Climate & Fire & Adaptation
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In this article, authors were able to integrate complex interactions, and visualize the distribution of risk across broad spatial scales, providing land managers and researchers a valuable tool for climate change vulnerability assessments and action plans.
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This article from American Scientist discusses the bigger picture of wildfire and offers suggestions on how to coexist with this force of nature in the future. Promoting the right kind of fire—and smarter development—is safer and more cost-effective than fighting a losing battle.
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This study was designed to contribute to the limited literature describing the benefits of better integrating indigenous knowledge (IK) with other sources of knowledge in making adaptive-management decisions. Specifically, we advocate the integration of traditional phenological knowledge (TPK), a subset of IK, and highlight opportunities for this knowledge to support policy and practice of adaptive management with reference to policy and practice of adapting to uncharacteristic fire regimes and climate change in the western United States.
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This report examined multiple climate change effects on cattle production for U.S. rangelands to estimate relative change and identify sources of vulnerability among seven regions. Climate change effects to 2100 projected (1) an increase in forage quantity in northerly regions, (2) a move toward grassier vegetation types overall but with considerable spatial heterogeneity, (3) a rapid increase in the number of heat-stress days across all regions, and (4) higher forage variability for most regions.
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Abstracts of recent papers on climate change and land management in the West, prepared by Louisa Evers, Science Liaison and Climate Change Coordinator, BLM, OR-WA State Office.
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Abstracts of recent papers on climate change and land management in the West, prepared by Louisa Evers, Science Liaison and Climate Change Coordinator, BLM, OR-WA State Office.
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The Sage Grouse Initiative Interactive Web App is a tool to catalyze and improve habitat conservation efforts across the western United States. It presents cutting-edge geospatial data covering 100 million acres, which helps visualize, distribute, and interact with information about the sagebrush-steppe ecosystem.
Effects of drought on forests and rangelands in the United States: A comprehensive science synthesis
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This assessment establishes the scientific foundation needed to manage for drought resilience and adaptation. Focal areas include drought characterization; drought impacts on forest processes and disturbances such as insect outbreaks and wildfire; and consequences for forest and rangeland values. Large, stand-level impacts of drought are already underway in the West, but all U.S. forests are vulnerable to drought. Drought-associated forest disturbances are expected to increase with climatic change. Management actions can either mitigate or exacerbate the effects of drought. A first principal for increasing resilience and adaptation is to avoid management actions that exacerbate the effects of current or future drought. Options to mitigate drought include altering structural or functional components of vegetation, minimizing drought-mediated disturbance such as wildfire or insect outbreaks, and managing for reliable flow of water.
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This study suggests that introduced species have disproportionately expanded their ranges upward in elevation over the past century when compared with native species. While these shifts in introduced species may not be exclusively driven by climate, they highlight the importance of considering the interacting factors of climate-driven range shifts and invasion to understand how floras are responding in the face of anthropogenic change.
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A recent research project brought together futures researchers and wildfire specialists to envision what the future holds for wildfire impacts and how the wildfire community may respond to the complex suite of emerging challenges. The consensus of the project’s foresight panel suggests that an era of resilience is ahead: but that this resilience may come either with a very high cost (after some kind of collapse), in a more systematic way (that is, if the wildfire community plans for, and fosters, resilience), or something in between. In any projected future scenario, the panel suggests that the end of the fire suppression paradigm is imminent and that a new paradigm—one that fosters natural resilience of the system, along with natural wildfire—is arising. A central question emerges from this work: How will the wildfire community respond to this tipping point?