2014 Science Delivery Highlights
Hub Helps Landowners "SERCHing" for Climate Change Answers
Land managers face new challenges every year from the growing effects of climate change. The regional livelihoods of farmers, foresters, and ranchers depend on the ability of the scientific community to design means of adaptation and to effectively communicate those means at management relevant scales. Through a series of webinars and a myriad of other outreach efforts, the Southeast Regional Climate Hub (SERCH) is engaging land managers, extension specialists, and researchers in a mission to understand the climate information needs in the land management community and to then translate those needs back into tools and products that help prepare our working lands for future challenges.
SERCH is currently utilizing its federal and state-level partners, as well as reaching out to more localized specialists, to understand and address the climate change-related needs of land managers in the Southern Region. An initial series of twelve webinars revealed priorities and knowledge gaps that have been integrated into the short-term goals of SERCH. Based on these webinars, the hub is moving forward with an assessment of over 200 land management tools and a series of stakeholder interviews to determine the best methods for delivering climate change adaptation strategies to land management decision makers. Additionally, SERCH is scoping key contacts by leveraging cross-sector partnerships, assessing the existing scientific literature for the Template for Assessing Climate Change Impacts and Management Options (TACCIMO), and laying the groundwork for a social network analysis. These initial steps by SERCH are critical to developing its role in the working lands community, finding the best available tools and information for land managers, and building trusting relationships with user groups across the region.
Forest Service Partners/Collaborators: n/a
External Partners/Collaborators: Natural Resources Conservation Service; Agricultural Research Service; State Climate Office of North Carolina
Contact: Steve McNulty, steve.mcnulty@usda.gov
Photo by Scott Bauer, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bugwood.org.
