Refining Guidance for Incorporating Climate Science and Scenario Planning into National Park Service Resource Stewardship Strategies Completed

One of the biggest challenges facing resource managers today is not knowing exactly when, where, or how climate change effects will unfold. To help federal land managers address this need, the North Central CASC has been working with the National Park Service to pioneer an approach for incorporating climate science and scenario planning into NPS planning processes, in particular Resource Stewardship Strategies (RSS). These strategies serve as a long-range planning tool for a national park unit to achieve its desired natural and cultural resource conditions, and are used to guide a park’s full spectrum of resource-specific management plans and day-to-day management activities.

 

To support adaptation planning within national parks, researchers with the North Central CASC designed an approach for integrating climate science and scenarios into the RSS process using Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming as a test case. Building on these efforts, the goal of this project is to apply the lessons learned from the Devils Tower experience to a different NPS unit and context – Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota. This will enable researchers to test and refine guidance for incorporating climate science and scenario planning into the RSS process. This additional work is important to ensure that the guidance is relevant to multiple contexts, because RSS are a cornerstone of NPS planning and are being completed for all NPS units.