Watershed-based Midwest Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Tool

Climate change has and is projected to continue to alter historic regimes of temperature, precipitation, and hydrology. To better understand the combined impacts of climate change from a land management perspective and spatially identify where the most extreme changes are anticipated to occur, we worked in collaboration with United States Fish and Wildlife Service managers to develop a climate change vulnerability map for the Midwestern United States. The map is intended for use by regional administrators to help them work cross programmatically to prioritize locations needing support for adaptation planning and for managers to help them grapple with the impacts projected climate scenarios have on the hydrology of management units as they develop adaptation strategies. The vulnerability map is watershed-based (Hydrologic Unit Code-8) and combines fifteen climate change impact and five adaptive capacity metrics that were selected by United States Fish and Wildlife Service natural resource managers based upon known and anticipated impacts to species and habitats.