Adapting to Climate Change in Northeastern Freshwater Ecosystems
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Keith Nislow (Forest Service and Northeast Climate Science Center) presented at the Adapting Forested Watersheds to Climate Change Workshop, at Antioch University New England, Keene, NH on April 4-5, 2017. The workshop was hosted by the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science (NIACS), USDA Climate Hubs, and Trout Unlimited.
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Adapting to Climate Change in Northeastern Freshwater Ecosystems
- 1. Adapting to Climate Change in Northeastern Freshwater Ecosystems Keith H. Nislow USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station
- 2. 14 1. Appalachian 4. Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers 10. North Atlantic 9. Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks 14. South Atlantic 13. Plains and Prairie Potholes 16. Upper Midwest and Great Lakes 9 EXPLANATION Landscape Conservation Cooperatives in the Northeast CSC region
- 5. Rising stream and river temperatures in the United States Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment Volume 8, Issue 9, pages 461-466, 23 MAR 2010 DOI: 10.1890/090037 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/090037/full#i1540-9295-8-9-461-f02
- 6. Thermal Regimes Directly linked to • watershed and ecosystem condition • climate and climate adaptation planning • valued and at-risk resources
- 7. 2010 2011 Chadwick, J., Nislow, K.H., McCormick, S.D. 2016. Conservation Physiology
- 8. Effect on Occupancy July Temp
- 10. Total Precip Snow Projected changes in rainfall in summer are uncertain.
- 11. Variable Season Model Occupancy Multiple-site Spatial – Abundance Single-site Mark- Recapture - Abundance Flow/Precip Fall ↑ ↑ Winter ↓ ↓ Spring ↑ ↔ Summer ↑ ↔ ↑ ** Temperature Fall ↑ ↓ Winter ↔ ↔ Spring ↓ ↔ Summer ↓ ↓ ** ↓ **
- 14. Effects on Occupancy July Temp Forest Cover
- 15. • Mean July Stream Temperature • Summer Flow (Precip x Drainage Area) • Riparian Forest Cover • Watershed High Development • Watershed Agriculture • Surficial Coarseness • HUC10 (watershed) Occupancy Predictions
- 16. Tolerance to Warming Brook Trout Occupancy Sensitivity to Climate Change Air Temp Increase Tolerated (°C) 0°- 0.5° 0.6°- 1° 1.1°- 1.5° 1.6°- 2° 2.1°- 2.5° 2.6°- 3° 3.1°- 3.5° 3.6°- 4° 4.1°- 4.5° 4.6°- 5° 5.1°- 5.5° 5.6°- 6° Currently Below Target Other map elements State outlines Low “target” High “target”
- 18. Potential Effects of ‘Snow Drought’ • Decreased reliability and duration of high spring flow pulse
- 20. From Ning, L., E. E. Riddle, and R. Bradley, 2014: Projected changes in climate extremes over the northeastern United States. J. Climate (accepted pending revision)
- 21. Consider changes in the frequency and magnitude of extreme events • Floods, droughts, heatwaves • Influence and attention way out of proportion to their frequency
- 22. Incorporate Multiple Dimensions • Floods • Risks to Natural Resources and Human Infrastructure • Options - Identify risks, improve infrastructure
- 23. Slow the Flow for Climate Resilience Decreasing vulnerability of ecosystems and human infrastructure to floods and droughts from the headwaters to the coasts Project Goals: • Identify effective mechanisms • Reveal mutual benefits (and potential conflicts) • Determine scope for adaptation
- 24. Q time 1. 2. What is the capacity for gains or losses of green infrastructure to move flood hydrographs from 1. to 2.? • Soil permeability (impervious surface conversion) • Channel and bed roughness (habitat restoration) • Flowpath length • Floodplain storage
- 25. Q time 1. 2. How do these actions influence: • Conservation of critical habitat • Population resilience of key species • Ecosystem Services
- 26. Ben Letcher Yoichiro Kanno, Ron Bassar, Evan Childress, Paul Schueller, Matt O'Donnell, Todd Dubreuil Jason Coombs Department of Natural Resources Conservation UMass, Amherst, MA, USA Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Turners Falls, MA, USA Steve Hurley
Editor's Notes
- Thanks Dan Like to start off with some Geographic/Environmental/Social Context Limited public lands; many small holdings Strong east-west, inland-coastal, north-south gradients Early European settlement, lots of people, lots of infrastructure Well watered region supporting its own coldwater-adapted ecosystems of which the native eastern brook trout if and important iconic and sentinel species – Nat’s going to talk a lot more about this in his presentation
- The climate is certainly changing and in ways that directly threaten these resources. Just as an example, The annual mean temperature in MA has already increased by about 2.4oF (1.3oC) since 1895 – faster than the rise in global mean temperature.
- And this is expected to continue depending on which emissions scenarios get played out
- Frequency (number of days) in left hand column, Magnitude (in mm) in right column of extreme precipitation events (95% exceedence) across three carbon emissions scenarios (more extreme as you go from top to bottom). The darker the blue the greater the increase from 1950-1999 conditions to forecast 2050-2100 conditions. Take home – it’s a going to be a blue world at least in the northeast US
- Because of their impacts, consideration of extreme events provides a good transition to our third goal of incorporating multiple dimensions in climate adapation for fish and aquatic ecosystems. One option and this is where folks like Nat and his state and NGO colleagues really led the way is to identify where infrastructure resilience such as road crossings and floods would benefit by some of the same stream simulation approaches
- The other option is for resilience in the face of extreme flows (both floods and droughts) is to slow the flow – implement management strategies that moderate peaks and troughs in hydrologic regime. We recently initiated a multi-year project funded by the NECSC to develop in four case study watersheds
- And for example, in the case of extreme floods, we want to be able to represent for a given setting, the scope for adaptation in this case the ability to keep flood peaks below some damage threshold at a given infrastructure node (blue box) and which of a broad range of potential actions are most appropriate and effective
- At the same time, we want to be able to represent the other potential benefits of these actions for important natural resource targets
- I just wanted to emphasize that in addition to our FS cooperators we have a wide range of additional cooperators – and I wanted to emphasize my colleague Ben Letcher the Ecology Section Leader at the USGS Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center and Jason Coombs my postdoc here at UMASS along with the DOI Northeast Climate Science Center, the North Atlantic LCC and TNC who helped to fund this work