This project evaluates the effects of global climate change and sea level rise on estuarine intertidal habitat in the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Flyway migratory waterbirds that rely on this habitat.

Phases 1-3 (2010-2012): This project will develop landscape change scenarios based upon water availability and precipitation and temperature patterns projected from downscaled models and investigate impacts of these changes on habitats and ecology of waterfowl, shorebirds, and other waterbirds in the Central Valley. This project will provide critical information and support to understand and incorporate likely impacts of climatic change in conservation planning.
 

Phase 1 (2011): Integrating Science into Decisions: Climate Change/Land Use Change Scenarios and Outreach for Habitat Threat Assessments on California Rangelands

Phases 1 &2 (2010 & 2012): The California Invasive Plant Council (Cal-IPC) developed a “risk mapping” approach that combines comprehensive distribution maps with maps of current and future suitable range to show where each (invasive) species is likely to spread. The distribution maps are based on a new dataset created through a major campaign to collect expert opinion data from local resource managers across the state. From this dataset, Cal-IPC recently completed risk maps and management recommendations for 43 invasive plant species in the Sierra Nevada.

In its first year this project created an online environment in which land managers and their technical support staff can quickly find the climate adaptation information they need, communicate with each other and with the researchers producing the data, and then share lessons learned. The Climate Commons offers land managers a resource where they can get started and participate in a community of practice by communicating, learning, and contributing.
 

To be successful, natural resource managers need to synthesize diverse information on the effects of management actions, climate change and other stressors on wildlife populations at appropriate scales. The project team will develop a Decision Support Tool (DST) that integrates the results of multi-disciplinary, multi-taxa modeling allowing users to project outcomes of conservation actions, accounting for effects of climate change and other stressors. This DST builds on work to improve a sea level rise tool for adaptive tidal wetland restoration and management.

Most natural resource managers, planners and policy makers are now dependent upon spatially explicit environmental suitability and spatial allocation analyses to inform policy and management decisions. However, staff across agencies has been unable to stay current on understanding and applying these new data, tools and analyses. Currently, this information may be underutilized or used inappropriately, which could result in poor decisions.

Phase 1 (2012): This project will support a collaborative, multi-stakeholder effort led by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to develop a largescale vulnerability assessment and associated adaptation strategies for focal resources of the Sierra Nevada. The purpose of this effort is to provide information and tools for Forest Planning and management (e.g., NEPA analyses, Forest Plan revisions, Climate Scorecard) and other natural resource management (e.g., SWAP) and conservation efforts to prepare for climate change impacts in the Sierra Nevada.