Adapting natural resource management

to climate change: the Blue Mountains

and Northern Rockies Adaptation

Partnerships

Jessica E. Halofsky¹ and David L. Peterson²

¹University of Washington, School of Environmental and Forest

Sciences

²USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station

The Blue Mountains and Northern

Rockies Adaptation Partnerships

Forest Service led science-management partnerships with the goals of:

• Increasing climate change awareness

• Assessing vulnerability of natural resources

• Developing adaptation strategies and tactics

Climate Change Adaptation in the

U.S. Forest Service

The Blue Mountains Adaptation

Partnership

• Involved three national forests

• Included vulnerability assessments for:

• Hydrology

• Water use and infrastructure

• Fisheries

• Vegetation and disturbance

The Northern Rockies Adaptation

Partnership

• A regional-scale assessment

• Involved 16 national forests and three national parks

• Included vulnerability assessments for:

- Water

- Fisheries

- Vegetation

- Disturbance

- Wildlife

- Recreation

- Ecosystem

services

General Approach

Establish a science-management partnership

Conduct a vulnerability assessment

Identify adaptation strategies and tactics in workshops

Develop and publish a peer-reviewed report

Assessing Climate Change

Vulnerability

Workshop Objectives

• Downscale information from

the regional assessment to

the subregional and unit

scales

• Develop potential

adaptation strategies and

tactics to promote

resilience, facilitate

transitions, or maintain

status

“Downscaling” the Vulnerability

Assessment

• Describe any geographic variation in

sensitivity to climate or adaptive capacity

that is not incorporated in the summary.

• Are there local features in your region that

would alter the predicted climate trends?

• Are there places on the ground where the

resource is more, or less, sensitive to

climate change due to overlapping risks?

Development of adaptation strategies

and tactics by resource managers

Expected

Outcome

Adaptation

StrategyAdaptation Tactic Barriers

Increased

insect

outbreaks

Increase

individual tree

vigor and

increase

species and

structural

diversity

Conduct thinning

to promote late

seral forest

conditions

Funding to

conduct

treatments

Incorporate gap

creation in

thinning

treatments to

increase species

diversity

Results: Infrastructure in the Blue

Mountains

• Sensitivity: Higher peak flows will lead to

increased road damage

• Adaptation strategy: Increase resilience of

infrastructure to higher peak flows

• Adaptation tactics:

• Replace culverts with higher capacity culverts

or other appropriate drainage (e.g., fords or

dips) in high-risk locations

• Complete geospatial database of culverts and

bridges

Assessing

vulnerabilities:

roads near

streams

Results: Fish in the Blue Mountains

• Sensitivity: Stream temperatures will increase,

affecting many life stages of aquatic organisms.

• Adaptation strategy: Maintain or restore natural

thermal conditions to buffer against future change

• Adaptation tactics:

• Maintain or restore riparian vegetation to ensure

channels are not exposed to increased solar

radiation

• Increase floodplain connectivity, diversity, and

water storage to improve hyporheic and base flow

conditions

Results: Forests in the Northern

Rockies

• Sensitivity: Increased risk of mortality from fire

and drought in dry forests

• Adaptation strategy: Decrease forest density,

and increase structural diversity

• Adaptation tactics:

• Reduce forest density with thinning, prescribed fire,

and wildfire use

• Promote age class and structural diversity across

the landscape with regeneration harvest, thinning,

prescribed fire, and wildfire use

Results: Winter Recreation in the

Northern Rockies

• Sensitivity: Shorter winters with less snow, and

wetter or icier snow; infrastructure may not be

where the snow persists

• Adaptation strategy: Increase recreation

management flexibility

• Adaptation tactics:

• Maintain current infrastructure and expand facilities

in areas where concentrated use increases

• Develop options for diversifying snow-based

recreation (e.g., additional lifts, helicopter skiing,

toboggan runs)

Products: Science-Based, Peer-

Reviewed Reports

For more information:

www.adaptationpartners.org