Other Technical Support

Located between Wellfleet and Turo, Massachusetts, the 1100-acre Herring River watershed has historically provided many ecological and social benefits, including forest and wetland habitat for native fish, birds, and mammals and recreational and educational opportunities for residents and visitors. Construction of a dike and ditches beginning in the early 1900s constricted tidal exchange...

A priority of the Southeast Climate Science Center (SECSC) is to support the planning and implementation of a Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS). This project examined the decision making context, decision making process, and management planning associated with the restoration of open pine ecosystems in the Southeast. To better understand the planning practice associated...

Understanding the changes in the distribution and quantity of, and demand for, water resources in response to a changing climate is essential to planning for, and adapting to, future climatic conditions. In order to plan for future conditions and challenges, it is crucial that managers understand the limitations and uncertainties associated with the characterization of these changes when...

In the Southwestern U.S., rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns are resulting in changes such as more frequent and severe wildfires and prolonged drought. Natural resource managers striving to make decisions in the face of these changing conditions can benefit from information on past, present, and future climate. While an array of climate assessments are available, it...

Prairie ecosystems and the grassland birds that rely on them for habitat may be particularly vulnerable to rapid changes in climate. Extensive portions of prairie have already been lost due to agriculture and urbanization, and as a result grassland birds have declined more than any other bird group in the last four decades. Now, climate change could exacerbate existing threats to these...

Southwestern Colorado is already experiencing the effects of climate change in the form of larger and more severe wildfires, prolonged drought, and earlier snowmelt. Climate scientists expect the region to experience more summer heat waves, longer-lasting and more frequent droughts, and decreased river flow in the future. These changes will ultimately impact local communities and...

Climate change is poised to alter natural systems, the frequency of extreme weather, and human health and livelihoods. In order to effectively prepare for and respond to these challenges in the north-central region of the U.S., people must have the knowledge and tools to develop plans and adaptation strategies. The objective of this project was to build stakeholders’ capacity to respond...

Hydrologic models are used throughout the world to forecast and simulate streamflow, inform water management, municipal planning, and ecosystem conservation, and investigate potential effects of climate and land-use change on hydrology. The USGS Modeling of Watershed Systems (MoWS) group is currently developing the infrastructure for a National Hydrologic Model (NHM) to support...

The USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center (NCCWSC), as part of the work of the Interagency Land Management Adaptation Group (ILMAG), initiated a project in 2013 to develop plans for a searchable, public registry on climate change vulnerability assessments. Member agencies from the USGCRP Adaptation Science Work Group, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA...

This project generated a series of freely available datasets that provide projections of climate change at appropriate spatial scales that can directly address specific management questions. These climate change projections are the result of “downscaling” output from global climate models (GCMs) that formed the basis of many conclusions in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change...

Few evaluations of actual collaborative science or co-production processes have been undertaken that can point to specific outcomes for either resource management or science decisions. Project researchers will assess a sample of collaborative Southwest Climate Science Center (SW CSC) funded research projects in order to evaluate the approaches used by SW CSC investigators to collaborate...

Human impacts occurring throughout the DOI Northeast Climate Science Center, including urbanization, agriculture, and dams, have multiple effects on streams in the region which support economically valuable stream fishes. Changes in climate are expected to lead to additional impacts in stream habitats and fish assemblages in multiple ways, including changing stream water temperatures. To...