Background

Identifying, restoring, and protecting areas with the greatest potential to provide plant and wildlife species with refugia from climate change is critical for maintaining biodiversity and connectivity. State agencies across the North Central region of the United States have a particular interest in incorporating climate science and adaptation related to refugia into their State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs). Riparian areas are biological hotspots that have potential to provide climate refugia to a variety of wildlife species but are also susceptible environmental changes such as increasing temperatures and changes in water resources. To establish plans for future scenarios, state resource managers are seeking better data and interpretive products that can inform their future adaption plans.  
 

Working collaboratively with state agencies, the "Climate Science and Adaptation Planning Support for State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) in the North Central Region" project sought to identify riparian areas in the central and western U.S. that are projected to be more resilient against climate change and to allow for better integration of climate adaptation strategies into SWAPs. 
 

The results of this work can be viewed via the Riparian Climate Refugia Data Explorer, which provides an open-access platform for state managers to explore how riparian climate refugia may change over time. 

About the Dataset 

This project produced a dataset that mapped potential climate change refugia for riparian areas in the central and western U.S. for 2040–2069 and 2070–2099 under two different future climate scenarios: moderately hot and wet (CNRM-CM5) and hot and dry (IPSL-CM5A-MR). Researchers used ArcGIS Pro’s suitability modeler application in this workflow and incorporated four climate and landscape variables to create an index for riparian refugial quality. 
 

Model Input Variables Included: 

Landscape Variables  

• Riparian Connectedness = Quantifies the connected of existing riparian areas to one another 

• Landscape Diversity = Provides a categorical scale of how diverse the landscape is based on microhabitats and microclimates. The metric is produced by The Nature Conservancy,  and more information is available online at The Nature Conservancy’s Resilient and Connected Network. 

Climate Variables 

• Change in Runoff = Projected percent change in total landscape runoff for March–July, relative to the historical baseline (1971–2000), for two future 30-year time periods 

• Increase in Warm Days = Projected number of days in June–August that the maximum temperature will exceed the 90th percentile, relative to the historical baseline (1971–2000), for two future 30-year time periods 
   

To prepare the data for the suitability modeler, all data layers were first inspected individually, resampled to the same spatial resolution of 100m and aligned to the same geographic projection system. Then the values for each variable were divided into 5 bins (the standard setting of the tool), based on value ranges standardized across time periods and climate scenarios, that represented refugial suitability from 1 (least suitable) to 5 (most suitable).  To calculate the final suitability score, each of the variables were input into the suitability modeler tool, scored based on the pre-determined bins and layered upon one another to add to a final score. Final output data included 4 maps representing the 2 different climate scenarios across two time periods with refugial quality ranging from 4 (expected low refugia potential) to 20 (expected high refugia potential). 

In addition to the USGS data release of these input and output data, the data are also available for viewing via the Riparian Climate Refugia Data Explorer, which was developed using ArcGIS Online’s dashboard application.