Bringing Together Scientists and Resource Managers to Assess Science Needs and Address Questions Related to Conservation in a Changing Climate

Climate scientists need more and better information about the needs of decision-makers and managers, while decision-makers need better information about how a changing climate may affect their management and conservation objectives. The goal of this project was to build connections between the Plains and Prairie Potholes Landscape Conservation Cooperative (PPP-LCC), the North Central Climate Science Center (NC CSC), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction and Projection Pilot Platform (NCPP) to facilitate a link between the users and producers of climate information, as well as to identify gaps between available and desired data. This project developed a conceptual model of the interactions between climate change, land use change, and conservation and adaptation in the Plains and Prairie Potholes (PPR) region of the North Central U.S. Relating climate variations to the prevailing land use and socioeconomic issues in the region helped to produce a framework enabling climate scientists to guide managers towards currently available and useful climate information and to design future research to address remaining key uncertainties affecting conservation decisions in the region.