2014 Science Delivery Highlights
How Will National Forests Monitor and Adapt to Climate Change?
One of the greatest challenges associated with a changing climate is the need to connect broad-scale measures of change to practices and indicators that are meaningful at the decision making scale. Developed jointly by the Eastern and Western Threat Centers, the Template for Assessing Climate Change Impacts and Management Options (TACCIMO) is working directly with national forests as they design multi-scale and multi-party monitoring and adaptive management strategies required under the 2012 Planning Rule. Products available through TACCIMO to the national forests include results from in-depth literature reviews as well as geospatial modeling projections. In addition, TACCIMO staff provides direct support and methods for applying climate change science to meet assessment, planning, and monitoring needs. The public-facing website puts all of these resources at the fingertips of the forest plan interdisciplinary teams, the public, and other stakeholder groups.
Through the Monitoring Adaptation Project, TACCIMO information is leveraged to provide both direct support as a source of current, credible, and concise science and also serves as a resource that promotes the collaborative planning process. The combined value of the information, methods for applying it, and capacity to promote collaboration, will help forests design useful monitoring programs that enable adaptive management as conditions on and off the ground change.
Forest Service Partners/Collaborators: Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center; Southern Region; Pacific Southwest Region
Contact: Emrys Treasure, emrys.treasure@usda.gov
Right: The El Yunque National Forest is among the first to revise its Land and Resource Management Plan under the 2012 Planning Rule. Photo by USDA Forest Service.
