National CASC

Climate change threatens keystone plant communities and insects that make up the base of functional food webs, but restoration practitioners struggle to factor climate considerations into restoration projects for a number of practical reasons. Researchers supported by this National CASC project will create a trait-based plant vulnerability assessment to guide restoration practitioners in...

As droughts become more frequent, there is a growing need to understand how drought impacts streamflow permanence. Intermittent streams, or streams that go dry at some point during the year, are found in all ecoregions and represent over half of the global stream network length. As stream intermittence increases, there will be implications for both aquatic and terrestrial wildlife...

Freshwater is a critical driver for island ecosystems and essential part of the water cycle in tropical islands, which is threaten by climate change. Changes in streamflow patterns may impact streams, estuarine, and coastal habitats. In Hawai‘i, these habitats support five native stream fish species. To examine how changes in streamflow have impacted habitat quality for these native...

As climate change is impacting water resources and aquatic ecosystems, there is a great need for natural resource managers to assess adaptation measures in a holistic manner. This can be done by integrating model predictions of climate, hydrology, and ecosystems with observational data to better refine estimates of conditions on-the-ground; however, it can be challenging to combine these...

Stream flow is directly tied to climate, and numerous studies provide substantial evidence that climate change is a threat to future aquatic water flow processes. In the southwestern United States, mountain snow is a primary water source for streams and rivers. However, climate change is threatening the region's mountain snow, leading to reduced snowpack, earlier snowmelt, and more...

Rain-on-snow events occur when warm rain falls on an existing snowpack, causing rapid snowmelt that can lead to damaging floods, reduced spring and summer streamflow, and altered stream temperatures, with ecological, social, and economic consequences. Rain-on-snow events can result in a loss of riverine biodiversity, decreases in fisheries production, and degradation of stream habitat...

High latitude northern ecosystems are currently warming twice as fast as the global average. Over the last several decades, this has caused dramatic losses of frozen area in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. However, it is unclear how melting coastal mountain glaciers, thawing permafrost, and declines in snowpack will affect the quality of freshwater habitat for culturally and economically...

Understanding the paths by which water flows through the landscape is critical for providing fresh water for human use, maintaining ecosystem function, and better predicting how disturbances such as fire or drought may impact water quantity and water quality. Yet projected changes in climate, disturbances, and land use, are likely to alter hydrologic flow paths, and natural resource...

Climate change is reshaping the abundance and distribution of sport fishes across the U.S., creating novel challenges for socially and economically important recreational fisheries. Existing fish and recreational fisheries data sets are invaluable given their broad geographic footprint and long-term data, but integration across datasets to inform management has been limited, leading to...

Negative human-bear interactions are a common problem and management priority for many wildlife agencies in North America. Bears are adaptable to anthropogenic activity and food sources which creates opportunities for conflict with humans, including property damage, livestock depredation, and in severe cases, human injury. Acute climate events and long-term directional climate change can...

Ecosystem services – the benefits that nature provides to people – are a natural link between ecosystem functions and economic and social impacts. However, climate change is already impacting and altering ecosystem services. Research focused on all aspects of ecosystem services falls within the mission of the Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs). While knowledge of ecosystem...