Climate Change and Land Conservation Nexus
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The document discusses the impacts of climate change on natural resources like water, wildlife habitats, and agricultural lands in the Santa Clara Valley region. It emphasizes the importance of conserving open spaces and creating an interconnected network of trails and habitats to help the region and its cities adapt to climate change impacts. The document also provides information on regional conservation groups and climate initiatives focused on applying climate data and ensuring sustainable communities.
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Climate Change and Land Conservation Nexus
- 1. Harvest Gathering Bay Area Open Space Council November 22, 2013 The Climate Change / Land Conservation Nexus
- 4. Climate Change Is Here Our Vision, Our Valley, Our Future We envision the Santa Clara Valley and its surrounding hillsides as a beautifl p a w er e l ce h a vibrant network of interconnected open spaces, trails, wildlife habitats and thriving agricultural lands enrich the region’s citie, m ki n o V alley an exceptioal a h th y s a g ur n nd eal place to live, work, learn and play. Climate change will disrupt not only the natural world but also society, posing risks to the world's economy and the food and water supply and contributing to violent conflict (IPPC. 2013)
- 7. Wildlife Our Vision, Our Valley, Our Future We envision the Santa Clara Valley and its surrounding hillsides as a beautifl p a w er e l ce h a vibrant network of interconnected open spaces, trails, wildlife habitats and thriving agricultural lands enrich the region’s citie, m ki n o V alley an exceptioal a h th y s a g ur n nd eal place to live, work, learn and play.
- 9. Our Vision, Our Valley, Our Future Applying Downscaled Climate Data to the Conservation at the Regional Scale We envision the Santa Clara Valley and its surrounding hillsides as a beautifl p a w er e l ce h a vibrant network of interconnected open spaces, trails, wildlife habitats and thriving agricultural lands enrich the region’s citie, m ki n o V alley an exceptioal a h th y s a g ur n nd eal place to live, work, learn and play.
- 10. Terrestrial Biodiversity and Climate Change Collaboration (TBC3) www.BayAreaLands.org/explorer
- 11. Our Vision, Our Valley, Our Future We envision the Santa Clara Valley and its surrounding hillsides as a beautifl p a w er e l ce h a vibrant network of interconnected open spaces, trails, wildlife habitats and thriving agricultural lands enrich the region’s citie, m ki n o V alley an exceptioal a h th y s a g ur n nd eal place to live, work, learn and play.
- 12. Our Vision, Our Valley, Our Future We envision the Santa Clara Valley and its surrounding hillsides as a beautifl p a w er e l ce h a vibrant network of interconnected open spaces, trails, wildlife habitats and thriving agricultural lands enrich the region’s citie, m ki n o V alley an exceptioal a h th y s a g ur n nd eal place to live, work, learn and play.
- 13. Our Vision, Our Valley, Our Future We envision the Santa Clara Valley and its surrounding hillsides as a beautifl p a w er e l ce h a vibrant network of interconnected open spaces, trails, wildlife habitats and thriving agricultural lands enrich the region’s citie, m ki n o V alley an exceptioal a h th y s a g ur n nd eal place to live, work, learn and play.
- 15. Land Conservation and Sustainable Communities
- 17. What’s the Value of Nature ? Copyright © 2011 Earth Economics
- 20. Learn More • Bay Area Open Space Council (openspacecouncil.org) • Plan Bay Area onebayarea.org • Terrestrial Biodiversity & Climate Change Collaborative tbc3.org • Bay Area Ecosystems Climate Change Consortium baeccc.org • Learn more about conservation visions of agencies like: • San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority sfbayrestore.org • Santa Clara County Open Space Authority openspaceauthority.org • Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District openspace.org
Editor's Notes
- I’m going to talk about the nexus of land protection and stewardship to climate change: How researchers, conservation planners, and land managers are joining forces to inform conservation priorities, partnerships, policy and funding in the 21st Century. In my short time, I’m going to touch on the the importance of:Applied Research, Data and ModelingIntegrated Conservation Planning and Investments in Climate Resilient LandscapesPolicy and Future Funding – SB 375Educating Decision-makers and the Public about the importance of conservation and conservation/climate nexus
- Here’s our context: The Bay Area is a region of over 4.4 million acres, with over a quarter of the area - 1.3 million acres – set aside as parks, open space, and protected farmland; more than any other major metropolitan area in the United States, making the Bay Area once of those most natural urban landscapes in the world. It is a place where virtually all of the counties of the Bay Area have public open space districts, resource conservation districts, and sophisticated land trusts; and where the public has voted time and again for strong land use policies, urban growth boundaries and tax measures to support the preservation of open space and farmland.
- The Conservation Powerhouse for the Bay Region that brings many of those agencies and organizations together is the Bay Area Open Space Council– a collaborative of 65 land trusts, public agencies, and conservation organizations working in 10 counties across the San Francisco Bay Area to advance protection of land, water, wildlife habitat and working lands and sustain a vital conservation lands network of over 1. 3 million acres. While the acquisition efforts of these conservation organizations have resulted in this impressive portfolio of protected lands, we know, that with two million more people coming to the region in the next several decades and given the increasing effects of climate change, the next wave of conservation priorities and planning must happen through the lens of climate change - focusing on the importance of land, water and resource stewardship for the well-being of humans and the sustainability of the region.
- So, before we can talk about the land conservation / climate nexus, we need to acknowledge the fact that climate change is here and happening now. Climate Change will significantly affect our global environment, with related impacts to our water supply, food supply, public health, infrastructure and economies.This is a photo from the typhoon in the Philippines last week. It’s being called the biggest typhoon ever to hit land.
- So why should be care about and invest in conserving and stewarding our natural resources in the face of climate change ? Water ResourcesA recent study by Lawrence Livermore Lab changes in precipitation patterns is one of the most significant potential consequences of climate change because water is the most important natural resource; and changes to our precipitation and water regimes will have significant repercussions on our urban areas and agricultural land uses. In Santa Clara County, we receive 50% of our water supply from Bay Delta System. The other 50 % comes from groundwater and our watersheds. In Santa Cruz County, the entire Water supply comes from within County, predominantly from groundwater. What need to understand better the relationship of conserving and stewarding watersheds and groundwater recharge areas to local water supply.
- Climate Change is already influencing the viability of certain agricultural crops. Hundreds of thousands of acres of rangelands in the Bay Area provide services of protecting water supply, water quality, flood risk reduction, biodiversity and providing resilience to climate change. We need to work with water agencies to protect upper source watersheds by conserving private rangelands and incentivize farmers and ranchers to maintain these ecosystem services.
- Climate change is expected to profoundly affect biodiversity and wildlife in the coming decades – there will be winners and losers. Climate change is compounded by the habitat fragmentation that is already occurring via roads and other exurban developmentsWhat can we do:-maintain and improve landscape connectivity-protect areas that provide a variety of habitat niches-adding to existing protected areas throughout the region to increase contiguous habitat variability
- This slide shows that by mid-century, areas of greater water deficit and stress to plant communities (as noted in red) The cross hatched areas are protected lands.
- Collaborative efforts are underway across the region amongst scientists, conservation planners, resource managers to incorporate the latest climate change research and modeling into decisions about managing resources and prioritizing land protectionMuch of the data being used by conservation planners is being generated a consortium called the Terrestrial Biodiversity and Climate Change Collaborative or TBC3 – that was led by the Pepperwood Preserve in Sonoma County and the Ackerly Lab at U.C. Berkeley.Scientists are studying climate models, fog patterns, potential shifts in vegetation patterns, water availability and putting the knowledge into tools that can be used by land managersThis critical information is starting to be integrated into our conservation and stewardship priorities. Also Mention Bay Area Ecosystems Climate Change Consortium – Their Mission…….
- Conservation agencies such as the Open Space Authority are working at the sub-regional level to understand how climate change will impact the landscape. By using downscaled climatic data in combination with landscape features like elevation gradients, solar radiation, proximity to water resources; OSA is working to identify areas where the development of conservation and stewardship strategies will be critical to mitigate the impacts of climate change. This image shows relative landscape complexity and indicates areas that may serve as vital refugia, based on range of elevation gradients, proximity to stable water sources, and in species’ ability to adapt to a changing climate.
- But as we apply down-scaled climatic projections for mid-century, we can begin to see the relative levels of stress these landscapes could experience in the future due to changes in temperature and precipitation. Toggle to next slide
- And by the end of the century, the patterns becomes much more evident. Byintegrating this model with vegetation, watersheds, or other resources, we can begin to understand how this stress could materialize on the landscape. What can we do then? Identify areas that will most benefit from stewardship to protect water resources, or that may be priorities for coordinated wildlfire protection planning efforts. Now toggle back and for the between the three one more time.
- Our understanding of the Bay Area’s biodiversity and we should prioritize areas for biodiversity conservation took a huge leap forward with the completion of the Conservation Lands Network in 2010. This science-based, peer-reviewed project identified areas needed to preserve biodiversity in the 9 counties of the Bay Area, plus Santa Cruz. (There are brochures and maps here today.)The dark blue areas indicate areas that are essential to biodiversity that have not yet been protected.And it’s on this foundation that we are now looking at the variables of climate change.
- The role of land conservation and stewardship to achieving GHG emissions targets and adapting to the effects of climate change began to be recognized in the recently adopted Sustainable Communities Strategy or “Plan Bay Area” by ABAG / MTC, the integrated transportation and land use/housing plan for the SF Bay Area. It included creation of a $10 million Priority Conservation Area Grant Program to help implement Plan Bay Area. Conservation planners are working hard on the next Plan Bay Area update – 4 years hence - to increase the recognition of land conservation and resource stewardship to implementing climate change goals and polices and increase investment of transportation and water-related infrastructure $$ in conservation – examples of future priorities could include developing a Regional Advanced Mitigation Program for large transportation projects, mapping “priority conservation areas” near urbanized areas that would be off limits to future growth, and modeling the carbon sequestration and climate adaptation benefit of vegetation on undeveloped natural areas and agricultural lands.
- That’s why efforts such as Healthy Lands, Healthy Economies are so critical. Sonoma, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz Counties have joined forces to assess the economic benefits of conserving our natural areas and working lands – making the business case for conservation. Funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, SD Bechtel Foundation and State Coastal Conservancy, the SC3 Ecosystem Services Project will develop tools and models that can be replicated across the region and state to help conservation agencies, policy makers and the public better understand and quantify the relevancy of land conservation to the health and sustainability of a climate challenged region.
- Another nature-based infrastructure project with direct effect on climate resiliency - the South Bay Salt Ponds Project - the largest wetland restoration project on the West Coast, that provides tidal wetland restoration, flood protection, and public access for more than 3 million people .