indicators as point of maximum snow melt, initiation
of first melt, and water level, is coming 3 weeks earlier now compared
with the historical average. In addition, a USGS scientist mentioned
that the area may be affected by extreme weather events caused by
climate change. For example, forests of the intermountain west and
Glacier National Park become more vulnerable to fire due to evaporative
stress (drying) when more consecutive days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit
are experienced. Since the early 20TH century, Glacier (and western
Montana) has gone from an average of 5 to approximately 20 days per
year above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, with 2003 setting the record at 31
days. In addition to causing moisture stress in plants and increasing
fire hazards, the increasing number of extremely hot days poses
substantial human health risks, especially in regions that historically
do not have air-conditioning. USGS officials also told us that physical
features of the park, such as glaciers and snowpack, as well as
ecological features, such as streams, forests, and alpine meadows--all
of which provide habitat for a large number of species--are vulnerable
to the effects of climate change. Some park infrastructure, such as
roads, campgrounds, and trails, may also be vulnerable if warmer
winters lead to more snow avalanches, landslides, and flooding.
According to USGS scientists, 70 to 80 percent of the western United
States' drinking water comes from mountains. An NPS official stated
that in the park region, precipitation patterns are changing, such that
there is more rain in winter and less snow, causing winter streamflow
to increase. Accordingly, snowpack has decreased by more than 30
percent. Officials explained that, with less snow and warmer winters,
the timing of spring runoff can be up to 20 days earlier than in the
past. Park officials expect the park to continue to receive less snow
in winter on average, with more rain and midwinter melting of snowpack.
Summers in the park are expected to be drier, especially later in the
season, and stream flow probably will continue to be lower than normal
in late summer. Scientists stated that some mountain streams will
become ephemeral (short-lived), and that the overall ability of the
system to provide fresh waters to aquatic and downstream communities
will likely decrease. In addition, these scientists said that, as
precipitation patterns and streamflow change, the structure and
function of river communities will be stressed, possibly causing the
loss of species diversity. This, in turn, could have negative
consequences for the downstream communities--both natural and human--
that those species support.
A USGS scientist informed us that, since 1850, the number of glaciers
within the park has dropped from 150 to 26, and that current trends in
the rate of glacial melting in the park suggest the remaining glaciers
will be gone in the next 25 to 30 years. According to scientists with
whom we spoke, the loss of glaciers is symbolic of the overall changes
to the natural systems in the park, including the water cycle and water
temperatures.
NPS officials told us that the increasing number and severity of storms
and lightning that may result from climate change may cause more forest
fires, while more dead vegetation and drier conditions late in the
season may feed larger, more intense wildland fires. An official also
said that warmer temperatures and more severe drought may increase the
risk that insects and diseases will harm already stressed trees.
Greater disturbances to the park's natural systems will place native
plants and animals under greater stress, and invasive (nonnative)
species may be able to get a firmer hold and spread more easily, out-
competing native species. According to an NPS official, warmer
temperatures are expected to negatively affect mountain aquatic
organisms, including insect larvae, which are an important part of the
food chain as well as fish species, such as bull trout, that thrive in
cold water. An NPS official explained that organisms that cannot
migrate upstream to colder temperatures will not survive.
An NPS scientist noted that climate change is expected to cause
vegetation in the park to migrate uphill in many places, where it is
cooler, changing the ground cover in many areas of the park and
affecting wildlife species that depend on those habitats. An official
said that as alpine habitats warm, trees are expected to move upslope
into areas that are currently treeless. Forests are already beginning
to invade alpine and subalpine meadows. (Alpine refers to the zone
consisting of slopes above the timberline and characterized by, among
other things, the presence of low, shrubby, slow-growing woody plants.)
These officials added that several animal species may be negatively
affected by the loss of alpine and subalpine habitat, including bighorn
sheep, grizzly bears, mountain goats, and wolverines. They observed
that because many rare plants and animals in the park are living at the
edge of their range, climate change may cause some of these species in
the park to die off. Officials noted that the park has already been
afflicted by a mountain pine beetle infestation. This insect has
decimated large areas of forest, owing to an increased vitality that
has been linked, in part, to warmer temperatures.
Park and USGS officials are concerned that warmer winters resulting
from climate change may lead to more avalanches and to more winter
flooding, which will threaten park infrastructure. For example, they
told us that there may be an increase in the frequency of heavy
rainfall on snow cover, which can cause severe floods. According to
these officials, if this happens, trails would need to be modified to
meet such conditions, and the greater potential for weather-related
infrastructure damage will require more maintenance and improvements.
In addition, climate change might result in a longer park visitation
season as spring comes earlier and winter comes later; this would place
additional demands on park resources. For example, they said that there
would be pressure for roads and facilities to stay open longer, which
will require more staff and resources. These officials also said that
if more fires occur, the visitor experience could be diminished by
reduced air quality or limited access to fire-ravaged areas of the
park, and the park and local communities could lose revenue from
visitation. For example, in 2003, the Going-to-the-Sun Road was shut
down for 23 days due to fire. Officials also noted that fires divert
park and FS staff from their regular duties.
Management Challenges:
Resource managers from FS, NPS, and USGS told us that they face several
challenges in addressing climate change, including limited funds,
insufficient monitoring capability, the lack of baseline information,
competing priorities, the need to involve surrounding communities, and
the inability at the local level to make a significant impact on a
global issue, among others.
NPS and USGS officials stated that monitoring systems--programs that
monitor the health of various park plants, animals, and physical
features--within the park are insufficient due to lack of funding. For
example, USGS, which has provided much of the monitoring effort for the
park in the past, has closed down about 28 percent of stream gauges
nationally. An NPS official noted that, while legislation directs NPS
to conduct and use research to support resource management decisions,
programs to support their efforts, and the efforts of their other
federal partners, have suffered from incomplete or partial funding due
to budget shortfalls. The NPS Inventory and Monitoring program was
developed to address managers' needs for better scientific information
about park resources. Although one of the goals of the Inventory and
Monitoring program is to create baseline inventories of basic
biological and geophysical natural resources, NPS officials stated they
do not have sufficient baseline information, and the program is not
comprehensive enough to meet all of their information needs. In
addition, because no systematic monitoring of species currently exists,
it is very difficult to determine which species are at risk, determine
the health of the species' populations, and develop early warning
systems to predict specific effects of climate change.
According to Glacier National Park officials, a number of issues may
compete with climate change for priority in receiving resources and
attention. These issues include the impacts of a proposed upstream coal
mine in Canada, a request from a railroad to trigger avalanches with
explosives inside the park, the proliferation of noxious weeds, the
deterioration of park infrastructure, and urban encroachment along the
park's borders.
An NPS official expressed concern that high growth rates in the
surrounding community may exacerbate some of the impacts of climate
change on park resources. One of the ways in which plant and animal
populations might adapt to climate change is to migrate as conditions
change. For migration to occur, migration corridors must be connected
to other regions. As development and land-use pressures increase on
neighboring lands, these corridors will disappear, which may limit the
ability of park ecosystems to adapt, according to an NPS official.
NPS officials emphasized that since climate change is a global issue,
little can be done to stem the problem of climate change within the
park, other than to respond, to the limited extent possible, to the
symptoms of climate change through activities such as prescribing
burns, reducing vegetation that may serve as kindling for forest fires,
or controlling noxious weeds. However, park officials said that they
are trying to address climate change--to the extent possible--by, among
other actions, setting a good example in reducing the park's own
greenhouse gas emissions. For example, they told us that the park is
participating in the Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Friendly
Parks program, which focuses on reducing parks' greenhouse gas
emissions. The park also has an Environmental Management Plan that
includes a number of energy efficiency and renewable energy
initiatives. In addition, the park requires the concessioners that run
businesses in the park to abide by certain environmental requirements,
some of which affect greenhouse gas emissions.
NPS officials also told us that there is currently no explicit guidance
from NPS headquarters on addressing climate change, and that no funding
or resources have been allocated directly to the issue. In addition, an
NPS staff member felt that it would be useful for the park to produce a
formal written position on climate change to further clarify the park's
stance on the science and impacts and to outline a communication
strategy for discussing the issue. NPS staff also indicated that one of
the greatest values of parks such as Glacier may be in informing
visitors about the potential of climate change to disrupt natural
ecosystems and decrease the benefits that these systems provide to
human society.
Grasslands and Shrublands Ecosystem: Bureau of Land Management Kingman
Field Office, Arizona:
Site Characteristics:
We selected the land managed by the BLM Kingman Field Office, Arizona,
as our grasslands and shrublands ecosystem case study. According to the
Heinz Center, the grasslands and shrublands ecosystem comprises lands
in which the dominant vegetation is grasses and other nonwoody
vegetation, or where shrubs are the norm. Bare-rock deserts, alpine
meadows, and Arctic tundra are included in this system as well. Also
included are some pastures and haylands, which represent an overlap
with the farmland system.
The field office manages approximately 2.6 million acres of public land
in northwestern Arizona, including portions of the Sonoran Desert,
Mojave Desert, Colorado Plateau, and six different mountain ranges.
This land unit is home to a variety of wildlife, including the largest
desert bighorn sheep population in the world, the desert tortoise, and
several other threatened and endangered species. The land unit receives
approximately 540,000 visitors per year for a variety of recreational
activities, such as camping, hunting, hiking, bird-watching, and all-
terrain-vehicle 4-wheeling. It also supports economic activity through
multiple types of resource extraction, most notably livestock grazing
and sand, gravel, gold, and copper mining. In managing this land unit,
the field office staff coordinates with several other agencies that
manage adjacent land units. These agencies include FWS, NPS, the
Arizona Game and Fish Department, and others.
Effects of Climate Change:
In our meetings and site visits, officials described a variety of
changes currently affecting the lands they manage at the BLM Kingman
Field Office that may be attributable to climate change. For example,
the officials said that a prolonged drought in the region had likely
resulted in high mortality rates of old growth pinyon pine trees, most
notably those located on south-facing mountain slopes as well as some
ponderosa pines and chaparral. Ponderosa bark beetle and mistletoe
infestations had also acted as stressors, contributing to the die-off
of ponderosa pines.
Furthermore, according to field office staff, drought conditions in the
region are causing desert scrub plant communities to convert into
annual grassland communities, which are more vulnerable to fire. They
said that this phenomenon has contributed to problems related to fire
management. Prolonged drought acts as a stressor to native plant
communities. Then, in periods of wetness, invasive species (typically,
invasive annual grasses) fill in the gaps between native vegetation.
Invasive species can spread and grow faster than native species. As a
result, the thicker and less-evenly spaced vegetation leads to fire
danger. If a fire starts, it burns much longer and hotter due to the
invasive grasses. Native plant communities, such as saguaro cacti and
Joshua trees are not fire resistant, so fire damages these communities
and provides further environment for invasive species and increased
fire danger. In some instances, according to officials, repeated fires
of this nature have destroyed native plant communities, such that only
invasive grasslands remain. A severe drought occurred in 2002 that
resulted in the loss of perennial grass, shrubs, and trees. This
drought, coupled with increased annual growth in wet years, accelerated
conversion of hot deserts plant communities into annual grasslands.
Should continued severe drought become the norm, this conversion can be
expected to continue.
The drier climatic conditions experienced in the region have created a
list of vulnerable species and natural systems on land managed by the
field office. For example, BLM scientists and resource managers told us
that continuing dry conditions will likely cause changes in vegetation
composition and species populations. They also said that dry conditions
increase soil erosion; decrease plant productivity, resulting in less
forage for cattle; decrease wildlife species abundance and diversity;
decrease habitats for certain endangered species; reduce water flows in
creeks and rivers; and dry up natural springs, leading to reduced water
availability for wildlife (including wild burros), livestock, and
riparian (riverbank) plant communities. With less precipitation, there
would also be less groundwater recharge, potentially creating a
situation where groundwater removal could exceed its replenishment.
Management Challenges:
BLM Kingman Field Office managers with whom we met told us that they
were unaware of any requirements or guidance for how to consider
climate change in their planning and management efforts. In addition,
field office staff said that climate change is not a priority, as
partially evidenced by the fact that climate change-related activities
have not been included in agency budgets. They further said that they
evaluate priorities on a year-by-year basis, due to resource
constraints. Because of these constraints, the field office is
necessarily only addressing the highest priority issues, leaving many
other issues untouched.
Another management challenge facing the field office is that much of
the land it oversees is situated in a "checkerboard" pattern of land
plots, alternating between public and private ownership. This pattern
is primarily due to the system of railroad land grants, in which the
federal government gave the companies land parcels to encourage
railroad development in the region.[Footnote 84] The alternating
pattern of land ownership makes managing these parcels for habitat
protection purposes very difficult. BLM can face public resistance when
making land management decisions. For example, fire closures that
restrict access to certain areas of land leads to public complaints.
Land managed by the field office is also under stress due to the high
level of development of lands adjacent to BLM land that has taken place
over the past several years.
Furthermore, field office officials told us that they have adequate
management tools, such as reducing grazing-use levels, to reduce the
impacts of climate change. However, they said they must show a clear
pattern of historical data to make decisions or they risk opening
themselves to litigation. These managers added that they would likely
face challenges and opposition if they based their management actions
on theoretical projections. Therefore, the managers stated that they
were unsure whether they could base management actions on projected
changes that may be brought about by climate change. In addition, they
stated that climate change, because of its large scale, is difficult to
deal with on the local level. That is, although they might be able to
react to the effects of climate change on the land they manage, they
are not able to control changes in the atmosphere or greater climatic
patterns.
[End of section]
Appendix V: Comments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (FS):
United States Department of Agriculture:
Forest Services:
1400 Independence Avenue, SW:
Department of Service Office Washington, DC 20250:
File Code: 1420:
Date: July 10, 2007:
John Stephenson:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:
Government Accountability Office:
441 G Street, NW:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Mr. Stephenson:
Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) draft report # GAO-07-863, "Climate Change
– Agencies Should Develop Guidance for Addressing the Effects on
Federal Land and Water Resource." The Forest Service generally agrees
with the audit recommendations. However, we believe this report does
not adequately capture the scope or urgency of the agency's commitment
to climate change mitigation, adaptation, and research.
Climate change continues to be a priority for the Forest Service. As
stated in the Forest Service 2004-2008 Strategic Plan, "The Forest
Service and its partners in land stewardship must address complex
issues involving ecosystem health, biological diversity, invasive
species, climate change, habitat fragmentation, and loss of open
space." Through implementation of the strategic plan, Forest Service
field managers address the effects of climate change by managing for
resilient ecosystems that sustain the production of public goods and
services in the face of uncertain future conditions.
While we appreciate the effort to gamer a field perspective, an
examination of one national forest is inadequate to use as a proxy for
an agency that manages diverse ecosystems across 193 million acres for
multiple objectives. The draft report is correct in asserting that the
Chugach National Forest does not specifically address climate change in
their existing Forest Plan, which was revised in 2002. However, a
broader evaluation would have revealed that 12 National Forest Plans
specifically consider the effects of climate change on existing
programs and local resource values. Moreover, forest plans are revised
every 10-15 years to incorporate new scientific information and
management strategies. Climate change mitigation and adaptation
strategies will continue to be included in future revisions. The Four
Threats to the Health of the Nation's Forests and Grasslands (Four
Threats) are a messaging tool to disseminate the strategic vision of
the agency. The draft report notes that climate change is not listed as
one of the Four Threats. However, the Four Threats emphasize two
immediate consequences of climate change for land management agencies:
forest fire and invasive species. The draft report rightfully gives
substantial weight to invasive species and increased fire danger as
dramatic effects made worse by climate change. It fails to address the
effects on resources people care about such as clean water and wildlife
habitat. It also fails to recognize the nexus between strategic
planning and messaging efforts, like the Four Threats. Therefore,
managing for climate change need not always be called "managing for
climate Mr. John Stephenson, Director, NRE, GAO 2 change." For land
management agencies, it is much more important to manage for the
effects of climate change.
To cite one example from the Chugach National Forest, the GAO report
pointed out that the spruce bark beetle is endemic to the Kenai
Peninsula, but drier, warmer conditions associated with climate change
have increased their range and shortened their breeding cycle. In
response, thousands of acres in the Chugach National Forest are treated
annually to mitigate the threat posed by beetles. These actions are
helping mitigate the effects of climate change. Although absent from
the report, the Chugach National Forest is a lead collaborator in the
interagency All Lands/All Hands project that specifically addresses
these effects across all land ownerships. Numerous programs on the
Chugach also exist to control invasive species, a threat also
exacerbated by climate change.
The report overlooked many important aspects of the Forest Service
commitment to addressing climate change. We would be remiss if we did
not take the opportunity to briefly touch on some agency activities
that were not addressed. The examples that follow are not a complete
list, but represent the diversity of actions we are currently
undertaking.
* Forest-based carbon measurement – Forest Service researchers are
firmly established as world leaders in forest-based carbon measurement
and carbon accounting. Data produced by Forest Service scientists have
been incorporated into numerous greenhouse gas registries, including
the Department of Energy's 1605b registry and other carbon offset
programs. Groundbreaking research is now underway on the Mendocino
National Forest to quantify the carbon benefit from avoided wildfire
emissions on a typical forest fuel treatment project.
* California Climate Action Registry (CCAR) – National Forests in
California are in the initial steps of joining the CCAR, a precursor to
the statewide greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-trade system. The CCAR
currently requires that member entities report their carbon footprint
from business related activities as well as from land management
activities.
* Sustainable operations – In addition to the land resource base, the
Forest Service has also taken steps to reduce our carbon footprint from
a business operations standpoint. Broad efforts in sustainable
operations have led to a diverse suite of outcomes including energy
efficiency upgrades in buildings and fleet. Also, the Forest Service is
a member of the Department's Sustainable Operations Council, and has
nominated employees to serve on each of the four working groups
chartered by the Council.
* Integration at the Department Level ” The Forest Service also
participates in climate change programs under the umbrella of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA). USDA's Global Change Program Office
was established to ensure that climate change issues are fully
integrated into research, planning, and decision-making. The Forest
Service, along with other USDA agencies with climate change research or
programmatic Mr. John Stephenson, Director, NRE, GAO 3
responsibilities, participates in the USDA Global Change Task Force
(GCTF). The GCTF coordinates USDA's participation in government-wide
Climate Change Science Program and Climate Change Technology Program.
Climate change is a complex global issue that must be managed within a
margin of uncertainty. The Forest Service through research and land
management will continue to lead in the area of climate change. We
appreciate the opportunity to have contributed to the GAO effort and we
find two recommendations particularly helpful. These include the need
to develop clear written communication for resource managers explaining
how land managers should address the effects of climate change, and the
need to coordinate with other Departments and agencies on resource
management practices when preparing this guidance. The Forest Service
will work to address clarity in communicating climate change mitigation
and adaptation strategies to field units.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
Abigail R. Kimbell:
Chief:
[End of section]
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Commerce (NOAA):
The Deputy Secretary Of Commerce:
Washington, D.C. 20230:
July 3, 2007:
Mr. John Stephenson:
Director, Natural Resources:
and Environment:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
441 G Street, NW:
Washington, D.C. 20548:
Dear Mr. Stephenson:
Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the Government
Accountability Office's draft report entitled Climate Change: Agencies
Should Develop Guidance for Addressing the Effects on Federal Land and
Water Resources (GAO-07-863). On behalf of the Department of Commerce,
I enclose the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
programmatic comments on the draft report.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
David A. Simpson:
Enclosure:
Department of Commerce:
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
Comments on the Draft GAO Report Entitled:
"Climate Change: Agencies Should Develop Guidance for Addressing
Effects on Federal Land and Water Resources":
(GAO-07-863/July 2007):
General Comments:
The Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) appreciates the opportunity to review this
report. We would note several broad cross-government initiatives and
specific NOAA management actions to address issues discussed in the
report do not appear to be represented in the draft report. We note
that the report, while citing the need for better modeling and
observation systems, did not look at all into what the current state is
of our modeling and of our observation systems. NOAA is at the
forefront of global efforts to expand both observation systems and
modeling capabilities. From the establishment of global scale systems
such as the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS) to
building regional ocean and coastal monitoring systems, to developing
the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), NOAA is at
the forefront of building the monitoring systems and the models that
will enable regional and ecosystem based forecasts and planning. This
report is silent on these efforts, all of which are done with our
federal and state and local partners. For example, there is no mention
of a report being prepared by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
(CCSP): "Preliminary Review of Adaptation Options for Climate-Sensitive
Ecosystems and Resources." This report is due at the end of the year
and will be available online at [hyperlink,
http://www.climatescience.gov].
In addition, NOAA, along with Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine
Park Authority, has published a guide to coral bleaching – the Reef
Manager's Guide. The Guide provides information on the causes and
consequences of coral bleaching and management strategies to help local
and regional reef managers reduce threats to coral reef ecosystems. It
also outlines how local managers can manage reefs when bleaching
occurs, how to respond to bleaching events and, most importantly, how
to build long-term reef resilience into marine protected areas.
Implementing some of the ideas put; forth in the Reef Manager's Guide,
NOAA and its National Marine Sanctuary Program are also active
participants in the steering committee for the Florida Reef Resiliency
Program (FRRP). The FRRP currently is developing and testing protocols
to measure the extent and impact of coral bleaching events on a broad
spatial scale and is taking actions to improve the ability of coral
reefs to survive the impacts of climate change. The FRRP is a multi-
agency federal, state, and non-governmental organization activity
coordinated by The Nature Conservancy that brings together scientists,
reef managers, and resource user groups to develop strategies to
improve the health of Florida's reefs and enhance the economic
sustainability of reef-dependent commercial enterprises. As a part of
this, NOAA and its partners have been involved in coordinating a
bleaching response plan for South Florida.
NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service
has developed products and services designed to forecast coral
bleaching conditions worldwide through integration and analysis of a
vast array of satellite and ocean observing system data. These products
are used locally in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary by NOAA
and partners to develop weekly current condition reports for use in a
volunteer-based Coral Bleach Watch program developed by NOAA in
collaboration with the Mote Marine Laboratory.
NOAA Response to GAO Recommendations
The draft GAO report states, "To better enable federal resource
management agencies to take into account the existing and potential
future effects of climate change on federal resources,"
Recommendation 1: "We recommend that the Secretaries of Agriculture,
the Interior, and Commerce, in consultation with the Directors of
Forest Service; Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service,
and National Park Service; and the Administrator of NOAA, respectively,
develop clear written communication to resource managers that explains
how managers are to address the effects of climate change on federal
resources in their management actions and planning efforts and
identifies how managers are to obtain any site-specific information
that may be needed to implement these efforts."
NOAA Response: NOAA concurs with this recommendation. As applicable,
NOAA will work toward clarifying written communication to resource
managers to explain how they are to address the effects of climate
change on federal resources in their management actions and planning
efforts and identify how managers are to obtain any site-specific
information that may be needed to implement these efforts.
Recommendation 2: "In addition, we recommend that federal resource
management agencies work together to share best practices when
developing such written communication, while recognizing the unique
missions, objectives, and responsibilities of each agency."
NOAA Response: NOAA concurs with this recommendation. NOAA currently
works with relevant federal resource management agencies on a range of
climate change and land management issues. NOAA will continue in these
efforts and, as applicable, strive to share best practices moving
forward.
[End of section]
Appendix VII Comments from the Department of the Interior (BLM, FWS,
and NPS):
The Associate Deputy Secretary Of The Interior:
Washington:
July 19, 2007:
Mr. David Walker:
Comptroller General:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
441 G Street, NW:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Comptroller General Walker:
The Department of the Interior has reviewed the draft U.S. Government
Accountability Office (GAO) report entitled, "Climate Change: Agencies
Should Develop Guidance for Addressing the Effects on Federal Land and
Water Resources" (GAO-07-863). We commend your staff for highlighting
the challenges faced by our Agency managers in carrying out our
responsibilities identified in a diverse set of statutes.
The Department manages one in every five acres of land in the United
States. In addition, the dams operated by Interior supply water to more
than 31 million people and to farmers who generate nearly two-thirds of
the Nation's produce. The Department also manages leases from which one-
third of the Nation's domestic energy supplies are produced. Fulfilling
these responsibilities requires significant public engagement, science
drawn from many disciplines, and careful balancing of multiple goals.
The draft GAO report identifies four ecosystem types for analysis
(forest, coast and ocean, fresh water, and grasslands and shrub lands).
All four of them are present in the mix of resources managed by the
Department of the Interior. The comments below address issues within
that context. Background
The subject of climate change has generated ongoing discussions for
many years. As stewards of our public resources, Interior monitors and
adjusts to new influences while maintaining consistent and continuous
management of an extensive, diverse, and dynamic inventory of natural
resources. Department of the Interior scientists and managers have been
conducting research and monitoring land and water resources to identify
and assess the challenges we face, including the effects of a changing
climate.
As your draft report notes, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change released a report in April of this year that points to reliable
evidence of the effects of climate change on natural systems. Even
before the release of that report, Secretary Kempthorne had determined
that the Department of the Interior should take affirmative steps to
assess the effects on our public lands arising from climate change and
develop a process for anticipating and addressing these effects. To
that end, he asked Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett to convene a task
force of experienced career employees, seasoned managers, and senior
policy personnel to study climate change because of its possible
effects on our ability to be good stewards of wildlife, national parks,
water, and other resources. This is a high priority for both
Departmental leaders and employees in the field. The Task Force
involves nearly a hundred people, including the Department's assistant
secretaries and other top leaders as well as career scientists, park
superintendents, refuge managers, and others from across the country.
Since the first meeting of the Task Force in April, the team has been
identifying the effects of a changing climate on water flows, sea
coasts and sea ice, permafrost, wildlife, vegetation, etc. The Task
Force is evaluating the science currently used by the Department and
exploring how new science can be focused to provide the information
needed by our land, water, and infrastructure managers. We are also
looking at the best ways to convey relevant information among our
bureaus so that everyone is working from the most current and reliable
data, analysis and predictive models when managing public lands.
Interior's Climate Change Task Force has three subcommittees”one on
legal and policy issues; a second on land and water management issues;
and a third to address the scientific issues of climate change
specifically related to Interior's responsibilities.
DOI Task Force Activities:
The Task Force is examining how possible climate changes would affect
disaster management, water resource management, and habitat management.
It is evaluating new responses to manage our changing landscapes. The
challenge of setting priorities requires a careful assessment of our
resources, the most likely impacts, the laws governing our actions, and
the quality of data and analysis we must rely on to adapt to new
conditions.
As documented in the draft GAO report, many parks, refuges, and other
conservation areas were created to preserve a specific mix of species
and resources within specific boundaries. The Department is considering
whether in situ conservation is possible within current, fixed
boundaries if species composition is changing, or whether we should
pursue additional conservation strategies. For example, will we need to
change how we define the concept of invasive species if plant and
animal species shift on the landscape in response to climate change?
Interior's presence along the coast is also significant, with extensive
areas of shoreline managed by the National Park Service and the Fish &
Wildlife Service. The Task Force is examining what steps should be
taken as freshwater coastal habitats turn more saline if ocean levels
rise. We must also consider how we can help the Nation manage its water
resources if rainfall and snowmelt patterns change.
The Department will continue to focus on wetland management, both for
the environmental benefits that result and because coastal wetlands and
sea marshes serve as horizontal levees, absorbing and reducing impacts
from coastal storms.
Other examples of challenges before the Climate Change Task Force
include:
* Evaluating the management of Interior's facilities and fleet to
identify additional opportunities for energy conservation and renewable
energy.
* Exploring whether global and regional climate modeling can be scaled
to the point that it can be used to manage parks, refuges, and dams
controlled by the Department.
* Examining information needs and whether new types of monitoring might
strengthen our understanding of on-the-ground trends in water
availability and timing of flows, vegetative patterns, movement of
species, and other factors.
* Assessing the extent and consequences of exotic grass species
expansion on BLM lands, such as the impact on erosion and fire
suppression.
* Assessing opportunities for carbon sequestration”both geologic and
biologic”on public lands. The report produced by GAO begins to explore
the complexity faced by a Department that manages such a diverse and
significant portfolio of public resources.
Draft GAO Report Themes:
Throughout the GAO report, a few phrases merit specific attention. The
report references conditions "caused at least in part by climate
change." We are only now beginning to determine with a reasonable level
of certainty which observed phenomena result from cyclic weather
variation and which represent sustained shifts in climate. As observed
in the draft GAO report, "some changes will occur quickly and will be
readily apparent, while others will occur gradually and will be less
apparent in the near-term." As we better comprehend these changes, we
are evaluating the appropriate management regimes. We are proceeding
with careful deliberation in the face of emerging information about the
likely scope, duration, and nature of changes in both climate and
associated ecosystem effects. We are devoting significant effort toward
identifying and using the best available information to choose the best
course of action.
The GAO report also notes that we "have not made climate change a high
priority." The Department has numerous statutory obligations and
responsibilities. In fulfilling these goals, we have placed a high
priority on developing renewable energy sources; improving energy
efficiency and use of alternative energies at our facilities across the
Nation; pioneering carbon sequestration through reforestation in the
southeast; and advancing scientific research regarding glaciers, sea
ice, paleo-climate records, and related subjects. In the context of
water management, we have sought state-of-the-science information on
changing precipitation patterns. These efforts have been incorporated
into our ongoing and diverse resource management efforts. These efforts
have borne fruit. Since 2003, the Department has achieved reductions in
energy intensity of 15 percent. Renewable energy makes up nearly 15
percent of our energy portfolio, significantly greater than use of
renewable energy by the Nation as a whole. Also the Department has
budgeted $27 million in the U.S. Geological Survey for global climate
change research in 2008. In carrying out it's responsibilities as a
manager of one in five acres and extensive natural and cultural
resources, the Department utilizes adaptive management and routinely
takes actions to mitigate impacts of climate change. In addition, the
Fish and Wildlife Service has been conducting carbon sequestration with
reforestation activities in concert with industry and non-profit
partners for several years.
As the GAO report notes, various DOI bureaus have collected
information, assessed impacts, and taken incremental steps to adjust to
those impacts most likely resulting from climate change. Our Task Force
is assessing these efforts so that we have a more complete
understanding of our actions and opportunities.
The GAO report underscores the need for more effective and timely
communication of our efforts to address climate change. We agree.
Secretary Kempthorne initiated the Climate Change Task Force to make
sure that the subject of climate change is being addressed throughout
the Department, in a comprehensive fashion, and with the full support
of the executive management team. The breadth of involvement and
enthusiasm of the personnel throughout the Department working on this
issue will help ensure that the Department effectively generates
climate science in areas of our expertise; contributes to greenhouse
gas mitigation through carbon sequestration and other measures; and
develops adaptation strategies to reduce the adverse impacts of climate
change. We are committed to keeping personnel within the Department
involved and informed.
The draft GAO report states that, "In order to plan and manage for
climate change, these resource managers stated that agencies would have
to change how they approach their missions because addressing climate
change would require managers to anticipate potential change in their
planning processes, as opposed to using historic data to react to
observed changes."
Developing accurate modeling and determining the weight to put on
modeling in relationship to use of historic data is a serious concern
currently under review within the Task Force. To date, many of the
models needed to make effective decisions at the local and regional
levels have not been developed. The Task Force brings managers with
years of experience into a collaborative environment where historic
data, current modeling, statutory obligations, and public expectations
can all be used to develop dynamic management tools to help us
effectively manage public lands and waters. As noted in the draft GAO
report, we will need to provide direction on how to implement these new
tools as they are developed and validated. Our Task Force is looking at
this issue.
The GAO draft report also highlights the importance of accurate
baseline inventories of plants and animals in order to properly manage
the species we are charged with conserving. The Task Force is
evaluating how we might set priorities for generating essential
information to create our baseline assessments.
We are confident that Interior's Climate Change Task Force will set the
stage for this Department to respond to the effects of climate change
on the lands and waters we manage. The Task Force has already
identified virtually all of the major issues described in the draft GAO
report and has highlighted a number of additional considerations that
we will need to consider. We will be using the information in the final
GAO report to make sure we are addressing concerns that we share with
GAO and that are being reported to the Congress.
The enclosure provides additional technical comments which, we hope,
will assist you in preparing the final report.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
James E. Cason:
Enclosure:
[End of section]
Appendix VIII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
John B. Stephenson (202) 512-3841 or stephensonj@gao.gov:
Staff Acknowledgments:
In addition to the contact named above, Vincent P. Price, Assistant
Director; Marc Castellano; John Healey; Ian Jefferies; Anne K. Johnson;
and Joseph D. Thompson were major contributors to this report. Kisha
Clark, John Delicath, Heather Holsinger, Richard Johnson, Karen Keegan,
Carol Kolarik, David Marwick, Micah McMillan, Jean McSween, and Anne O.
Stevens also made important contributions.
Footnotes:
[1] The ESA (16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is designed to conserve the
ecosystems upon which threatened and endangered species of fish,
wildlife, and plants depend. The act is administered by FWS and NOAA
Fisheries.
[2] NEPA (42 U.S.C. § 4321 et. seq.) requires federal agencies to
assess and report on the likely environmental impacts of major actions
they propose that affect the environment. If a proposed activity is
expected to have significant environmental effects, the agency is
required to prepare an environmental impact statement.
[3] In its technical comments on a draft of this report, Interior told
us that the NPS's Management Policies (2006) discusses treatment of the
cause of change. It stated that natural resources will be managed to
preserve fundamental physical and biological processes and maintain all
of the components and processes of naturally evolving park ecosystems.
Natural change will also be recognized as an integral part of the
functioning of natural systems. NPS will not intervene in natural
biological or physical processes except when directed by the Congress;
in emergencies in which human life and property are at stake; to
restore natural ecosystem functioning that has been disrupted by past
or ongoing human activities; or when a park plan has identified the
intervention as necessary to protect other park resources, human health
and safety, or facilities.
[4] Major impact assessments include, among others, the IPCC's Working
Group II report, Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and
Vulnerability; the U.S. Global Change Research Program's report,
Climate Change Impacts in the United States; the United Nations
Environment Program's report, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; and the
Arctic Council and the International Arctic Science Committee's report,
Arctic Climate Impact Assessment.
[5] Nonprobability samples cannot be used to generalize or make
inferences about a population. In this instance, we cannot generalize
the results of our case studies to all federal resources or resources
of the same ecosystem type.
[6] In technical comments on a draft of this report, Interior stated
that changes in greenhouse gas concentrations and associated changes in
climatic variables (e.g., temperature and precipitation) could also
modify (up and down) these other nonclimate change-related stresses on
the resources managed by federal agencies. Such changes could also have
some positive effects on resources, further complicating matters.
[7] Since greenhouse gases differ in their potential to contribute to
global warming, each gas is assigned a unique weight, called a global
warming potential, which is based on its heat-absorbing ability
relative to carbon dioxide over a fixed period. This provides a way to
convert emissions of various greenhouse gases into a common measure,
such as carbon equivalent. Thus, each molecule of methane, for example,
has 21 times as much effect on warming as a molecule of carbon dioxide.
[8] Marine Protected Areas are areas where natural or cultural
resources, or both, are given greater protection than the surrounding
waters.
[9] A hectare is a unit of area equal to 10,000 square meters, or 2.47
acres.
[10] Permafrost is perennially frozen ground that occurs wherever the
temperature remains below 32 degrees Fahrenheit for several years.
Melting permafrost leads to the release of methane, a greenhouse gas,
which is trapped below the permafrost. This melting further raises
greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
[11] Turbidity, or water cloudiness, is one of the indicators used to
assess the environmental health of water bodies. It is caused by the
presence of suspended and dissolved matter, such as clay, silt, finely
divided organic matter, and other substances.
[12] Riparian areas are those on the bank of a natural watercourse,
such as a river, or sometimes a lake or tidewater.
[13] Since the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is linked
ecologically to four National Wildlife Refuges on the Florida Keys and
to the Everglades and Dry Tortugas National Parks ecosystems, we also
interviewed officials from these sites.
[14] However, this University of Miami scientist noted that, because
emissions are already exceeding the pace assumed for this estimate, the
34 percent reduction point will likely be reached sooner than 2050.
[15] FS officials noted that spruce bark beetle outbreaks are normal
events in forested ecosystems. A study conducted by experts at the
Kenai National Wildlife Refuge indicated that the recent outbreaks on
the Kenai Peninsula between 1971 and 1996 were positively associated
with the 5-year backward running average of summer temperatures. Their
research found that warm temperatures influence spruce bark beetle
population size through a combination of increased winter survival, a
doubling of the maturation rate from 2 years to 1 year, and the
regional drought-induced stress of mature host trees. (Edward E. Berg,
J. David Henry, Christopher L. Fastie, Andrew D. De Volder, and Steven
M. Matsuoka, "Spruce Beetle Outbreaks on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska,
and Kluane National Park and Reserve, Yukon Territory: Relationship to
Summer Temperatures and Regional Differences in Disturbance Regimes,"
Forest Ecology and Management, vol. 227, issue 3, June 1, 2006, 219-
232.)
[16] A pathogen is a disease-causing agent, such as a bacterium or a
virus.
[17] A savanna is a rolling grassland with scattered individual trees.
The climate is generally warm or hot.
[18] Chaparral is a type of plant community where shrubs are dominant.
It usually occurs in regions having from 10 to 20 inches of rainfall
annually; it is found in the western part of the United States.
[19] An annual grassland is one in which the grasses complete their
life cycle within 1 year of germination.
[20] Experts noted that invasive species have a relative advantage in a
changing climate because they tend to be more adaptive.
[21] Subalpine vegetation is that just below the tree line, often
dominated by pine or spruce trees.
[22] The area covered by the study of loggerhead turtles includes the
Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge on the east coast of Florida.
[23] John F. Weishampel, Dean A. Bagley, and Llewellyn M. Ehrhart,
"Earlier Nesting by Loggerhead Sea Turtles Following Sea Surface
Warming," Global Change Biology, vol. 10, issue 8 (August 2004), 1424-
1427.
[24] A prairie pothole is a wetland that fills with snowmelt and rain
in the spring. Some are permanent, and some are temporary. Virtually
all of the Wetland Management Districts within the National Wildlife
Refuge System are located in the upper midwest. These Wetland
Management Districts are made up of about 30,000 individual Waterfowl
Production Areas.
[25] All five resource management agencies--as well as Interior's
Bureau of Reclamation and USGS--were represented in the workshop as a
whole, but were not consistently represented in the four individual
ecosystem discussion sessions. Resource managers from FWS, NOAA, NPS,
and USGS participated in the sessions discussing coasts and oceans;
managers from FS, FWS, and NPS participated in the forests sessions;
managers from the Bureau of Reclamation, FWS, and NPS participated in
the fresh waters sessions; and managers from BLM, FS, FWS, and NPS
participated in the grasslands and shrublands sessions. Except when
otherwise noted, all statements identified as coming from a specific
workshop session reflect the collective views of the individual
participants and apply to the resource management agencies represented
by the managers at that session.
[26] In contrast to these statements, in written testimony for an April
26, 2007, hearing before the House Appropriations Committee's
Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, the NPS's
Superintendent of Point Reyes National Seashore stated that climate
change was identified at a series of workshops in 2006 as the highest
priority for park managers and scientists in NPS's Pacific West Region.
At the same hearing, BLM's Great Basin Restoration Initiative
Coordinator, stated in written testimony, that climate change is ranked
as the 9TH of 19 threats to sage grouse and the sage-grouse habitat in
Idaho in the 2006 Conservation Plan for Greater Sage-grouse in Idaho.
[27] Department of the Interior Secretary's Order 3226, "Evaluating
Climate Change Impacts in Management Planning" (Jan. 19, 2001).
[28] In written testimony at an April 26, 2007, hearing on climate
change before the House Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, the Deputy Secretary of
the Department of the Interior stated that the department has convened
a Climate Change Task Force to coordinate and focus efforts on climate
change. She said that the task force consists of subcommittees on (1)
legal and policy issues, such as how to incorporate climate change into
planning decisions; (2) land and water management; and (3) climate
change science issues specifically relevant to Interior's
responsibilities.
[29] In subsequent communications, FWS officials told us that they were
not aware of any efforts within Interior to advertise or promote the
order. Some FWS officials were unaware of the order's existence until
we called it to their attention during the course of this review.
[30] In their technical comments on our draft report, NOAA officials
disagreed with our statement that climate change effects are not
specifically addressed in agency planning activities. They pointed to
the NOAA strategic plan for fiscal years 2006 through 2011, which
mentions climate variability and change on pages 2, 6, and 7. However,
we reviewed the plan and found that its discussion of climate change is
limited to understanding and predicting the consequences of climate
variability and change on marine ecosystems and does not discuss site-
specific management responses. Likewise, in the agency's technical
comments, NOAA noted that "climate change effects are specifically
addressed in NOAA's planning activities and the concerns of our
customers." As an example, NOAA cited its most recent Annual Guidance
Memorandum, detailing the agency's planning, programming, budgeting,
and execution cycle for the fiscal years 2010 through 2014 period. We
believe that NOAA should be addressing climate change effects currently
occurring. The three focus areas cited by NOAA in the memorandum
include (1) new regional information products in response to climate
extremes and abrupt climate change; (2) understanding the links between
climate and regional impacts, including drought, hurricanes, fires,
floods, and weather extremes; and (3) understanding climate-ecosystem
interactions, particularly ocean acidification, loss of sea ice, and
long-term ocean warming and their impacts on biological productivity
and distribution. We believe that these scientific research planning
goals are laudable and will provide useful information, but they do not
appear to address how managers should consistently incorporate the
effects of climate change into site-specific planning and management
decisions.
[31] The FS land management planning handbook states the following:
"Where data are available, consider the influence of climate change on
the characteristics of ecosystem diversity."
[32] A House bill introduced on May 16, 2007, would require the
Secretary of the Interior to submit a plan to the Congress describing
the steps that certain federal agencies will take to develop consistent
protocols to incorporate climate change impacts in land and water
management decisions across land and water resources under the
jurisdiction of those agencies. The affected Interior agencies include
BLM, FWS, NPS, USGS, and the Bureau of Reclamation. Affected agencies
outside Interior include FS, NOAA, and the Council on Environmental
Quality.
[33] In technical comments on a draft of this report, Interior noted
that, as one attempts to model at finer spatial scales, uncertainties
in climatic variables and changes in these variables increase.
Therefore, Interior notes that access to models is not a comprehensive
solution, and any models (and their outputs) used should be verified
and validated at the local scale.
[34] Major impact assessments include, among others, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Working Group II report,
Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability; the U.S.
Global Change Research Program's report, Climate Change Impacts in the
United States; the United Nations Environment Program's report,
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; and the Arctic Council and the
International Arctic Science Committee's report, Arctic Climate Impact
Assessment.
[35] The National Center for Atmospheric Research conducts
collaborative research in atmospheric and Earth system science and
provides a broad array of tools and technologies to the scientific
community. Its primary sponsor is the National Science Foundation.
[36] Nonprobability samples cannot be used to generalize or make
inferences about a population. In this instance, we cannot generalize
the results of our case studies to all federal lands or federal lands
of the same ecosystem type.
[37] Permafrost is perennially frozen ground that occurs wherever the
temperature remains below 32 degrees Fahrenheit for several years.
[38] Eutrophication is the process by which a body of water becomes
rich in dissolved nutrients with a seasonal deficiency in dissolved
oxygen.
[39] Thermohaline circulation refers to changes driven by density
gradients, which are controlled by temperature and salinity. The global
thermohaline circulation or conveyor belt is a system of surface and
bottom currents that carry ocean water and heat around the globe.
[40] El Niņo is a climate phenomenon that recurs at 2-to 7-year
intervals. It affects precipitation and temperature over a large
portion of the globe.
[41] Phenology is the study of natural phenomena that recur
periodically (e.g., blooming, migrating) and their relation to climate
and seasonal changes.
[42] Headwater obligate aquatic species are species that must live at
the headwaters, or source waters of a stream.
[43] Opportunistic warmer-water exotic species are species that would
not typically occupy an area but can do so because of temperature
increases that resemble their preferred habitats.
[44] The FWS expert primarily responsible for these statements
substantially edited the wording but not the content of the section
after the completion of the workshop.
[45] One expert commenting after completion of the workshop said that
the "nonclimate-related" heading used in this summary seemed
incorrectly worded. This expert said that the distinction that should
be made is one between those effects that are due to changing climate
directly and those due to other consequences of an increasingly
greenhouse gas rich atmosphere. We did not change the heading because
other experts did not request such a change.
[46] Recalcitrant is defined as difficult to degrade under natural
conditions and usually not responsive to treatment.
[47] Vernal pools are temporary pools that fill with snowmelt and
spring runoff, then dry sometime during the summer.
[48] Ephemeral streams are characterized as those flowing for only a
portion of the year. Similar to tidal pools, they dry up during summer
months.
[49] Tundra is a treeless plain found in the Arctic region. It is
characterized by low shrub vegetation.
[50] A steppe is a type of grassland found in areas where the climate
is dry. The grass is generally shorter than in prairie grasslands.
[51] Alpine refers to the zone made up of slopes above the timberline
and characterized by, among other things, the presence of low, shrubby,
slow-growing woody plants.
[52] A prairie pothole is a wetland that fills with snowmelt and rain
in the spring. Some are permanent and some are temporary. Potholes
serve as resting, feeding, and nesting habitats for migratory
waterfowl.
[53] Vascular plants are plants that, among other things, have
specialized tissues for conducting water. Nonvascular plants are the
simplest of all land-dwelling plants and lack an internal means for
water transportation.
[54] Tropospheric ozone is formed when nitrogen oxides react with
certain other chemicals in the presence of sunlight. It is both a
greenhouse gas and an air pollutant.
[55] One participant disagreed with the definition, noting that he
believed "most significant" should be defined as "immediate things that
have economic impact."
[56] One participant noted that ecological effects are also economic
and social, since human systems depend on nature.
[57] Chaparral is a type of plant community in which shrubs are
dominant. It usually occurs in regions having from 10 to 20 inches of
rainfall annually; it is found in the western part of the United
States.
[58] A regime shift is a change in frequency and intensity of a
cyclical process.
[59] A biome is a grouping of similar plant and animal communities into
landscape units that occur under similar environmental conditions.
[60] A keystone species is a species that has a major influence on the
structure of an ecosystem. Its presence impacts many other members of
the ecosystem, and if its population dwindles or disappears, there can
be far-reaching consequences for the ecosystem.
[61] One expert in the fresh waters group commenting after the
completion of the workshop said that the logic of this section was not
clear. The expert was not sure what the "low flow effect" was referring
to, and said that the issue of complex interactions was real, but
needed to be restated. We did not restate this section because other
experts did not raise the same concerns in their review.
[62] According to the NEON Web site, NEON will be the first national
ecological measurement and observation system designed both to answer
regional-to continental-scale scientific questions and to have the
interdisciplinary participation necessary to achieve credible
ecological forecasting and prediction.
[63] The National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate
Variability and Change was mandated under the Global Change Research
Act of 1990 and prepared by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
The report evaluated what was known about the potential consequences of
climate variability and change for the nation, in the context of other
pressures on the public, the environment, and the nation's resources.
[64] Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, Arctic Climate Impact
Assessment, [hyperlink, http://www.amap.no/acia] Cambridge University
Press (2005).
[65] This report was released as a book in 2007. Nicholas Stern, The
Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review, First Edition (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2007).
[66] Chris D. Thomas, Alison Cameron, Rhys E. Green, and Michel
Bakkenes, et al, "Extinction Risk From Climate Change," Nature, vol.
427 (Jan. 8, 2004).
[67] The EEZ consists of those areas adjoining the territorial sea of
the United States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth of
the Northern Mariana Islands, and United States overseas territories
and possessions. The outer boundary of the EEZ extends 200 nautical
miles from the U.S. coastline.
[68] Approved in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000, the
Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan provides a framework and
guide to restore, protect, and preserve the water resources of central
and southern Florida, including the Everglades.
[69] Red brome is a nonnative annual grass that flourishes in warm
climates. It competes with other grasses and displaces native species.
The grass sprouts early in the spring, grows quickly, and dies, leaving
a dense carpet of dry grass that carries fire.
[70] Riparian areas are those on the bank of a natural watercourse,
such as a river, or sometimes a lake or tidewater.
[71] Mychorrizal fungi live in and around the roots of most plants,
serving as a secondary root system. Mychorrizae extract mineral
elements and water for their host plants and live off the plants'
sugars. They may confer increased resistance to pathogens to the
plants' roots.
[72] The CESU is a federal partnership between 13 federal agencies and
various universities. The universities sign on to be CESUs by region
and get funding from agencies. Agencies agree to work together toward
common needs and sign agreements with universities for research,
technical support, and outreach.
[73] An EMS is a set of processes and practices that enable an
organization to reduce its environmental impacts and increase its
operating efficiency.
[74] National Parks Omnibus Management Act of 1998.
[75] Under the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997
(Refuge Improvement Act), all national wildlife refuges are required to
develop a CCP, which is a document that provides a framework for
guiding refuge management decisions.
[76] Tree line--the point at which forest vegetation begins to shift
from nontree species to tree species.
[77] FWS and FS officials at the grasslands and shrublands workshop
breakout session generally concurred with the BLM points made in this
section.
[78] A Marine Protected Area is any area of the marine environment that
has been reserved by federal, state, tribal, territorial, or local laws
or regulations to provide lasting protection for part or all of the
natural and cultural resources therein.
[79] Paul Marshall and Heidi Schuttenberg, A Reef Manager's Guide to
Coral Bleaching (Townsville, Australia: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
Authority, 2006).
[80] The Upton-Jones Amendment to the Housing and Community Development
Act of 1987 amended the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 to provide
insurance benefits to structures in imminent danger of collapse due to
coastal erosion or undermining caused by waves or water levels
exceeding cyclical levels. The program had limited impact, and the
Upton-Jones Amendment was repealed in 1994.
[81] The National Interagency Fire Center is located in Boise, Idaho,
and is a cooperative effort between the following organizations: BLM,
the Bureau of Indian Affairs, FS, FWS, the National Association of
State Foresters, NPS, the National Weather Service within NOAA, the
Office of Aircraft Services within Interior, and the United States Fire
Administration.
[82] The group was probably referring to the Interdepartmental Invasive
Species Council established by Executive Order 13112 in 1999.
[83] For information on the Millennium Ecosystem Reports, see
[hyperlink, http://www.maweb.org/en/index.aspx].
[84] In the mid-19th century many argued that direct financial support
for internal improvements, such as railroads, was unconstitutional.
Checkerboard land grant schemes, in which the government granted
alternating sections of land along the proposed railroad line while
retaining the other sections for eventual sale to the public, were a
way to circumvent those objections.
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