Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather
Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather
CASC-supported scientists throughout the country are working to understand how drought, fire and extreme weather are changing under climate change and how they are impacting important natural and cultural resources. Browse our science on these topics below.
Filter Total Items: 281
Future of Fire: Towards a National Synthesis of Wildland Fire Under a Changing Climate
Abundant scientific research has characterized the relationships between climate and fire in ecosystems of the United States, and there is substantial evidence that the role of fire in ecosystems is likely to change with a changing climate. Changing fire patterns pose numerous natural resource management challenges and decision makers in natural-resource management increasingly require information
Generating a Shoreline Inventory for Hawai‘i Island to Increase Resilience in the Face of Rising Sea Levels
Globally, shorelines provide a vital defense system against extreme weather and erosion events and are a critical public and cultural resource. Within the state of Hawaiʻi, coastal vulnerability and historic change has been well documented and studied on the Islands of Oʻahu, Maui, and Kauaʻi, but this has not been done for the Island of Hawaiʻi, the largest and most diverse island in the Hawaiian
Impacts of Extreme Events on the Native and Nonnative Aquatic Species of Hawaiʻi Stream Ecosystem
Freshwater is a critical driver for island ecosystems. Climate change has fundamentally altered the water cycle in tropical islands. The changes in dynamic patterns of streamflow could result in the temporal and spatial difference in the riverine, estuarine, and coastal habitats that support native species. In particular, these habitats support the nine native aquatic species in Hawaiʻi at differe
Learning From the Past and Planning for the Future: Experience-Driven Insight Into Managing for Ecosystem Transformations Induced by Drought and Wildfire
Drought and wildfire pose enormous threats to the integrity of natural resources that land managers are charged with protecting. Recent observations and modeling forecasts indicate that these stressors will likely produce catastrophic ecosystem transformations, or abrupt changes in the condition of plants, wildlife, and their habitats, in regions across the country in coming decades. In this p
Malo‘o ka lani, wela ka honua (When the sky is dry, the earth is parched): Investigating the Cultural Dimensions of Indigenous Local Knowledge Responses to Changing Climate Conditions
Hawai‘i’s isolation, paired with limited water resources, make the archipelago sensitive to reductions in water availability. Drought can take different forms, varying across Island geographies with respect to frequency, intensity, duration, and extent. A drought event can exert hydrological, agricultural, ecological, and socio-economic impacts – and these impacts have been growing over the past c
Preliminary Investigation of Machine Learning Approaches to Improve Projections of Future Climate in Hawai‘i
Detailed, reliable projections of future changes in climate are needed by Hawai‘i’s resource managers, such as water utilities managers, land managers, conservation organizations, and decision makers. However, global climate models (or “general circulation models”), which are currently the most commonly used tool for projecting future climate variations, are known for representing large-scale clim
Scaling up the Hawai‘i Drought Knowledge Exchange: Expanding Stakeholder Reach and Capacity to Address Climate Change, Variability, and Drought
The Hawai‘i Drought Knowledge Exchange project has been successfully piloting three sets of formal collaborative knowledge exchanges between researchers and managers to co-produce customized, site specific drought data products to meet the needs of their partners. Through these pilots, knowledge co-production has demonstrated how active collaboration between researchers and managers in the design
Science to Help Move From Mortality to Recovery in Western Forests and Woodlands
Healthy forests and woodlands in the western United States provide many important benefits, including providing habitat for wildlife, forage for livestock, and clean water for fish and human use. Yet climate change and other stressors, from wildfires and insect attacks to severe droughts, are causing unprecedented tree die offs across the region, threatening many of these ecosystem services. Follo
Science to Inform Post-fire Conifer Regeneration and Reforestation Strategies Under Changing Climate Conditions
Climate change is causing an increase in the amount of forested area burned by wildfires in the western U.S. The warm, dry post-fire conditions of the region may limit tree regeneration in some areas, potentially causing a shift to non-forest vegetation. Managers are increasingly challenged by the combined impacts of greater wildfire activity, the significant uncertainty about whether forests will
Sea-Level Rise Viewer for American Samoa: A Co-Developed Visualization and Planning Tool
American Samoa is vulnerable to sea-level rise in part due to the steep terrain of its islands. This terrain requires the majority of the islands’ villages and infrastructure to be located along thin strips of coastal land. The situation is worsened by the recently recognized rapid sinking of the islands, which was triggered by the 2009 Samoa earthquake and is predicted to last for decades. This s
The Impact of Sea-Level Rise on Coral Reef and Mangrove Interactions and the Resulting Coastal Flooding Hazards
Ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves provide an effective first line of defense against coastal hazards and represent a promising nature-based solution to adapt to sea-level rise. In many areas, coral reefs cause waves to break and lose energy, allowing for sediment to accumulate on the inshore portion of reef flats (i.e. the shallowest, flattest part of a reef) and mangroves to establish.
Tracking Forest and Hydrological Resilience to Compound Stressors in Burned Forests Under a Changing Climate
In the Northern Rockies, the annual area burned by wildfires has risen sharply in recent decades and is expected to continue growing. As a result, burned forests increasingly comprise a significant portion of the land base. However, burned areas represent a difficult paradox for land managers, especially in the context of other climate-linked disturbances (e.g., droughts, bark beetle outbreaks) th