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 sciencemanagement 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
- Water
vulnerability
- Fisheries
assessments for: - Vegetation
- Wildlife
- Recreation
- Ecosystem
- Disturbance services
General Approach
Establish a sciencemanagement partnership
Conduct a vulnerability
assessment
Identify adaptation strategies
and tactics in workshops
Develop and publish a peerreviewed 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
Increased
insect
outbreaks
Adaptation
Strategy
Increase
individual tree
vigor and
increase
species and
structural
diversity
Adaptation Tactic
Barriers
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, PeerReviewed Reports
For more information:
www.adaptationpartners.org