Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and 

Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the 

Great Basin and Mojave Desert: Workshop Summary 

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

Scientific Investigations Report 2011–5103
Cover: Kirch Wildlife Management Area, White River Valley, Nevada. (Photograph by 

Steve Caicco, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service).
Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and 

Research Needs Related to Climate Change 

in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert: 

Workshop Summary

By Debra L. Hughson, National Park Service, David E. Busch, U.S. Geological Survey, 

Scott Davis, Bureau of Land Management, Sean P. Finn, U.S. Geological Survey, Steve 

Caicco, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Paul S.J. Verburg, Desert Research Institute

Scientific Investigations Report 2011–5103

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey
ii

U.S. Department of the Interior

KEN SALAZAR, Secretary

U.S. Geological Survey

Marcia K. McNutt, Director 

U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2011

For more information on the USGS—the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, 

natural hazards, and the environment, visit http://www.usgs.gov or call 1–888–ASK–USGS.

For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit http://www.usgs.

gov/pubprod

To order this and other USGS information products, visit http://store.usgs.gov

Statements about planning or management actions are those of the workshop participants and do not represent 

policy positions of any of the public agencies represented at the meeting.

Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. 

Government.

Although this report is in the public domain, permission must be secured from the individual copyright owners to 

reproduce any copyrighted materials contained within this report.

Suggested citation:

Hughson, D.L., Busch, D.E., Davis, Scott, Finn, S.P., Caicco, Steve, and Verburg, P.S.J., 2011, Natural resource 

mitigation, adaptation and research needs related to climate change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert: 

Workshop Summary: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5103, 34 p. 
iii

Contents

Executive Summary.......................................................................................................................................1

Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................1

Synthesis.........................................................................................................................................................3

Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert.................................................................3

Partnerships and Managing Across Boundaries............................................................................5

Science-Based Management.............................................................................................................8

Breakout Session Themes..........................................................................................................................14

Managing Across Boundaries..........................................................................................................14

Ecosystem Services in a Changing Climate ...................................................................................18

Monitoring for Climate Induced Change.........................................................................................20

Species and Habitat Assessment ....................................................................................................23

Conclusions...................................................................................................................................................29

References Cited..........................................................................................................................................30

Glossary.........................................................................................................................................................33

Figures

Figure 1. Map showing an evaluation of responsiveness to climate change using 15

climate change models from the Fourth Assessment Report of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change .......................................... 3

Figure 2. Photograph showing increased annual productivity of Bromus spp. in wet

years as a result of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (550 ppm) at the

Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment facility on the Nevada Test Site north of

Las Vegas, Nevada ........................................................................ 4

Figure 3. Photograph showing “Bathtub ring” at Lake Mead that indicates when the

reservoir is near full capacity at 1,225.85 feet. The reservoir was 1,095.69 feet

at the time of this photograph in May 11, 2011, which is approximately 43

percent of capacity ........................................................................ 5

Figure 4. Photograph showing red brome (Bromus rubens), an invasive annual grass

linked to increasing frequencies of fire in the Mojave Desert, southern Nevada ... 12

Figure 5. Invasive annual grasses can produce a vegetation type change from desert

perennials to invasive annual grassland ................................................ 13

Figure 6. Photograph showing wildfire near Winnemucca, Nevada, on April 1, 2009, at

the edge of Piñon-Juniper woodland habitat that may have resulted from past

fire suppression management practices and expanding annual grasses related

to increased fire frequency ............................................................... 21

Figure 7. Photograph showing parabolic mirror solar thermal energy generating plant at

Kramer Junction, California ............................................................... 24

Figure 8. Photograph showing a shallow submerged shelf in Devils Hole that provides

the only habitat for the critically endangered Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon

diabolis)....................................................................................... 27
iv

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Executive Summary

This report synthesizes the knowledge, opinions, and 

concerns of many Federal and State land managers, scientists, 

stakeholders, and partners from a workshop, held at the 

University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on April 20–22, 2010. 

Land managers, research scientists, and resource specialists 

identified common concerns regarding the potential effects 

of climate change on public lands and natural resources 

in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert and developed 

recommendations for mitigation, adaptation, and research 

needs. Water and, conversely, the effects of drought emerged 

as a common theme in all breakout sessions on terrestrial 

and aquatic species at risk, managing across boundaries, 

monitoring, and ecosystem services. Climate change models 

for the southwestern deserts predict general warming and 

drying with increasing precipitation variability year to year. 

Scientists noted that under these changing conditions the past 

may no longer be a guide to the future in which managers 

envision increasing conflicts between human water uses and 

sustaining ecosystems. Increasing environmental stress also is 

expected as a consequence of shifting ecosystem boundaries 

and species distributions, expansion of non-native species, 

and decoupling of biotic mutualisms, leading to increasingly 

unstable biologic communities. Managers uniformly 

expressed a desire to work across management and agency 

boundaries at a landscape scale but conceded that conflicting 

agency missions and budgetary constraints often impede 

collaboration. More and better science is needed to cope with 

the effects of climate change but, perhaps even more important 

is the application of science to management issues using 

the methods of adaptive management based on long-term 

monitoring to assess the merits of management actions. Access 

to data is essential for science-based land management. Basic 

inventories, spatial databases, baseline condition assessments, 

data quality assurance, and data sharing were identified as 

top information priorities by all participants at this workshop. 

Optimizing the utility of ecosystem monitoring data will 

require standardizing monitoring protocols across agencies. 

Better communication among researchers and managers and 

cooperation through partnerships to manage resources across 

boundaries were emphasized as necessary for adapting to 

changing climatic conditions. However, even these strategies 

may be insufficient unless policy mandates, agency missions, 

and funding are coordinated at a high level. 

Introduction

This report is a synopsis of the workshop that was 

held at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas campus on 

April 20–22, 2010. More than 300 participants attended 

plenary talks, presented posters, and contributed to discussions 

in workshop breakout sessions. The workshop focused on 

how climate change is affecting natural resources in arid lands 

of the Western United States, in addition to the land, water, 

and species management and research needs that should be 

addressed in the coming decade. Workshop goals included:

• Increasing the understanding of climate change 

processes and their effects on the physical systems and 

biota of the Great Basin and Mojave Desert.

• Providing the best available scientific information for 

adapting to change.

• Examining research and management needs.

• Evaluating management constraints and determining 

potential solutions.

• Developing effective research and management 

collaborations for addressing climate change into the 

future.

Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and 

Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the 

Great Basin and Mojave Desert: Workshop Summary

By Debra L. Hughson1, David E. Busch2, Scott Davis3, Sean P. Finn4, Steve Caicco5, and Paul S.J. Verburg6

1

National Park Service, Mojave National Preserve.

2

U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Southwest Area Office.

3

Bureau of Land Management, National Operations Center.

4

USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center; current address, 

USFWS Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative.

5

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Portland.

6

Desert Research Institute, Reno.
2 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

Stakeholders in the natural resources management 

and research communities with interest and expertise in the 

potential effects of climate change on the arid lands of the 

Western United States comprised the target audience for the 

workshop. Participants included natural resource management 

agency staff and decision makers working at the Federal, 

State and local levels, university and federal research institute 

scientists, as well as non-government organization (NGO) and 

Tribal representatives. The workshop agenda was designed to 

provide an overview of the climate change drivers affecting 

the interior West, as well as the ecosystem responses to 

climate change and associated mitigation and adaptation 

options available to managers. Another focus was on current 

research and information needs, with a consideration of 

different perspectives on potential future research emphases 

and resource management direction. Data, analyses, models, 

and conservation planning related to species, habitats, and 

landscapes were addressed, along with socioeconomic drivers 

of change in the arid West. Current efforts, including what 

networks and organizations exist or need to be formed to 

mitigate and adapt to ecosystem changes driven by a changing 

climate, were examined during the workshop.

Given the large number of symposia on climate change 

that have been held, the workshop organizers felt that it was 

important to develop an agenda with more than just scientists 

speaking at managers. A key goal was to catalyze dialogue 

about scientific and management strategies to have positive 

effects on outcomes in the future. A paired plenary format was 

used to integrate talks by management leaders with those of 

leading researchers on strategies, plans, and needs for climate 

change acclimation and mitigation. Workshop subtopics 

included climate change mitigation, adaptation, and research 

needs related to:

• Observed trends and model predictions, including 

uncertainty and variability in:

◦ Precipitation, runoff and their effects on aquatic, 

wetland, and riparian ecosystems and biota.

◦ Soils, vegetation, fire and invasive species 

interactions in arid land ecosystems.

• Adjusting conservation strategies for protected 

species and lands in a changing environment; shifting 

distributions with fixed unit boundaries, maintenance 

of habitat connectivity, loss of patches (at high 

elevations and valley bottoms, and in isolated aquatic 

systems).

• Monitoring to support large-scale, cross-boundary 

priorities for adaptive management in a variable and 

uncertain environment.

• Restoration objectives, feasibility, and strategies given 

environmental change, biogeographic limitations, and 

uncertainty. 

• Data collection networks and information management 

to support analyses and modeling.

• Overlay of climate change with land use and water 

management in an ecosystem services context.

The workshop achieved several outcomes and products 

including:

• Catalyzing information exchange among participants.

• Establishing and using existing interorganizational 

work groups to explore:

◦ Research and scientific assessments, tools, and 

priorities.

◦ Management adaptation and mitigation strategies.

• Refining information needs related to individual 

organizations’ missions and interorganizational 

collaboratives.

• Development of scientific publications, an Internet 

presence, and other communication paths using 

existing organization and collaborative capabilities.

As part of a series of climate change workshops 

throughout the Nation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

and the U.S. Geological Survey initiated planning for 

the workshop. The workshop planning team sought the 

involvement of a broad array of experts and entities to 

co-sponsor the workshop, and to help provide speakers 

or other resources. Organizations that helped by leading 

workshop planning and providing financial and staff support 

included the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park 

Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Desert 

Research Institute, and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. 

The Great Basin Research and Management Partnership, 

the Desert Managers Group, the Southern Nevada Agency 

Partnership, the Western Governors Association, and the U.S. 

Forest Service contributed to communicating the workshop 

agenda.
Synthesis 3

Synthesis

This section synthesizes important points emerging 

from the keynote and plenary talks and poster presentations 

with background information summarized from the climate 

change literature. Breakout sessions on particular workshop 

themes are presented separately. Publications and symposia 

on the subject of anthropogenic climate change in recent years 

have produced a substantial amount of information on the 

predictions and potential consequences of global warming 

(for example, Baldwin and others, 2003; Intergovernmental 

Panel on Climate Change, 2007; Climate Change Science 

Program, 2009; Furniss and others, 2010). This Great Basin 

and Mojave Desert Workshop on natural resource needs 

related to climate change took a somewhat different approach 

by focusing on amelioration strategies—what land managers 

can do—and stimulating a dialog between researchers 

and managers. Many of the plenary presentations paired a 

scientist, active in a particular area of research, with a current 

land manager on topics in which both had extensive relevant 

experience. In this synthesis, we attempt to distill their main 

discussion points, discuss approaches to current and foreseen 

problems, and summarize their conclusions for addressing the 

significant challenges facing land and resource managers. This 

synthesis is not a review of climate change science, which 

is available in many other excellent references (for example, 

Mann and Kump, 2008; Loehman, 2010), nor does it attempt 

to characterize all threats in Western Desert regions. Threats 

are instead mentioned in the context of potential amelioration 

strategies. This synthesis attempts to assemble, integrate, 

and characterize the adaptations and mitigation aspects of 

the presentations, including outreach and education with the 

many stakeholders and partners, to more effectively deal with 

climate change. The synthesis is organized from general to 

more specific recommendations and does not follow the order 

or sequence of topics in the workshop agenda.

Climate Change in the Great Basin and 

Mojave Desert

A broad scientific consensus has emerged that heat 

trapped by anthropogenic emissions to the Earth’s atmosphere 

is warming the climate globally at a rate unprecedented in the 

Holocene epoch (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 

2007). Temperatures have increased between 0.3 and 0.6°C 

across the Great Basin over the 20th century (Wagner, 2003; 

Chambers, 2008). Global climate models show a ‘hot spot’ of 

climate change (fig. 1) stretching across the Desert Southwest 

from southern California to western Texas and extending 

up into southern Nevada, caused largely by changing 

climate variability (especially in precipitation) from year to 

year (Diffenbaugh and others, 2008). These same models 

predict a general drying trend in the Desert Southwest with 

increasing air temperatures, increasing evapotranspiration, 

and decreasing precipitation (Seager and others, 2007) leading 

to decreased runoff and streamflow (Milly and others, 2005). 

Model projections for the Great Basin and Mojave Desert 

region indicate a warming trend from 1 to 4°C from early to 

late 21st century, with drier conditions in the south trending 

towards wetter conditions in the northern parts of the Great 

Basin (Redmond, 2010). Minimum air temperatures are 

expected to increase more rapidly than maximum temperatures 

(Kharin and others, 2007) leading to a decrease in frequency 

of freezing days and warmer winters. A shortened duration 

of snow cover is expected at high elevations associated with 

earlier spring snowmelt. Already, most monitoring sites in 

the Great Basin show a decreasing average April 1 snowpack 

since 1950 (Baldwin and others, 2003) with the onset of 

snowmelt runoff 10–15 days earlier than 50 years ago (Ryan 

and others, 2008). Temperature related shifts in plant and 

animal species and changes in phenology are likely to lead 

to upslope movements of communities, expansion of desert 

scrub at the expense of montane conifer forests, and latitudinal 

migration of Southwestern Deserts.

Figure 1. An evaluation of responsiveness to climate change 

using 15 climate change models from the Fourth Assessment 

Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (from 

Diffenbaugh and others, 2008). The relative strength of the “hot 

spot” in the Desert Southwest resulted not from long-term trends 

in temperature and precipitation but from changing variability 

from year to year, especially in precipitation.
4 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

Warming temperatures and changing precipitation 

regimes will interact with anthropogenic nitrogen deposition, 

land disturbance, and invasive species leading to a transition 

from desert scrub to invasive annual grassland in some 

places. Work done on the Nevada Test Site in southern 

Nevada (Smith and others, 2000; Smith, 2010) has shown 

that elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide will favor invasive 

annual grass species over native annuals in wet years (fig. 2), 

resulting in an increased proportion of fire-adapted grassland 

in the region. Larger and more frequent fires are associated 

with high winter rainfall, increased primary productivity 

of non-native annual grasses, and low summer rainfall. 

Higher temperatures associated with heat waves, relaxed 

frost conditions and drought will result in pathogen range 

expansions and Piñon-Juniper mortality, possibly shifting the 

grass-fire cycle upslope. Increased precipitation variability 

means that both wet winters, such as the winter of 2004–05, 

and severe drought, as experienced in 2002–03, could increase 

in frequency.

A general drying trend coupled with a variable 

precipitation regime is likely to severely alter the hydrologic 

cycle and stress human water delivery systems. In addition to 

lower snowpack and earlier spring melt, both extreme flood 

events and extreme drought are likely. Decreased runoff and 

increased evaporation on the Colorado River system (fig. 3) 

imply that current regional water demands will not be met 

in the future (Christensen and Lettenmaier, 2006; McCabe 

and Wolock, 2007; Barnett and Pierce, 2008), which will 

lead to increased conflicts between supplying water for 

agriculture and municipal uses and sustaining aquatic and 

riparian ecosystems. Decreases in Colorado River flow from 

7 to 20 percent due to climate change induced variations 

in temperature and precipitation (Nash and Gleick, 1993) 

may be exacerbated by anthropogenic dust sources (Painter 

and others, 2010), causing an additional loss of 5 percent 

of annual average flow. Low streamflows with degraded 

water quality combined with high water temperatures and 

low dissolved-oxygen content will negatively impact fish 

populations and other aquatic species. Reduced recharge will 

limit groundwater pumping options for maintaining water 

supplies, although it may take centuries to propagate through 

aquifers (Webb, 2010). Low flows combined with increasing 

urban populations will require that water managers prepare for 

reductions in water supplies. Managers are beginning to focus 

on vulnerabilities and building increased resiliency to adapt to 

climatic extremes (Willardson, 2010). 

Figure 2. Increased annual productivity of Bromus spp. in wet years as a result of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (550 ppm) at 

the Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment facility on the Nevada Test Site north of Las Vegas, Nevada. The stimulatory effects of elevated 

atmospheric carbon dioxide appear negated during intense drought (Smith, 2010).
Synthesis 5

Increased climatic variability will lead to increased 

environmental stress, shifting of ecosystem boundaries and 

species distributions, opportunities for invasive species 

expansion, potential decoupling of biotic mutualisms, and 

impacts resulting from modified hydrologic conditions. 

Because freshwater resources are at particular risk, attention 

must be devoted to protecting water quality and quantity. 

Managers and scientists need to work together to improve 

capacity for predicting extreme events and their ecosystem 

impacts. Better models for forecasting at regional and local 

scales for applied scientific decision support are needed 

along with improved data collection, integration, and 

distribution. But above all, management must be undertaken 

collaboratively at the ecosystem level, across political 

boundaries and organizational cultures, in order to sustain 

ecosystem function and services at a landscape scale while 

maintaining flexibility to respond to the added stressor of 

climate change.

Partnerships and Managing Across Boundaries

Perhaps the most consistent theme that arose during this 

workshop was the need to manage ecosystems across political 

boundaries. Policy mandates, agency missions, planning 

processes, and financial structures often create obstacles 

to management of natural resources for conservation and 

sustainability. Nonetheless, a number of partnerships and 

organizations (See “Collaborations and Partnerships”) have 

grown to work cooperatively and their successes can be a 

model for improved collaboration. 

Figure 3. “Bathtub ring” at Lake Mead that indicates when the reservoir is near full capacity at 1,225.85 feet. The reservoir 

was 1,095.69 feet at the time of this photograph in May 11, 2011, which is approximately 43 percent of capacity. (Photograph by 

National Park Service).
6 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

Collaborations and Partnerships

— Great Basin Research and Management 

 Partnership

The Great Basin Research and Management 

Partnership (GBRMP) promotes comprehensive and 

complementary research and management collaborations 

to sustain ecosystems, resources, and communities across 

the Great Basin. Seventeen State, Federal, and university 

partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding to support 

GBRMP’s goals and new members are welcome. The 

Partnership facilitates collaboration among researchers 

and managers to reverse current ecosystem losses and 

to sustain long-term productivity, resource values, and 

services of natural and managed ecosystems. GBRMP 

provides an integrated organizational framework to promote 

collaboration and provide leadership, commitment, and 

guidance for effectiveness. GBRMP does not replace 

existing regional collaborations and partnerships, but 

builds upon their strengths by increasing coordination and 

communication among them. GBRMP provides a mechanism 

for assembling diverse research and management groups 

working in the Great Basin to: 

1. Obtain consensus in identifying and prioritizing 

regional issues; 

2. Expand and help focus existing collaborative efforts; 

3. Facilitate new teams to address emerging issues; and 

4. Provide critical information-sharing for existing 

collaborations and new teams.

GBRMP provides various tools and services including 

the following searchable databases: 

◦ Participants and Experts; 

◦ Science Locator; 

◦ Consortia; 

◦ Great Basin Bibliography; and 

◦ a Great Basin Metadata Server. 

GBRMP also facilitates establishment of self-organizing

Working Groups. Currently, active Working Groups are 

focused on Bromus invasion ecology, science delivery to 

field managers, ecological monitoring, and information 

management. Each of these Working Groups considers 

climate change factors in their work processes. GBRMP is 

poised to support a Working Group specifically focused on 

climate change impacts in the Great Basin.

GBRMP is committed to providing current resources 

to Working Groups and the larger community of natural 

resource professionals in the Great Basin to help them 

do their jobs more effectively. In that sense, GBRMP 

offers services with no desire to exert control of any 

partner’s agenda. GBRMP relies on the interplay of agency 

and university leadership, field-level scientists, managers, and 

support personnel, and targeted interest groups to identify and 

address priority needs for addressing climate change impacts. 

By responding quickly through established communication 

networks, building robust tools, and removing traditional 

institutional barriers, GBRMP strives to enable and encourage 

future research and management on climate change in the Great 

Basin.

— California Desert Managers Group

The vision of the California Desert Managers Group (DMG) 

is to work collaboratively to conserve and enhance the California 

Desert for current and future generations. Part of the DMG 

mission is to coordinate and integrate efforts in the California 

Desert to:

◦ Conserve and restore desert resources;

◦ Provide high quality recreation, public education, and 

visitor services; and

◦ Provide for safety of desert users.

The diverse agency missions in the 25 million acre California 

Desert will be continued only if the area’s rich biodiversity is 

maintained. Climate change will necessitate continued agency 

collaboration to manage resilient, adaptable ecosystems. The 

DMG brings together the agencies that manage the California 

Desert land and resources. This unique forum provides the 

opportunity to plan collaborative management actions and 

achieve landscape scale results that would not otherwise be 

realized. The DMG also provides a forum to identify and prioritize 

conservation research needs and provide technology transfer 

so land and resource managers can better utilize state of the 

art research in their daily decisions. The DMG is developing a 

new strategic plan that incorporates an ability to respond to new 

information regarding global and local change. This strategy 

involves collaborating with other landscape scale partnerships 

in the Mojave Desert to form the framework for a Landscape 

Conservation Cooperative. DMG also plans to develop a science 

strategy that would complement the Southern Nevada Agency 

Partnership science strategy.

— Western Governors Association

The focus of the Western Governors Association (WGA) 

is cooperation and collaboration. The WGA’s general mission 

is to develop policy for the Governors of the Western States, 

recommend the best way for policy to be implemented, and 

facilitate dialogue and understanding among Western States 

that have diverse goals, demographics, and challenges. WGA is 

an organization for the Western States, all of which have crucial 

and important concerns about how to deal with climate change. 

Western States currently play an invaluable role in the dialogue 

of adaptation and will continue this dialog into the future. 
Synthesis 7

In 2009, WGA approved a policy resolution that formed its 

Climate Advisory Adaptation Work Group. The governors directed 

the Group to: 

1. Determine appropriate uses of climate adaptation modeling 

in informing natural resource and economic infrastructure 

planning and policies, and 

2. Identify and fill existing gaps in climate adaptation efforts 

within WGA. 

The Climate Advisory Adaptation Work Group’s released 

its Scoping Report in June 2010 describing the WGA’s approach 

to smart practices for climate adaptation, climate science to 

support adaptation, and Federal legislation. The report includes 

recommended actions that Western States can take to incorporate 

adaptation practices into resource management and decision 

making while considering issues of uncertainty. The report also 

outlines currently available science and factors that Western States

should consider when supporting and promoting legislation at the 

federal level. The Scoping Report concludes with more than 47 

references and resources directing the reader toward additional 

information and tools to understand and adapt practices to 

climate change.

— Southern Nevada Agency Partnership

The Southern Nevada Agency Partnership (SNAP) includes 

the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish 

and Wildlife Service, and Forest Service. Through SNAP, these 

agencies work with each other, the local community, and other 

partners for the benefit of Southern Nevada’s federally managed 

lands, which total more than 7 million acres and encompass 11 

distinct and fragile ecosystems. Southern Nevada public lands 

also are rich in irreplaceable cultural and historical resources. 

Since 1999, SNAP agencies have been developing interagency 

programs and projects to enhance services to the public, improving 

stewardship of the public lands, and increasing the efficiency and 

effectiveness of their management activities. SNAP’s Science and 

Research Strategy defines four major strategic focus areas: 

1. Restoration; 

2. Protection; 

3. Public Education, Recreation, and Use; and 

4. Science and Research.

The core purpose of the SNAP Science and Research 

Strategy is to integrate and coordinate scientific research 

programs in Southern Nevada, and improve the efficiency and 

effectiveness of these programs. Information resulting from the 

Strategy implementation will be disseminated to local, regional, 

and national groups, and to the public, as appropriate. SNAP 

will utilize, when appropriate, existing agency funding, special 

legislative funding and partnerships to address climate change 

questions within the context of each agency’s mission. Every day 

the Federal Government must make complex land-management 

decisions on the basis of assumptions and incomplete 

information. In order to improve land-management decisions 

in response to climate and other agents of change, SNAP 

has developed an adaptive management process designed to 

update priority science questions on an annual basis, including 

regular synthesis of new knowledge, reaching out to share 

findings with outside science providers and encouraging 

their participation, and assuring quality research and 

monitoring activities ultimately to develop authoritative data 

sources.

As the public has become aware over the last few 

years, climate change may alter ecosystems constituents 

and functions at a landscape scale. SNAP agencies 

anticipate that these ecosystem changes may be observed 

across a number of SNAP research areas (fire, invasive 

species, watersheds and landscapes, and biodiversity). 

Other research areas focusing on human activities 

(prehistoric, historical, current, and future land uses) can 

provide information on historical climate changes in context 

of human responses, and inform land- management 

agencies of strategies to adapt management in response 

to climate changes. The SNAP Science and Research 

Strategy specifically addresses science questions regarding 

climate change under its Goal 1: restore, sustain, and enhance 

Southern Nevada’s ecosystems and Sub-goal 1.3: restore and 

sustain proper function to Southern Nevada’s watersheds and 

landscapes.

— Additional Partnerships

◦ The National Phenology Network employs citizen 

scientists in the study of seasonal cycles of plants and 

animals, including the timing of vegetation sprouting, 

flowering, and fruiting and animal reproduction, 

migration, and hibernation. 

◦ The Intermountain West Joint Venture facilitates 

bird conservation across 495 million acres of the 

Intermountain West through a partnership of Federal 

agencies, State agencies, non-profit conservation 

organizations, and profit organizations representing 

agriculture and industry.

◦ Conservation of native desert fish in cooperation with 

State and Tribal fish and wildlife agencies, Federal 

resource agencies, research and private organizations 

is the mission of the Desert Fish Habitat Partnership.

◦ The Western Regional Partnership provides a 

framework for senior-policy level Federal, State, 

and Tribal leadership to identify common goals and 

emerging issues in the States of Arizona, California, 

Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, and to develop 

solutions that protect natural resources, while 

promoting sustainability, homeland security, and 

military readiness. 
8 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

The Department of Interior (DOI) is initiating a series 

of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCC), comprised 

of management-science partnerships that will help inform 

resource management actions to address climate change and 

other stressors on landscapes. These self-directed cooperatives 

are formed by land, water, wildlife, and cultural resource 

managers, and interested public and private organizations 

to help integrate and communicate information on climate 

change. The DOI-wide response to climate change includes 

the LCCs and associated regionally based Climate Science 

Centers (CSC) along with a high-level approach to data 

integration and management, initiated by Secretarial Order 

Number 3289, “Addressing the Impacts of Climate Change 

on America’s Water, Land, and Other Natural and Cultural 

Resources.” The National Climate Change and Wildlife 

Center and regional CSCs will provide scientific information, 

models, and techniques for land, water, wildlife, and cultural 

resource managers to adapt to climate and ecologically driven 

responses at regional-to-local scales. Prioritized climatechange-impact projections and decision-support tools will be 

delivered through the LCCs to meet the adaptive management 

needs of policy and decision makers. The Great Basin and 

Desert LCCs are building from the existing partnerships, 

providing natural resource managers with the opportunity to 

meet regularly, exchange information about current activities, 

set goals, and form targeted work groups to focus on specific 

cross boundary issues. These partnerships are beginning to 

develop effective mechanisms for prioritizing management 

across organizations at landscape scales based on an ecological 

understanding of the Great Basin and Mojave Desert.

The LCCs will be challenged to conduct cross-boundary 

strategic planning, obtain consensus on priorities, develop 

adaptation strategies, leverage resources to implement 

activities and monitor outcomes, and collectively determine 

the adaptive management adjustments needed to effectively 

anticipate and manage the impacts of climate change on the 

Great Basin and Mojave Desert (Kearney, 2010).

Managers with extensive experience in existing 

partnerships made several recommendations at the workshop 

for improving collaboration. For instance, many agencies 

have planning processes that are duplicative and redundant. 

Management plans can be strategically realigned to address 

climate change and increase collaboration. New planning 

documents, such as Habitat Conservation Plans, also can 

include cooperation under existing authorities, such as the 

Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental 

Policy Act. These laws expand the governmental processes to 

include the public and thus can be used to facilitate increased 

collaboration not only across State and Federal agencies but 

also with Tribes and NGOs. Agencies can increase support 

for interdisciplinary training and reward collaborative 

activities. Networks of experts can be established including 

interdisciplinary teams of resource specialists, scientists, and 

private individuals. Managing for climate change necessitates 

collaborative research and management that effectively 

crosses administrative boundaries and increases understanding 

of connectivity, resilience, and thresholds. 

Science-Based Management

Land and natural resource managers have long 

recognized that high quality research and access to scientific 

data are central components of sound management practices. 

The well-known yet under-utilized techniques of adaptive 

ecosystem management directly use the scientific method 

in formulating, implementing, and assessing the outcomes 

of management actions (Williams and others, 2009). The 

role of science in management is becoming even more 

important in coping with the adverse impacts of climate 

change. Managers and the landscapes they manage are 

facing new threats in which knowledge about the past may 

no longer serve as the best guide to the future (for example, 

“Stationarity is dead,” Milly and others, 2008), where the 

consequences of both management action and inaction carry 

unknown risks. Effective management strategies begin with 

an understanding of the threats and resources at risk obtained 

through scientific research and resource assessments. But the 

utility of these studies and inventories is realized only if the 

data are easily accessible and usable. Standardization, quality 

assurance, and distribution of data help to connect research 

to management. Long-term monitoring is the feedback loop 

between management actions, results, and adaptations making 

integration and distribution of monitoring data of great 

importance.

The importance of communication between researchers 

and decision makers was emphasized during the workshop. 

But more than just communication, integrating climate change 

science with management of the Great Basin and Mojave 

Desert landscape requires data organization and distribution 

systems for sharing common databases and decision support 

tools across agency boundaries to build resilience, adapt to 

changes, mitigate damages, and restore ecosystems.
Synthesis 9

Research and Monitoring

This workshop identified research and data needs 

of managers so that researchers can provide scientific 

information essential for responding to climate change. 

The needs expressed by the land managers were consistent. 

Common themes were 

• Standardized basic datasets accessible to all, 

• Long-term status and trends monitoring of key 

ecosystem indicators, 

• Better predictive models at the scale of the 

management issues, and

• Decision support tools, and sharing of data.

Data essential to land managers include common 

geospatial databases, current status of community composition 

and species abundance and distribution, ecological 

condition of ecosystems, information on current research 

and collaborative activities, and common databases of land 

treatments and monitoring results that can be used for adaptive 

management. Adaptive management based on collaboration 

will require shared information and the development of 

effective adaptation strategies. Research is needed to test 

hypotheses and demonstrate effectiveness for:

• Landscape connectivity—the degree to which the 

landscape facilitates or impedes movement among 

resource patches.

• Resilience—the capacity to maintain characteristic 

processes in the face of climate change or other 

perturbations.

• Ecological thresholds—the point at which a system 

does not return to the original state through natural 

processes but instead transitions to an alternate state.

We have only a rudimentary understanding of the effects 

of climate change based on climate envelope modeling 

(for example, Lawler and others, 2009) for a few species. 

Obtaining this basic ecological understanding is essential 

for developing effective adaptation strategies. For example, 

management actions will depend on ecological resilience 

and whether ecological thresholds have been crossed. Thus, 

monitoring of key ecosystem indicators must be linked to 

management thresholds, with early warning points preceding 

ecological thresholds, so that a generalized approach for 

alerting managers and assessing possible management 

responses (including no action) can be implemented. A 

structured approach to risk analysis and decision making 

requires regional assessments and conceptual models of 

interactions between primary ecosystem drivers, conservation 

targets, and threats coupled with predictive modeling, sets of 

feasible responses, and management strategies.

Landscape-scale climate change impact assessments 

require species inventories and distributions, habitat models, 

and habitat vulnerability assessments generated across 

standardized spatial coverages and administrative boundaries. 

This starts by having inventories, spatial coverages, databases, 

and monitoring protocols not only standardized but also 

shared among agencies. Predictive models must be validated 

against historical data and appropriately scaled to meet 

management needs. Regionally and locally scaled predictive 

modeling capacity is needed to evaluate interactions between 

biophysical indicators and landscape-level processes and to 

improve understanding of processes controlling impacts of 

climate change on species dynamics and disturbance regimes. 

Greater collaboration between research, management, and 

policy specialists will be essential in constructing decision 

support systems that focus on vulnerabilities and building 

increased resiliency to climatic extremes.

The prospect of climatic change may render invalid 

the assumption in water and ecosystem management that 

natural systems have known and stable patterns of variability 

(Betancourt, in press). This assumption is embodied to 

varying degrees in the concepts of hydrologic stationarity 

(for example, Milly and others, 2008) and historical range of 

ecological variation (see Betancourt, 2010a). Responding to 

climate change requires rethinking traditional concepts and 

developing alternatives that will work better for managing 

resources and ecosystems under nonstationary climatic, 

hydrologic, and ecologic conditions. It will be necessary to 

develop new probabilistic models of relevant environmental 

variables and, combined with risk analyses, use them 

in a structured decision making framework to optimize 

adaptive management. New methods must be developed for 

estimating model parameters that combine historical climate 

and paleoclimate proxy data with projections of multiple 

climate models, driven by multiple climate-forcing scenarios, 

where the probability distributions of stochastic model 

parameters evolve temporally. Continuity of observations 

and monitoring data is perhaps the most critical need in 

dealing with non-stationarity conditions and variables. 

Continued support is required to maintain existing networks 

for snow surveys, stream discharge gaging, remote sensing of 

evapotranspiration, monitoring groundwater, and water usage 

while increased support is needed to expand standardized 

ecosystem monitoring to the landscape scale.
10 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

As large-scale ecological disturbances regimes shift with 

climate change and plant invasions, there will be an increasing 

need to manage the course of vegetation succession as climate 

variability will differentially affect opportunities for various 

species. Long-term success of post-fire vegetative restoration 

in the desert ecosystem could require novel seed mixes of 

phenotypes, genotypes, and species adapted to future, not 

past, climates. A significant question then is what combination 

of factors should be used to adapt restoration techniques to a 

changing and uncertain climate? What incentives, over what 

time frame, are needed to mobilize native seed production in 

service of habitat restoration and adaptation to an uncertain 

and changing climate? Successful restoration strategies 

require regional studies crossing administrative boundaries 

on soils, soil organisms, and potential impacts on livestock 

and wildlife. Land managers will need to re-evaluate forage 

production utilizing refined and improved restoration expert 

decision support systems. Assisted migration may become 

a major subject of research, targeting not just endangered 

species but also common ones. Restoration and assisted 

migration would require abundant and judiciously accessioned 

seed sources.

Data Integration and Distribution

Most speakers at this workshop emphasized the 

importance of standardizing and improving both the access 

and the sharing of information and data, including improving 

connections between the research community and natural 

resource managers. Along these lines, the DOI is undertaking 

a data integration and management initiative to provide a 

foundation for understanding and managing climate change 

impacts over multiple scales (Armstrong, 2010). The goals 

of this initiative are to make data collected by DOI agencies 

comprehensive, integrated, standardized, and accessible to 

other Federal and State agencies, universities, Tribes, NGOs, 

and private landowners. Motivated and enthusiastic data 

owners (that is, scientists, managers, and the public) working 

together can leverage smart technology and standard practices 

to make the most critical data work together for broad use 

among scientists, resource managers, and the public. A unique 

opportunity exists to integrate data to help us understand 

changing dynamics over the last century and into the future.

Existing data management and distribution partnerships 

are described in “Collaborations and Partnerships.” The 

Great Basin Research and Management Partnership is an 

example of an information sharing effort to unite agencies 

for more effective collaboration on grazing, water, fire, 

and land treatments projects. This partnership has helped 

prioritize management at landscape scales by evaluating 

existing ecological conditions to assess whether or not to 

initiate restoration treatments. The Partnership’s web database 

provides many tools (see “Collaborations and Partnerships”) 

that foster effective collaboration. An analogous partnership 

including the Department of Defense exists for the 

California part of the Mojave Desert at the Mojave Desert 

Ecosystem Program. This website is a data portal for land-use 

coverages and environmental documents including reports 

and studies from various agencies within the California 

Desert region intended for public distribution. Collaborative 

networks planned for the future include the LCCs, the Climate 

Science Centers, and the National Environmental Observatory 

Network, which have complementary objectives for 

integrating data at landscape scales on the impacts of climate 

change, land-use change, land-cover changes, wildfire, and 

invasive species.

Amelioration Approaches

The terms “adaptation,” “resilience,” “mitigation,” and 

“restoration” (see Glossary) were the common themes shared 

by nearly all presentations and conversations at the workshop 

regarding how scientists and land managers might respond 

to the impacts of climate change. Adaptation appeared in 

several plenary presentations as a synonym for response, 

suggesting that many in the Mojave Desert and Great 

Basin believe adaptation is a likely management response 

to the consequences of a changing climate. But successful 

adaptation involves optimization, where adjustments in 

ecosystem components and processes in response to climatic 

stimuli and their effects moderate harm and exploit beneficial 

opportunities (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 

2007). In this sense, it is similar to the connotation in which 

mitigation was used—the moderating of harm—except 

that mitigation implied direct management action whereas 

adaptation involved more adjustment of policies and the 

decision-making process. Note that adaptation has a formal 

meaning in adaptive management and that mitigation in the 

context of land management implies alleviating damage 

to resources, not reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. 

Resilience, the ability to withstand perturbations or to 

reorganize so as to retain essentially the same ecosystem 

function, could be a prerequisite to adaptation. Restoration 

implies managing to achieve a status that existed prior to 

disturbance and thus shares an active management paradigm 

with mitigation. But with climate change, the orientation of 

restoration is altered because restoration must be to conditions 

that will exist in the future, not the past.

Resilience and Adaptation.—The Great Basin and 

Mojave Desert region is likely to experience a mean 

temperature rise of at least 3°C by mid-century and 5°C by 

the end of the century (Redmond, 2010). Although projected 

precipitation patterns are more uncertain, a transition to a drier 

climate is predicted for the southern part of this region (Milly 

and others, 2005; Seager and others, 2007) with increasing 

variability in precipitation from year to year (Diffenbaugh and 

others, 2008). The importance of precipitation and adaptation 

to drier conditions was emphasized throughout this workshop. 
Synthesis 11

Its relative scarcity makes water a critical regional driver of 

ecosystem services, because long-distance flows often support 

human population centers far from the source watersheds. 

Because of the risk to freshwater resources, protecting water 

quality and quantity is a high management priority. Planning 

for climate change should be undertaken at all levels, from 

the Federal Government to private and public water utilities. 

Areas with shared river basin or groundwater resources 

should (1) consider jointly addressing potential future supply 

reductions resulting from climate change, (2) examine their 

existing water laws and institutions, and (3) anticipate an 

increased need to adapt to the forecasted effects of climate 

change on the hydrologic cycle.

An assumption implicit in land management and resource 

conservation practice has been one of a dynamic equilibrium 

(Betancourt, 2010a), which implies a stable climate over the 

long term. The management philosophy has been to reduce, 

eliminate, or mitigate challenges while trying to maintain or 

return to this state of dynamic equilibrium. Climate change 

will necessitate a paradigm shift, forcing land managers 

to abandon the idea of dynamic equilibrium and embrace 

dynamic trends that are spatially and temporally variable. 

Combined with the complexity and synergy from resource 

management challenges other than climate change, this new 

regime will be dominated by uncertainty regarding species 

occurrence. Land managers can prepare for regime shifts by 

projecting possible future scenarios to address uncertainty and 

consider multiple scales to identify mechanisms of response. 

Specific policy responses must be identified and include 

objective criteria for choosing among options. Specific tasks 

include developing a vision of targets in a warming world, 

assessing the range of possible future scenarios, identifying 

effects of scenarios on conservation targets, developing 

robust scale-specific management strategies, planning for 

the scenarios at multiple scales, and implementing plans and 

monitoring in an adaptive (cyclic) framework (Scott, 2010). 

Basic inventories must be completed because the effects 

of climate change cannot be assessed without comparative 

baselines. Conservation targets must be identified because, 

without targets, adaptive improvements to management cannot 

be evaluated. Conservation targets may be derived from goals 

for species, guilds, habitats, and refuges or conservation 

areas. Targets must be quantified in terms of representation, 

redundancy, spatial distribution, connectivity, and size. A 

strategic plan must be developed for prioritizing conservation 

targets and identifying scales of implementation.

At the national scale, climate change adaptation will 

involve setting the national vision and identifying targets, 

strategies, and funding. At the regional scale, collaboration 

and coordination must be emphasized including establishing 

performance standards for management and rewarding 

adaptation. At the scale of the local unit, non-climate change 

related stressors must be minimized and priorities adjusted 

to incorporate climate change into unit planning. In order 

to adequately address long-term ecosystem function in a 

warming climate, increasing the length of planning and 

budgeting horizons for operational and research funding 

would be beneficial. In order to address the status and 

trends of conservation targets, it is necessary to develop and 

implement monitoring programs. Adaptive management 

combined with a monitoring program can be used to inform 

the planning process, especially regarding required frequency 

and intensity of monitoring and the additive or compensatory 

nature of seasonal effects.

Managers can work to maintain and enhance 

ecosystem resilience by reducing or eliminating nonclimate related challenges and stressors. Species can be 

provided the opportunity to respond to climate change 

by increasing connectivity among existing habitats. The 

existing conservation footprint could be increased to connect 

representative and redundant, functional conservation targets. 

Species compositions will likely change at the scale of 

individual land-management units but this change does not 

invariably imply that the purpose of the land-management 

units is compromised. Rather the purpose of specific refuges 

and conservation areas can be re-evaluated to meet emerging 

needs stemming from global change.

Managers can prepare for ecological regime shifts by 

developing the capacity to modify management actions, 

implementing adaptive management and monitoring 

programs, shifting conservation targets to new areas or 

agencies as change occurs, and by managing transitions to 

new states. Communication and education are always needed 

to reintegrate conservation into the American mindset, 

to build support for climate adaptation, and to conserve 

habitat. Relocation of species (assisted migration) should be 

considered only as a last resort (Scott, 2010). Managers must 

act now and not wait for perfect climate change models. Lost 

opportunities can lead to irreversible ecosystem alteration and 

species extinction. Mistakes will be made but innovative risk 

taking should be rewarded.

Mitigation and Restoration.—Land managers working 

toward restoring natural systems that have been lost or 

degraded must first reduce or alleviate existing stressors and 

threats. Climate change related mitigation and restoration 

treatments should be applied using an adaptive management 

framework such as that described in the DOI Department 

Manual 522 DM 1. The adaptive approach involves including 

all stakeholders, identifying measureable objectives, exploring 

alternative ways to achieve them, modeling the outcomes of 

alternatives, implementing a subset of alternatives, monitoring 

effectiveness to understand the results of management actions, 

and then using these results to update and adjust management 

actions (Williams and others, 2009). This approach can and 

should be scaled to fit the needs and resources surrounding 

specific management issues.
12 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

Invasive annual plants and wildfire regimes were cited 

frequently at the workshop as an example of a management 

concern that could be addressed through mitigation and 

restoration using adaptive management. Wildfire, invasive 

species, and climate change are critically linked. In the arid 

Western United States, drought- and fire-resistant forms 

of invasive grasses (for example, Bromus spp., fig. 4) are 

replacing native shrubs and grasses throughout much of 

the landscape recently impacted by fire and drought. This 

spread of invasive annual grasses establishes conditions 

for an accelerated fire regime consisting of more frequent, 

larger, and more intense fires that favor the invasive species 

at the expense of native plant species (fig. 5). Recommended 

management activities that could be implemented immediately 

include mapping of annual plant invasions, identification of 

vulnerable soils, documenting ecological effects of ongoing 

invasions while avoiding soil disturbance and protecting 

biological soil crusts, controlling wildfires, and active 

restoration of native plant species in disturbed areas (Pyke, 2010).

Research needs specific to the invasive fire cycle include 

understanding factors controlling invasion and investigating 

the potential for soil additives to enhance restoration. Mapping 

historical fire patterns may lead to better understanding of 

their causes and their relationships to the proliferation of 

invasive plant species. There may be ways of enhancing 

existing soils to improve the success of post-burn restoration 

efforts. Research has developed models for predicting areas 

at risk to invasion, improving our ability to predict future 

distributions of invasive species and to understand related 

ecological impacts (Bradley, 2010). A crucial aspect of 

adaptive management, however, is effectiveness monitoring. 

Expanding the extent of monitoring for areas treated with 

active restoration and soil additives, along with untreated 

controls, is needed to evaluate the results and modify 

management actions.

Figure 4. Red brome (Bromus rubens), an invasive annual grass linked to increasing frequencies of fire in the Mojave Desert, 

southern Nevada. (Photograph by Bureau of Land Management, June 2005).
Synthesis 13

Figure 5. Invasive annual grasses can produce a vegetation type change from desert perennials to invasive annual grassland 

(Courtesy of Julio Betancourt and Jeanne DiLeo, USGS; Betancourt, 2010b).

watac-0603_fig05

4

Desertscrub with little or no fuel 

connectivity and no evolved 

adaptation to fire.

Invasions by non-native 

grasses have introduced 

fire in desert ecosystems 

that have previously 

experienced little or no fire.

As the grass-fire cycle 

repeats itself, fire 

frequency, size and 

severity increases.

Non-native grasses 

spread, native species 

decline, risks to life and 

property escalate, and 

regional economies suffer.

Fire kills native

shrubs and trees.

After the fire, non-native grasses 

recover more rapidly than 

native species.

Infested area

burns repeatedly.

In a matter of years to decades, 

fireproof desert is converted to 

flammable grassland.

1 2 3

4 5

Invasion by non-native grass 

connects

shrubs and trees.

4 5 6

1 21 213
14 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

Breakout Session Themes

The first day and a half of the workshop was devoted to 

plenary sessions, where the challenges posed by a changing 

climate to species, ecosystems, and humans were presented in 

a science and management context. Breakout sessions on the 

third day were intended to bring managers, with knowledge 

of activities, authorities, legal requirements, policies, standard 

operating procedures, and collective expertise gained from 

decades of on-the-ground experience in land management 

together with researchers in a discussion of the current status 

and limitations of our understanding of climate change and the 

potential threat it poses to the natural world. Representatives 

of NGOs and other interested members of the public also 

participated in the breakout sessions. Each breakout session 

was charged with engaging an open dialogue on the following 

three basic questions.

Question 1: What do you perceive to be the major 

challenges that you face over the coming decade in 

adapting your practices to the changing climate?

Question 2: What research is needed to inform 

adaptive management for climate change over the 

coming decade?

Question 3: How can we best integrate existing 

and new (for example, Landscape Conservation 

Cooperatives, ecoregional assessment, Climate 

Science Centers) approaches to address these needs?

Breakout sessions focused on the topics of Managing 

Across Boundaries, Ecosystem Services in a Changing 

Climate, Monitoring for Climate Induced Change, and Species 

and Habitat Assessment for the Great Basin and Mojave 

Desert. The session summaries that follow are distilled from 

detailed session recording. They are intended to help develop 

and implement an adaptation and mitigation strategy that is 

flexible enough to integrate our emerging understanding of the 

science of climate change with natural resource management. 

Sections representing these three questions are identified in 

each breakout summary as Major Challenges, Research Needs, 

and Integration.

Managing Across Boundaries

Great Basin and Mojave Desert ecosystems are patchily 

distributed on the landscape by natural effects of topography, 

geology, and hydrology and by anthropogenic conditions 

imposed by various land uses. Management regimes 

superimposed on this ecologic setting also have the effect of 

dividing up the landscape into subunit-defining boundaries, 

both tangible and administrative. In contrast, pervasive 

broad-extent ecosystem drivers like climate change can affect 

systems with little regard to those boundaries. Natural resource 

managers are charged with considering the effects of changing 

climate along with more localized ecosystem drivers when 

managing focal systems. Adjacent land parcels commonly are 

managed under different agency mandates and land-use plans, 

which may inhibit cross-boundary management as species 

ranges and even entire ecosystems migrate and shift around 

the landscape as expected in response to changing climates. 

To address this, the workshop convened a breakout session 

on “Managing Across Boundaries” to identify and frame the 

problem, isolate impediments to successfully dealing with 

the problem, and generate solutions to effectively manage the 

Great Basin and Mojave Desert landscapes in a broad context.

Workshop attendees were primed for this discussion 

by materials presented in the plenary session by Thomas 

Armstrong, J. Michael Scott, Dennis Schramm, and Jeanne 

Chambers among others who spoke on this topic. Several 

important points were made including the critical need to 

expand our conservation footprint given predicted climate 

trends. Speakers expressed the need for unprecedented levels 

of communication and cooperation because the issues that 

need to be addressed dictate collaboration across boundaries. 

The breakout session was attended by about 50 individuals, 

about one-half of whom worked in the Mojave Desert and 

one-half in the Great Basin. Attendance was heavily weighted 

by federal agency employees (about 80 percent; about 80 

percent of which were Department of the Interior personnel); 

the remaining attendees were associated with universities 

(12 percent), Native American Tribes (4 percent), State 

management agencies (2 percent), and NGOs (2 percent). 

Participants were charged to bring their perspective to 

bear on the three questions stated in the “Breakout Session 

Themes.” Participants were divided into small groups for 

focused discussion and then rejoined for synthetic critique 

and consensus. The following is a summary of the groups’ 

recommendations.

Major Challenges

The major challenges that were identified can loosely 

be grouped into five topical areas concerning problems with 

policy, planning, funding, communication, and education, 

training, and tools with some overlap among topics.

Policy.—A large, somewhat overriding challenge to 

effective management across boundaries involved temporalperspective conflicts felt by managers faced with changing 

political administrations. Land managers write and are guided 

by land-use plans with a 20+ year life span but face the 

potential of policy changes occurring on a much shorter (that 

is, 2–4 year) time span. Executive and legislative leadership 

changes can lead to profound policy shifts, which have the 

potential to derail well-thought out planning. Workshop 

participants expressed a desire to maintain consistencies 

regardless of policy fluctuation, especially when considering a 

politically charged topic like climate change. A good example 
Breakout Session Themes 15

of this is the potential for agencies to go ‘off message’ when 

the time frames of established regulatory processes do not 

mesh with decision needs. Specifically, managers were vexed 

by pressures to fast-track renewable energy permits—currently 

a politically attractive land use—despite established, although 

slower, permitting processes.

Concerns were expressed about conflicting agency 

mandates and the difficulty of enacting landscape-scale 

management when neighboring parcels and managers 

are legally withheld from collaborative management. For 

example, a consistent approach to restoring a given habitattype bisected by an administrative boundary may not be 

possible under current mandates. Agency mandates would 

benefit from a fresh strategic planning effort at Department 

(or higher) levels of government. The improved strategy 

should address inter-agency agreement and fund-sharing 

expediency; temporal alignment of funding cycles and 

project development; approaches to National Environmental 

Policy Act (NEPA) requirements and processes; and precise 

definitions and collaborative prioritization of “multiple-use.” 

Participants also agreed similar issues exist when addressing 

Federal versus State resource priorities. One potential solution 

is to build in flexibilities in policy interpretations. Another is to 

have Federal, State, and local agencies fully embrace effective 

regional partnerships, such as the Landscape Conservation 

Cooperatives (LCCs) Desert Managers Group and the Great 

Basin Research and Management Partnership. Participants 

recognized a danger in providing too much flexibility at the 

local scale, yet adamantly expressed a need for a relaxation of 

overly restrictive policy that stymies effective management.

One other policy concern expressly addressed 

information technology (IT) security restrictions. The group 

agreed that most solutions mentioned in this document would 

only be possible with a restructuring of the way natural 

resource organizations manage electronic data and tools so as 

to minimize obstructions to data access.

Planning.—Similar to policy recommendations, 

suggested improvements to planning processes across 

boundaries are loosely aggregated by issues of spatial and 

temporal scale. Participants see an urgent need to cast a wider 

net with planning that would be based on ecosystem-level 

space and time frames. Comments in this context generally 

were proactive, suggesting that these challenges may be more 

easily overcome than policy-based hurdles. Phrases like ‘break 

out of the current mold’ and ‘shift paradigms’ were common 

on this topic. One tangible suggestion is to format land-use 

planning processes so they are based on criteria that inform 

decision making, rather than on area-specific designations. 

This would have the additional advantage of incorporating 

adaptive management into planning and action. Scenariobased approaches also were suggested as potentially beneficial 

to managers. In this approach, decisions can be made further 

into a plan’s life when managers have a better understanding 

of a given target’s condition and trend. It was suggested 

that this approach would be more fruitful given that nonstationarity implies that the baselines are changing; therefore, 

having a suite of potential futures modeled in a plan gives 

managers the ability to assess resource trajectories and pick 

from a set of tools (or create new ones) as former uncertainties 

become better resolved with time.

Partnerships were promoted by the group in a planning 

sense too. Many suggested resource managers leverage 

cross-agency resources when planning. The benefits of 

sharing resources across partnerships as we move to 

implement LCCs were discussed at length although the need 

to promote participation in partnerships with incentives and 

disincentives also was expressed. The challenge raised is 

that some managers may see collaboration as a sacrifice of 

autonomy at an agency, district, or personal level. Whereas 

incentives should help, more intense training may be 

necessary to promote buy-in. An additional tool suggested 

is a clearinghouse of case studies describing successes 

gained through partnerships. These kinds of collaborative 

tools are already in development (see “Collaborations and 

Partnerships”). A clearinghouse distributing tested and 

novel management practices and mitigation measures that 

managers can use could mean that new paradigms do not 

have to be developed district-by-district, region-by-region, or 

collaboration-by-collaboration.

Another major challenge to planning across boundaries 

is that employees are not expressly incentivized to participate. 

Collaboration often falls under ‘other duties as assigned’ in a 

job description. Unless these activities are explicitly defined 

in planning documents, job descriptions, work schedules, and 

performance appraisals, practitioners will continue to struggle 

to find time to participate.

Funding.—Many participants expressed frustration 

at how project funds are allocated and compartmentalized 

and about the timing of allocations. An obvious strategy to 

successfully manage across boundaries is to pool funds from 

multiple agencies or jurisdictions. However, moving funds 

across agencies, even those in the same department, can be 

costly from the project standpoint, making any interagency 

collaboration more difficult. Along with overhead costs, 

lengthy and difficult contracting processes slow down fund 

transfers. Coupled with delayed allocations, worthy crossboundary management projects may not come to fruition 

for purely administrative reasons. `Stove pipe funding is 

not working,’ was one specific comment. The sentiment 

was complemented by comments that it is very difficult to 

get funding earmarked for similar objectives through two 

(or more) agencies in the same time frame. One proposed 

solution is for legislative units to develop and fund crosscutting initiatives for collectives of agencies. If multiple 

agencies identify a valuable multi-jurisdictional management 

project, each could draw funds from the account and apply the 

maximum portion of resources on the ground with minimal 

delays and overhead costs.
16 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

Another challenge expressed is limitations on fund carryover between fiscal cycles. Given the constraints mentioned 

above, a particular jurisdictional unit potentially could match 

funds with a collaborator if they could delay spending the 

funds for a year. However, an inflexible carry-over policy 

limits that option. A novel solution to these problems proposes 

bringing in private sector partners. The concept might involve 

reliable conservation partners brokering funds and facilitating 

project completion at the broader landscape. Participants 

suggested setting up a regulated interest-bearing account from 

which the private sector partner distributes funds as needed.

Communication.—Much of the discussion about 

challenges and needs for overcoming obstacles to managing 

across boundaries involved information and data sharing. 

Communication needs to be improved between researcher and 

manager, manager and manager, researcher and researcher, and 

professionals and the general public. Nearly all participants 

expressed a critical need for centralized, standardized data 

repositories and information clearinghouses. Many such tools 

are in place (see “Collaborations and Partnerships”) so one 

solution is better outreach and training. Many novel ideas 

about how to share data and present results were generated 

during the session. There was an explicit desire expressed 

for development of a community of practice on information, 

outreach, and training. The succinct statement was, `we need 

scientific leaders to guide information sharing.’

A pervasive group sentiment indicated that there is a 

close relationship between agency culture and communication 

tools. Effective tools are needed but agency personnel 

need to see them function effectively before they consider 

relaxing the status quo. Similar thoughts were expressed 

when discussing private lands/landowners and environmental 

groups. Communication may not solve all conflicts but 

providing a common platform for communication may ease 

misperceptions about adverse objectives and mandates.

A technical challenge involves the broad variation in 

capacity at various organizations and offices. Differences 

in hardware, software, Internet connections, and datasharing capacity may derail attempts at cross-boundary 

collaboration. Land management agency offices—especially 

remotely located work centers—and research facilities need 

technical capacity to effectively provide and receive data, and 

communicate their purpose, goals and accomplishments to 

local and national publics.

Education, Training, and Tools.—Education challenges 

come in two forms: educating the public about the importance 

of climate and other sources of global change on ecosystem 

goods and services and education of resource professionals 

about the importance and capacity to think and work across 

boundaries. The former is obviously important but the latter 

was more thoroughly discussed. Required education/training 

opportunities include issue identification and prioritization; 

general concepts of stationarity, ecological resistance, 

resilience, and restoration theory; dynamic system processes 

associated with global change; and the covariate nature of 

existing threats with climate change. Tools to support this 

training also are lacking—the need for data management and 

delivery; decision support; and user-friendly ecological and 

management-based models were identified.

Research Needs

A remarkable volume of needs were expressed and 

documented during the breakout session. Specific discussions 

on research strategies and guidance, subject matter, and 

integration, models, and communication generated a large 

suite of ideas.

Strategy and Guidance.—A common theme during the 

breakout was a need for greater efficiency. For example, 

attendees referenced the voluminous amount of archived data 

that are not currently digitized but could be extraordinarily 

useful as baselines for forward-looking research and 

monitoring. A priority goal should be to identify, digitize, and 

deliver decades of research and monitoring data held in agency 

files. This is a necessary first step for designing monitoring 

strategies that would complement what we already know 

about pre-disturbance condition. The exercise also would 

complement cross-agency data reconciliation, standardization 

and synthesis, before-after-control-impact study design, and 

future research needs prioritization. The process would benefit 

from a thoughtful crosswalk development that synthesizes 

characteristics of archival data and relates them to digital-era data.

Other suggested research strategy needs include 

integrating currently disparate inventory and monitoring 

approaches among federal agencies and programs, 

incorporating socioeconomic factors into science planning, 

research that identifies social and political impediments, 

an optimization assessment of research funding practices, 

designing research so the results will be inherently persuasive, 

and structured decision support for evaluating and permitting 

development projects.

Subject Matter.—Research needs by subject matter 

spanned a range of issues. Needs expressed include:

• Research to validate cause and effects of climate 

change.

• Adapt existing information in a climate variability 

context.

• Improve weather station network and refine weather 

data resolution.

• Evaluate air quality and drinking water impacts on 

human health.

• Investigate groundwater/surface-water connections.

• Determine water budgets for renewable energy 

projects.
Breakout Session Themes 17

• Model corridors and species connectivity.

• Understand ecotones and how they will change in the 

future.

• Conduct research on grazing and climate change.

• Obtain basic inventories and GIS data.

• Identify areas suitable for development and for 

protection.

• Conduct social research on demographics and policy 

impacts.

• Account for human population growth.

Integration

There is a need for integration of planning, research, and 

monitoring rolled into an adaptive management framework 

that is spatially and temporally scalable. Work in this arena 

is being done outside this workshop’s focal area. We need 

to tap into these efforts, adapt them to Great Basin and 

Mojave Desert systems and threats, and apply them to local 

solutions. Such an approach, however, requires increased 

uniformity among agencies and other entities. Models, either 

improvements on existing ones or newly developed ones, 

need to be as reliable and accurate as possible to improve 

the chance of successful prioritization and planning. Finally, 

all these data and tools need to be delivered in user-friendly 

formats in order to achieve maximum effect.

Integrative Approaches.—Agency direction over the 

past decade has consistently moved toward collaborationdriven research and management, which promotes 

management across boundaries. Much of the discussion 

at the workshop, including this breakout session, revolved 

around the integrative potential of newly initiated Landscape 

Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) and Climate Science 

Centers (CSCs). Participants discussed ways that these 

initiatives might facilitate policy development, science and 

management strategies, funding options, and communication 

and training aspects.

Policy Development.—Participants felt that new 

approaches should help integrate inventory and monitoring 

programs across and within agencies by improving existing 

infrastructure. Improving partnerships with industry also was 

mentioned as a valuable role for programs like the LCCs. Such 

new approaches could improve disclosure and transparency, 

which should improve collaboration across boundaries. With 

this improved exposure, additional partnerships, and greater 

integration of broad-scope programs, participants expressed 

optimism that regulatory laws and procedures would more 

easily be modified to include emerging issues like climate 

change.

Science and Management Development.—Participants 

offered potential solutions for nearly all science and 

management challenges mentioned above within the context 

of the new approaches at landscape-scale, cross boundary, 

and inter-agency initiatives. For science development, 

participants thought an LCC could improve interpretation of 

existing data and communication of that information more 

fluidly. Initiatives would facilitate the bridge between research 

and management that has long been discussed but rarely 

achieved. They also should help managers work beyond their 

boundaries, understand existing management actions, and 

manage for biodiversity and ecosystem services rather than 

individual species or disturbances.

Funding.—Perhaps the most obvious net benefit of 

cross-organization initiatives is the emerging opportunity to 

fund cross-boundary projects. Participants see opportunities 

for LCCs to serve as virtual collaboration centers where 

restrictions of the past are replaced with collaborative 

opportunity in the form of efficient transfer of funds, 

resources, and personnel. Furthermore, the new initiatives 

could build on past successes and use existing infrastructure 

in innovative ways. One example would be to support and use 

the Great Basin Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit as an 

efficient mechanism to exchange funds collaboratively.

Communications and Training.—The LCCs and similar 

efforts have the potential to provide the conduit to move 

information quickly and accurately around a large network, 

empowering professionals to do their job better and more 

efficiently while informing the public about conditions, trends, 

and required management actions on the landscape. Internally, 

these new approaches promote collaboration without 

threatening traditional roles and responsibilities. They allow 

agency, tribal, university, and NGOs to retain their identities 

while effectively working with a broadened group of partners. 

Science application can be swift and decisions made with the 

knowledge of the best available science. Furthermore, all these 

actions and decisions would be made with a transparency that 

would garner support from an informed public. The public 

might not always agree with an action but they will be better 

informed and might even have opportunities to participate 

in decision making in ways that were not possible before. 

This open communication could (and should) be used as an 

education portal, an extended teaching moment where training 

materials, interactive models, and feedback loops are available 

to all participants. In that way, existing and new initiatives will 

provide the capacity for true integration, collaboration and 

partnership among all stakeholders, thus improving our ability 

to manage across boundaries.
18 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

Ecosystem Services in a Changing Climate

The concept of ecosystem services was introduced to 

participants in the plenary session by Ken Bagstad (2010) 

as the intersection of people and nature in a framework 

of humans as beneficiaries. Ecosystem Services breakout 

sessions were attended by 90 people from Federal and State 

agencies, NGOs, and academics. Each of the two sessions 

had 10–12 small group discussions focusing on the services 

provided by air, soils, water, and landscapes. 

• A lack of understanding in how to incorporate an 

ecosystem services approach into managing public 

lands; 

• Increases in renewable energy and planning needs 

(possibly hindering adaptive management options); 

• Differences among agency policies; 

• Differences in scales of information; 

• Uncertainties of water supplies; and 

• Discontinuity in water laws, conservation, permit 

issuers, and research. 

Many participants in the Ecosystem Services breakout felt 

that it was difficult to determine the true value or willingness 

to pay for an ecosystem service. Equally difficult was the 

willingness to define compensation for the degradation of an 

ecosystem service or forgo an improvement or restoration 

of an ecosystem service. Participants questioned how such 

values are accurately derived, given limitations on time, 

skills, resources, or data to make proper determinations 

that minimize disputes and challenges from other parties 

or stakeholders. Participants stated that policy decisions 

could benefit from a better understanding and recognition 

of the contributions of ecosystem services to economic and 

social welfare, but that there are difficulties in determining 

how a market-based economy can account for ecosystem 

services and incorporate them into decision making. Hence, 

methodological challenges were discussed in terms of 

assigning monetary value to ecosystem services.

Integrating climate change with ecosystem services 

requires linking specific services to specific ecological 

processes, information about the time and geographic 

scales at which ecological processes occur, identifying the 

environmental factors that influence ecosystem services, 

and identifying the ecological assets that support ecosystem 

services. There also is a need for ecosystem service 

assessments for air, soil, and water to be integrated into the 

broader agency missions—including all actions that impact 

desert landscapes. The value of any ecosystem service must 

be agreed to and understood by the people living in the area.

Even with improved knowledge and data of these ecosystem 

services, economic valuation will be challenging.

There are significant gaps in knowledge concerning the 

information from a soil inventory (for example, conducted 

by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, with a 

classification based on static subsoil features for consistency in 

mapping) compared with the many remote sensing techniques 

that depict dynamic changes in surface land-cover distribution 

and changes (for example, soil biotic crusts, plant phenology, 

etc.). This is one of many significant gaps in knowledge 

concerning values of ecosystem services relating to specific 

soils data and information in need of clarification. Participants 

were extremely interested in understanding a concise and 

Ecosystem Services

The term, ecosystem services, refers to a 

decision support concept for the use and management 

of natural resources, which recognizes the many 

critical benefits (for example, clean air and water, 

food, medicine, health, and safety) that nature 

provides to people. Other benefits include trees and 

plants that filter pollution of the air and water, habitats 

that support diverse natural areas, and lands that 

provide a buffer to wildfires, floods and storms. Most 

people acknowledge ecosystem services as part of 

decisions about how natural resources are managed 

and used. There is also a strong need to recognize the 

key role of nature’s benefits to address issues of public 

health and safety in making decisions about how 

natural resources are used and managed. We need to 

recognize the value natural areas have in protecting 

communities as, for example, where wetlands 

minimize storm damage by capturing flood waters, 

and recognize the economic value these natural areas 

have in mitigating damage. Preventing water pollution 

naturally by protecting and restoring wetlands and 

rivers is much cheaper and easier than trying to 

treat contaminated waters. Supporters of ecosystem 

services always seek to improve and understand 

concise and accurate ways to calculate the value 

nature provides to the people, while acknowledging 

the process as a crucial part of decisions.

Major Challenges

Participants addressed the ecosystem services provided 

by air, soils, water resources, and landscapes as a concept to 

assist in the development of practices in relation to climate 

change and adaptive management. Several challenges were 

raised including: 
Breakout Session Themes 19

accurate way to calculate the values nature provides to people, 

while acknowledging this process as a crucial part of decision 

making. Many felt the concept of ecosystem services must 

be clearly geared equally to the conservation community and 

the economically motivated business community for it to be 

trusted. With sufficient data, inventories, and information 

being difficult to find and synthesize, they cited a strong 

need for improved access to existing information to increase 

relevancy and effectiveness at both research and management 

levels. How existing data can be used in a dynamic world is 

especially important with monitoring, assisting in prioritizing 

work, and evaluating what is successful or not.

Communication skills and working through more 

effective partnerships were recognized as being both crucial 

and a challenge. There is a need to bridge the many agency 

barriers as well as landscape boundaries. A general lack of 

data was noted, leading to difficulty in agreeing on baseline 

conditions and setting of future objectives in a changing 

landscape. Ecosystem services may help in defining 

sustainable human uses and consumption in desert landscapes 

in the absence of general agreement regarding ecosystem 

trends. Other challenges (repeated in other sessions) included 

the need to mitigate climate change by reducing our carbon 

footprint, the need for information technology necessary 

to share and data and models, the necessity of an overall 

communication strategy for outreach and education, and issues 

related to adequate funding, especially for long-term studies.

Research Needs

Many research needs identified in this breakout 

session reflected how soils, water, and air will be influenced 

by climate change, conservation strategies, monitoring, 

resource uses, and restoration. The lack of inventory data 

and monitoring protocols was mentioned as was the need to 

integrate researchers early in the planning stage of studies to 

better reflect disturbance effects on the soil, water, and air. 

The need for multi-disciplinary research, effective mitigation 

methods, and research to addresses landscape connectivity, 

ecosystem resilience, and ecological thresholds were brought 

forth. Participants identified a need to conduct a critical review 

of existing models, particularly global circulation models of 

climate change at spatial and temporal scales relevant to land 

managers, including an assessment of their shortcomings. 

The need for additional research on the effects of energy and 

water development projects was identified, such as studies 

on development impacts, cumulative impacts of small and 

large-scale projects, and research directed toward a better 

understanding of the effects of groundwater drawdown and 

overall watershed management approaches. A need also was 

expressed for socioeconomic research on how people will 

affect ecosystem services in planning for global change 

scenarios.

The need for improved monitoring, restoration goals and 

guidelines, data sharing and communication, outreach, and 

education were repeated concerns expressed in other breakout 

sessions. For example, a diverse mixture of plant species often 

yields cover that more effectively protects soil productivity 

than a single species, thus providing an ecosystem service 

function that may help buffer against erosion from wind 

and water. Research is needed to better understand the 

consequences of the accelerating loss of species and the 

actions required to maintain or restore ecosystem services. 

Most air, water, and soil ecosystem services also are supported 

by more than one ecological process and therefore empirical 

ecosystem studies including experiments, observations, and 

models are needed to improve science-based management. 

Participants felt that integrated approaches to science-based 

management require an understanding of complex interactions 

within and between ecosystems at all scales. Fundamental 

research is needed for the development of an integrated 

ecosystems approach, which considers an entire range of 

ecosystem services and possible trade-offs between them. This 

will require monitoring of relevant ecosystem functions at 

appropriate scales to detect trends in ecosystem services and 

response to management actions. Session participants wanted 

to include monitoring requirements in land management 

planning for maintaining or restoring ecological services.

Research needs identified included general issues as well 

as specific topics related to species, habitat, climate models, 

conservation strategies, trend monitoring, resource use, and 

restoration. Among the general issues identified were the 

lack of basic inventory data and monitoring protocols and 

the need for improved study designs including both pre- and 

post-disturbance monitoring, and the need for standardized 

methods to assign value (monetary and non-monetary) to 

ecosystem services and to conduct cost-benefit analysis. Other 

issues raised included the need for multidisciplinary research, 

effective mitigation methods, and the importance of research 

that addresses habitat connectivity, ecosystem resilience, 

and ecological thresholds. More research is needed to assess 

how climate change will affect air quality and drinking 

water impacts on human health. Water quantity assessments 

are needed for renewable energy projects. More research 

is needed to understand surface-water and groundwater 

interactions, characterize hydrologic and groundwater basins, 

and estimate recharge. There is inadequate information on 

the effects of climate change and human development on 

soils, wind erosion, and groundwater. Participants felt that 

interdisciplinary effort is needed to integrate social aspects 

with natural resource research to improve understanding and 

to better inform the public. Perhaps most importantly, while 

much attention is focused on landscapes, habitats, species, 

and public aesthetics, relatively less effort is expended in 

identifying public health issues.
20 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

Integration

Decisions regarding the management and use of natural 

resources now more commonly include a consideration of 

ecosystem services. However, many felt that improvement is 

needed in the way the topic of ecosystem services is framed 

and communicated. Although jobs and economic benefits are 

important, people also support assessing the value of nature 

in terms other than dollars. Consideration of the impacts 

on nearby communities also is very worthwhile. There is a 

need for collaboration among all agencies, Tribes, industry, 

universities, and NGOs on a unified mission of climate 

change to reduce conflicting approaches and redundancies. In 

other breakouts sessions, it was mentioned that the Natural 

Resources Conservation Service has a nationwide process 

for private lands that features a data-collection partnership, 

including information on soils, hydrology, and ecosystem 

functions. These data possibly can be rolled up into ecoregional assessments and LCC efforts to improve agency 

cooperation.

More effective use of resources and integrated funding is 

needed to answer management-related research questions. We 

need to promote engaged scholarship, where all parties (policy 

and decision-makers, civic leaders, managers, nonprofits, and 

scientists) collaborate on a project from start to finish. Several 

Federal agencies are developing collaborative programs and 

partnerships (for example, the Environmental Protection 

Agency’s Ecosystem Services Research Program). Existing 

and future collaborative programs should include identifying 

key scientific questions, shaping the research effort, discussing 

the implications of findings, and deciding how to best 

communicate the results, explaining complex research in nontechnical language.

Monitoring for Climate Induced Change

Major Challenges

During two breakout sessions, several issues were 

identified as being a challenge related to monitoring for 

climate change. Some of these challenges were related to 

data access and compatibility and other challenges included 

identifying and implementing monitoring strategies. One 

of the primary areas of concern was that, especially in 

geographic areas that are being covered by multiple agencies, 

any monitoring plan would benefit from broader coordination 

by establishing a common set of protocols and data quality 

assurance procedures, common databases, and access portals 

among agencies to avoid duplication of efforts and ease data 

transfer between agencies. Despite monitoring networks being 

present, data appear to be scattered, collected with different 

protocols or formats, and monitored parameters are not always 

comparable, making it challenging to link data among existing 

monitoring networks. Development and implementation of 

monitoring plans would greatly benefit from the establishment 

of a clear set of management objectives because this 

could focus monitoring efforts to better help with adaptive 

management. It is important to recognize that these objectives 

will vary by region, because regions are likely to differ in 

plant and animal species composition and climate. However, 

in establishing monitoring and management objectives, care 

has to be taken that monitoring goals and objectives are 

attainable; otherwise large amounts of programmatic resources 

may be wasted. Ideally, explicit management objectives will 

result in identification of specific data needs and subsequently 

data gaps.

A role was identified for using models to identify data 

needs and conduct risk assessments associated with climate 

change as a means of planning and prioritizing monitoring 

activities. However, short-term agency funding cycles result 

in short-term monitoring efforts that cannot assess long-term 

changes. The inherent multi-decadal timescale of climate 

change will require monitoring to focus on longer term 

time scales of 50 years or more. In order to achieve this, 

a commitment and/or new administrative processes from 

the agencies involved with the monitoring effort have to be 

made. Participants recognized that a large challenge will be to 

provide long-term funding for these efforts. 

Another challenge related to the longer time scale is 

that in order to evaluate whether changes occur, baseline 

conditions have to be established, recognizing that baselines 

are not expected to be stable. Archived data could be useful 

in helping to identify prior baseline conditions. Given the 

relatively slow environmental changes associated with 

climate change, detecting changes in ecological processes 

that unequivocally can be ascribed to climate change will 

be difficult and challenging. To better focus monitoring 

programs, and for any monitoring practice to be effective, 

it would be advisable to concentrate monitoring efforts 

on areas or ecosystems that are most likely to be sensitive 

to climate change. Dissimilarity indices can be used to 

focus on areas that have changed or are expected to change 

substantially. Current transition zones may be good focal areas 

for measuring change in an attempt to constrain the amount 

of monitoring needed to detect change. In addition, key 

indicators have to be identified that can help focus monitoring 

efforts rather than using a ‘laundry list’ of parameters that 

ultimately may have little practical application to adaptive 

management. A high priority goal should be to identify cheap, 

easily measurable parameters that can be used as proxies for 

parameters that are difficult and expensive to monitor.
Breakout Session Themes 21

Monitoring strategies, despite the need for establishing 

clear objectives and identifying associated monitoring 

parameters, need to be prepared to expect the unexpected. 

Establishing rigid monitoring criteria may carry the 

inadvertent risk that changes in ecological parameters may 

occur, yet happen undetected as they may not be included in 

the monitoring protocols. In addition to focusing on change, 

constitutes an invasive species is critical. An unambiguous 

definition has to be developed to prevent native species shifts 

in response to climate change being interpreted as invasions 

by non-native species. This may require monitoring programs 

to be spatially extended outside of the range for which they 

were originally established so it is easier to anticipate what 

changes in species composition can be expected.

Figure 6. Wildfire near Winnemucca, Nevada, on April 1, 2009, at the edge of 

Piñon-Juniper woodland habitat that may have resulted from past fire suppression 

management practices and expanding annual grasses related to increased fire 

frequency. Photograph by Bureau of Land Management. 

the monitoring community should be 

cognizant that a non-event or absence 

of change is just as important to identify 

and document. Monitoring protocols 

must be flexible and adaptable to avoid 

both the error of failing to detect a 

change that occurred and failing to 

establish the absence of change. 

Research Needs

For monitoring to be effective 

in informing adaptive management 

several issues need to be resolved, some 

of which are fundamental research 

questions while others relate to the 

interaction between monitoring and 

adaptive management. An example of 

the latter is the relationship between fire 

in different ecosystems, invasive plant 

species, and management actions. In 

many ecosystems within the Great Basin 

and Mojave Desert, fire is an important 

determinant of ecosystem function. 

However, the role of fire is not unidirectional among all ecosystems. For 

instance, fire-exclusion may have caused 

undesirable changes in ecosystems 

including Piñon-Juniper woodlands 

(fig. 6) while other systems have been 

experiencing unnaturally intense and 

more frequent fire, sometimes due to 

increased presence of invasive species 

such as cheatgrass. As a result, fire 

management objectives are different 

depending on the ecosystem context. 

Monitoring the changes in fire frequency 

in response to climate change is critical 

in both situations. Interpretation of 

these data and associated management 

practices depends on local conditions. 

Given the importance of invasive 

species as a driver for ecosystem 

function, a clear definition of what 
22 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

In addition to these fundamental 

questions regarding uncertainties in 

process responses to climate change, 

there are needs regarding the practical 

implementation of monitoring strategies. 

One is the degree of acceptable change. 

For monitoring to be effective in 

informing adaptive management, there 

has to be some agreement on how much 

change must occur before management 

action is taken. Because ecological 

thresholds are difficult to define, 

management assessment points are often 

based on management perceptions of 

resource conditions (Bennetts and others, 

2007). Differences in perception in the 

absence of established thresholds or 

tipping points can limit the management 

applicability of monitoring data. Another 

practical challenge to implementing 

monitoring is unanticipated changes 

in land management objectives. For 

example, many arid ecosystems represent 

prime locations for alternative energy 

including solar and wind energy. 

However, to date impacts of renewable 

energy use have not been included in 

management modeling tools. In light 

of the recent interest in renewable 

energy, monitoring protocols should 

include areas targeted for development 

in addition to remaining flexible to 

accommodate future objectives. 

Given that on-the-ground 

monitoring often can be very laborintensive, and thus expensive, monitoring 

protocols should rely more on remotely 

sensed data where possible. Still, groundbased observations are critical; perhaps 

a sampling strategy can be adopted that 

makes use of sensor-intensive centralized 

hubs with distributed sampling 

locations that only focus on selected 

parameters. Currently, management 

and monitoring activities appear to be 

somewhat disconnected. For monitoring 

to be effective in informing adaptive 

management, managers and monitoring 

specialists have to work closely together 

to ensure that there is a tight feedback 

loop between their activities. That way 

monitoring strategies can be responsive 

to changes in adaptive management 

practices.

Existing Monitoring Program Examples

— BLM National Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) National Assessment, Inventory, 

and Monitoring program (NAIP) is a national strategy to manage the collection, 

storage, and use of data on resource conditions, resource uses, and the BLM’s 

management actions to inform its mission for multiple uses of public land under 

its management. This strategy establishes a limited set of resource indicators 

that are common to most or all BLM field offices, and that are comparable 

or identical to measures used by other government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Data collection, quality assurance, and reporting 

are standardized to improve the quality of the BLM’s land use planning 

and other management decisions. The program will establish a baseline of 

land health condition at a national level and assess trends over time. Rapid 

Ecoregional Assessments (REAs) address the existing condition of western 

landscapes and how conditions might be altered by environmental changes 

and land uses. The REAs examine ecological values, conditions, and trends 

within seven ecoregions spanning administrative boundaries.

— National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring

The National Park Service (NPS) Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) program 

was established to scientifically inform the management of natural resources 

under National Park Service stewardship and determine their status and 

trends. The program monitors park ecosystems to better understand their 

dynamic nature and condition and to provide reference points for comparisons 

with other, altered environments. Monitoring protocols are implemented as 

standard practice throughout the National Park system to integrate natural 

resource information into NPS planning, management, and decision making. 

The NPS intends to share information with other natural resource organizations 

and form partnerships for attaining common goals and objectives.

— Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis 

 National Program

The U.S. Forest Service (FS) Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program 

is an annual survey of status and trends in forest area and location. Information 

collected and managed by this program includes species, size, and health of 

trees, total tree growth, mortality, removals by harvest, and wood production 

and utilization rates categorized by various products. Data also are collected 

on soil, understory vegetation, tree crown conditions, coarse woody debris, 

and lichen community composition on a subset of plots.

Integration

In order to effectively monitor long-term changes in response to climate 

change, a long-term, interagency perspective has to be implemented. This 

requires commitments and funding mechanisms to be set up at high levels within 

Federal agencies. Currently (2011), various agencies are involved in addressing 

climate change impacts on Great Basin and Mojave Desert ecosystems. However, 

connectivity between agencies is lacking, resulting in disparate monitoring 

protocols and ultimately inefficient use of resources. Resources could be used more 
Breakout Session Themes 23

effectively if the various agencies coordinated their monitoring 

efforts, avoiding duplication and ensuring interagency data 

sharing.

In addition, other agencies can be brought into these 

monitoring efforts, such as resource Conservation Districts. 

Within agencies, there is a need to communicate up and 

down the hierarchical chain to ensure that those involved, 

including decision makers, are properly informed of 

monitoring activities. Data are often aggregated to a coarse 

scale for analyses that are then used to set policies. This may 

create the risk of having large-scale management decisions 

being made that are not addressing local, site-specific needs. 

Consequently, management decisions may become ineffective 

or inadequate. Given that impacts of climate change can 

vary across the landscape, monitoring programs may benefit 

from involvement of multiple stakeholders in the monitoring 

efforts including NGOs and citizen groups. For these local 

monitoring efforts to be effective, standardized protocols have 

to be developed so monitoring data can be compared across 

larger scales.

Recommendations Summary

• Establish clear management objectives before setting 

up monitoring protocols.

• Establish common monitoring protocols among 

agencies.

• Allow for data accessibility among agencies.

• Focus monitoring efforts on areas that are most likely 

to be affected by climate change.

• Expand the time-window for monitoring activities.

• Involve multiple stakeholder groups including local 

NGOs and citizens.

• Have close feedback loops between monitoring 

and adaptive management activities so changes in 

adaptive management can drive changes in monitoring 

activities.

• Avoid data roll-up as much as possible to allow for 

site-specific management activities to occur.

• Expect the unexpected.

Species and Habitat Assessment

Terrestrial Ecosystems

Breakout sessions on terrestrial species and habitat 

assessment in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert were attended 

by about 60 people representing Federal or State agencies 

and NGOs or universities in roughly equal proportions. The 

following is a synopsis of discussions of the three key questions 

addressed in the two terrestrial breakout sessions.

Major Challenges

Institutional constraints were identified as a major 

challenge. Four general areas of concern were identified: 

1. Agency missions that differ and are often in conflict, 

2. Management differences across administrative 

boundaries, 

3. Inflexible land-use and resource-management plans, and 

4. Differences among agency policies. 

These issues are summarized above in the breakout 

session on “Management Across Boundaries.” The discussion 

in this breakout session focused on the general areas of 

concern (3) and (4). Land-use and resource-management 

plans are often outdated and lack flexibility. As a result, 

some activities, such as the recent rapid change in renewable 

energy development in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert, 

was neither foreseen nor adequately planned for. This lack of 

planning forces consideration of natural resource conservation 

into a reactive mode which in many, if not most, cases leads to 

suboptimal outcomes. Policy differences among agencies also 

can impede interagency efforts to adaptively manage.

There was general agreement that monitoring is needed 

for terrestrial species and habitats in the Great Basin and 

Mojave Desert. Baseline conditions reflect a point in time 

in which the existing conditions already may have been 

affected by climate change. Because conditions are likely 

to be dynamic and already may be outside of the historical 

range of variability, long-term trend monitoring is needed. 

Efficient implementation of trend monitoring requires that 

the questions of what, where, when, and who be addressed. 

For optimal efficiency, trend monitoring should be consistent 

across agencies. Participants in the breakout session agreed 

that scale was important and management actions that are 

appropriate at one scale may not work at another. There 

was no general agreement on what scale is most appropriate 

to address climate change. Some participants felt that the 

ecosystem was the appropriate scale and that the emphasis 

should be on functionality, diversity, and redundancy. Other 

participants felt that the focus should be on habitats but not 

individual species. Elevational gradients can provide an 

appropriate context for assessing the effects of climate change. 

Clear protocols were needed for decision-making about at-risk 

species. The protocols should include a method for deciding 

how much money to spend to benefit any single species versus 

money spent on actions that benefit multiple species. A triage 

response may be necessary based on the predicted effects on 

species and habitats. The decision support process needs to 

provide guidance on when to allow species to go extinct.
24 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

Competing resources uses, in particular for water and 

energy development, were considered to present a significant 

challenge to biological resources conservation in the Great 

Basin and Mojave Desert. The uncertainties about future 

water supply calls for an immediate need to conserve and 

manage available water. There appeared to be imperfect 

linkages between water management agencies, permit issuers, 

and researchers. There also is a disconnection between 

water law and resource conservation both within and across 

State boundaries. Differences across State boundaries exist 

for surface water and groundwater resources, but crossboundary groundwater flow is commonly poorly understood. 

The importance of water issues in these arid environments 

was highlighted by this discussion in the breakout session 

“Terrestrial Ecosystem” and further summarized in the 

breakout session “Aquatic Ecosystems.” Energy development 

not only competes for scarce water resources but also has 

direct effects on habitat within the footprint of projects and 

associated facilities. These developments can displace existing 

land uses, such as recreation, into less disturbed areas thereby 

increasing their impacts.

Numerous challenges to adaptive management were 

identified. As noted above, fixed management frameworks 

are often in conflict with adaptive management. The 

mechanisms for management change may be non-existent 

or lack expediency. Moreover, it can be difficult to make 

quick decisions in the face of political obstacles. Adaptive 

management needs to be informed by quality data. In 

particular, managers need threshold criteria both to evaluate 

impacts and to know when to change management. 

Recommendations to address the challenges of adaptive 

management included building system resiliency by removing 

the known current threats to species and their habitats 

and recognizing that uncertainty will exist along the way. 

Climate change will exacerbate some stressors and create 

new interactions among stressors. Finally, it is necessary to 

recognize that community composition and dynamics will shift 

and, in cases where species can neither expand nor shift their 

range, adaptive management may not be possible. Conversion 

of natural landscapes to alternative uses, such as large-scale 

renewable energy development (fig. 7), also is likely to 

preclude adaptive management options. Other challenges 

identified included the need to mitigate climate change by 

reducing our carbon footprint, the need for information 

technology necessary to share data and models, the necessity 

of an overall communication strategy for outreach and 

education, and issues related to adequate funding, especially 

for long-term studies.

Figure 7. Parabolic mirror solar thermal energy generating plant at Kramer Junction, California. Increasing demand for alternative 

energy could result in conversion of presently undisturbed public land to solar and wind turbine electricity production (Flint, 2010). 
Breakout Session Themes 25

Research Needs

Initial discussion in this breakout session focused on 

climate in general. Participants identified a need to conduct 

a critical review of past and existing species, habitat, and 

climate models including an assessment of their shortcomings. 

In particular, the relationship between model generality and 

model accuracy needs to be examined. Predictive models 

are needed that are based on the environmental physiology 

of individual species and focus on critical functions such as 

reproduction, recruitment, and where relevant, ecological 

interactions, such as pollinator relationships. Empirical 

studies are needed that examine the relationship between 

such functions and habitat quality under different climate 

change scenarios. It also was suggested that there was a need 

to include species other than those currently deemed to be 

at-risk, although no rationale was provided to support this. 

Other needs identified include paleoecological research to 

understand current and future species ranges and the dynamics 

of species assemblages. With respect to habitat models, there 

is a need for alternative future scenarios of vegetation change 

that incorporate uncertainty. The necessity of validating 

models also was emphasized.

A need for better conservation strategies informed by 

our current knowledge of priority habitats and migration 

corridors was identified, especially for strategic approaches 

that transcend management boundaries. A need for new 

research exists on the identification and prioritization of areas 

that can provide connectivity in fragmented landscapes and 

serve as migration corridors. This research would need to 

include risk analysis on specific species to inform existing 

regulatory frameworks as well as better understanding of 

habitat diversity gradients. A specific need for additional 

research on the effects of energy and water development 

projects was identified, including controlled studies of 

development impacts, cumulative impacts of local- versus 

large-scale energy projects, engineering design studies on 

how to maintain habitat values in energy development areas, 

and research directed toward a better understanding of the 

effects of groundwater drawdown, especially using watershed 

approaches. Finally, a need for socioeconomic research on 

how people affect ecosystems was expressed. Other research 

topics that were identified during this session included 

monitoring, restoration goals and guidelines, data sharing and 

communication, outreach and education to improve the public 

perception of the value of all natural resources, and methods to 

identify the best return on what is likely to be limited funding.

Integration

Because agencies have different missions, there will be 

a need to identify and focus on a common ground and vision 

with respect to climate change. Agency missions should 

perhaps be aligned around the issue of climate change. There 

also is a potential for conflict between collaboration and 

competition for funding. As in other aspects of government 

work, there is an issue related to the loss of institutional 

knowledge due to retirement. An effort to capture this 

institutional memory is required. Policy changes are needed 

if agencies are transitioning from being reactive to being 

proactive. More programmatic approaches are needed where 

specific information is lacking. Participants emphasized 

the need for an inclusive collaboration that includes Tribes, 

industry, other private sector entities, and NGOs. NGOs are 

good at moving policy forward and enacting change, because 

NGOs have fewer restrictions and can be more fluid.

With respect to LCCs, participants felt that the 

management teams needed to be representative of the 

partnerships and address regional climate change issues. A 

key role for such cooperatives is to provide land managers 

with information on how important the lands they manage 

are and how they fit into larger ecosystems. Coordinators and 

facilitators are key to communication among the collaborators 

and quality leadership is needed to fully engage partners 

and break down barriers among groups. It was emphasized 

that these cooperatives should rely on existing collaborative 

partnerships rather than creating entirely new structures. The 

Natural Resources Conservation Service nationwide process 

for private lands was highlighted as a model partnership for 

data collection. Data on soils, hydrology, and ecosystem 

function are collected by contractors who are provided 

with training. These data can be rolled up into ecoregional 

assessments while maintaining individual privacy. The 

evaluation is conducted at the national level by a team of 

statisticians.

There was some discussion of research needs related 

to coordination across agencies. It was suggested that 

demonstration landscapes be established within which 

agencies could experiment. Research in these demonstration 

landscapes would be enhanced if scientists had the opportunity 

to conduct their research across management boundaries. It 

also was recommended that data from existing reserves serve 

as a basis for predicting the results of management actions to 

other landscapes. Other topics discussed included species-atrisk, monitoring, information needs and technology, public 

outreach and education, and funding. Many of the points 

raised during the discussion are mentioned elsewhere, but 

several novel issues were identified in this breakout session 

related to streamlining the funding process, perhaps through 

the Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Units. Although added 

support will not solve every problem, predictability about 

long-term funding is particularly important.

Aquatic Ecosystems

Breakout sessions on aquatic species and habitat 

assessment in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert were each 

attended by about 30 people primarily representing Federal 

agencies, the State of Nevada, a few universities, and NGOs 

with approximately 50 percent overlap in attendance between 

the two sessions. Participants were well-acquainted with the 
26 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

nature of aquatic systems in the Great Basin and Mojave 

Desert and the various stressors currently acting on these 

ecosystems. The following is a synopsis of discussion in the 

two aquatics breakout sessions.

Major Challenges

A major challenge voiced by the participants involves 

dealing with variability and changing seasonality of weather 

patterns influenced by climate change. Models indicate that 

farther south in the Mojave Desert precipitation patterns are 

likely to become not only drier but more variable with more 

intense or more frequent drought and floods. Farther north in 

the Great Basin, precipitation may increase on average but 

shift from snow to rain. Changes in seasonality of precipitation 

are projected and this will have differential effects on systems 

and species. Vegetation communities may shift to higher 

elevation and latitude, changing water flow and extent and 

composition of riparian habitats. The human population is 

a primary driver of change in aquatic systems. Continued 

population growth in cities and suburbs overlain on nonstationary hydrologic systems is likely to increase demands 

placed on groundwater resources and degrade small but 

ecologically important wetlands. Changes in aquatic systems 

may come about quickly as increasing demand for diminishing 

water resources concentrates use and impact in these areas. 

Over the past decade, managers in the Great Basin have 

watched springs drying while being impacted by increasing 

numbers of feral equines. Non-native ungulates are correlated 

with increasing invasive plant species in many Great Basin 

aquatic habitats, often resulting in altered hydrologic function 

of these systems.

Public perception was seen by the participants to be 

both a challenge and an opportunity. Despite an education 

and outreach effort sustained over several years, in addition 

to increasing frequency of extreme weather events, the 

percentage of the American public that believes climate 

change is real and is related to human activity has declined 

substantially (for example, Hanson, 2010; Jasanoff, 2010). 

Communication about changing climate and resulting impacts 

on resources apparently is a significant challenge. Simply 

providing information and facts is ineffective at changing 

public opinion so connections between aquatic ecosystem 

change and climate need to be reinforced. Water use policy 

and regulation was briefly discussed by participants. Concern 

was expressed over the way water policy is set and that it 

is often use-based as opposed to conservation-based. Water 

policies are developed on the basis of assumptions about 

stationarity in hydrologic systems without incorporating 

adaptations for non-stationarity that are now becoming 

evident. Finally, a primary management challenge identified 

by participants was how to allocate insufficient and decreasing 

staff time and budget resources in an increasingly stressful and 

challenging management environment.

Research Needs

Jon Sjoberg, Nevada Department of Wildlife, offered 

an example to place research and management into context. 

The rock shelf in Devils Hole where the Devils Hole 

pupfish survives may be one of the smallest critical habitat 

ecosystems in the World (fig. 8). Yet despite having been 

studied intensively for nearly 40 years, researchers still do not 

know how this restrictive system functions. In this situation, 

waiting for research to provide all the answers could lead 

to management paralysis. New approaches are required, 

including adaptive management, to fill the gap between the 

unknown and full deterministic understanding of climate 

related changes now impinging upon aquatic ecosystems 

of the Great Basin and Mojave Desert. The following 

are research needs and recommendations identified by 

participants. Recommendations for adaptive management are 

summarized in the final section.

Hydrologic and Groundwater Basin Characterization.—

Baseline characterization and research of hydrologic resources 

in many groundwater basins in the Desert Southwest is 

limited or lacking. Even in the absence of adequate baseline 

data, these basins supply water for existing wells and are 

being targeted by new water extraction proposals. Although 

large-scale groundwater extraction has been ongoing for 

decades, recharge is poorly understood, difficult to estimate, 

and uncertainties are compounded by changing precipitation 

patterns. The long-term consequences of aquifer drawdown 

on surface-water resources under climate change scenarios 

remain uncertain. Full wetlands inventories combined with 

improved estimates and locations of recharge need to be 

combined with groundwater extraction and discharge data into 

refined, regional-scale groundwater flow models. Such models 

could be used to forecast the spatial and temporal distribution 

of available surface water and evaluate the consequences of 

groundwater extraction and reduced recharge.

Climate Models.—Although global circulation models 

(GCMs) are central to our understanding of anthropogenic 

climate change, there is a widely recognized need to reconcile 

the broad range of variability in the models and their coarse 

scale of representation with local management practices. Much 

research is needed on downscaling models, model coupling, 

and validation, especially as it relates to species and habitat 

distributions. The relationship between GCMs and regionalscale groundwater flow models is largely unexplored—how 

will climate change affect hydrology?

Paleoclimate Proxies.—There is a need for long-term 

datasets to characterize and better constrain the concept of 

ecological baselines. Speleothems (mineral deposits in caves 

formed by water), tree rings, packrat middens, lake levels, and 

other proxies of past climatic conditions can guide conceptual 

modeling of ecosystems in other climatic regimes and 

undergoing rapid change.
Breakout Session Themes 27

Ecosystem Function and Ecosystem Drivers.—

Fundamental gaps in knowledge and understanding exist about 

drivers and stressors of even the simplest aquatic systems. 

Without this understanding, system dynamics can change 

and managers will not know why (for example, why did the 

recent rapid population decline of Devils Hole pupfish occur?) 

How will climate change affect the distribution of plants? 

How will species invasions be affected? Are species invasions 

already driving system change, affecting ecosystem resiliency 

and function? Are there effective methods and strategies 

for managing invasive species and restoring ecosystem 

functionality? What connectivity with the surrounding 

landscape is required for species migrations? How does the 

spatial and temporal availability of surface water factor into 

landscape connectivity? What is the net change as species 

immigrate and emigrate? What are the ecosystem dynamics on 

the leading and withdrawing edges of migration/invasion?

Inventory and Monitoring.—Basic information and 

datasets are needed for aquatic systems including land cover, 

soil, water location and temporal persistence and water 

rights information. An inventory should begin with a data 

mining exercise identifying existing spatial and tabular data 

followed by data syntheses. Such an effort should build on 

existing work to compile, synthesize and manage data across 

the Great Basin and Mojave Desert bioregions. Legacy data 

need to be shared and protected for future use, and efforts 

should be made in preserving data as systems are updated 

and workforce turnover occurs. Long-term monitoring and 

study plots need to be established specifically for indicators 

of climate change. Monitoring must include partnerships to be 

long-term and comprehensive. Better data transfer is needed, 

such as online monitoring databases, to get information to 

managers and the public. There needs to be better coordination 

and standardization of aquatic monitoring so that the methods 

Figure 8. A shallow submerged shelf in Devils Hole that provides the only habitat for the critically endangered Devils Hole pupfish 

(Cyprinodon diabolis). (Photograph by National Park Service, January 2006).
28 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

and protocols are comparable across the region. Metadata and 

data management must be standardized and institutionalized. 

Metadata must be maintained with originating data. Regular 

summaries need to be provided to managers and the public 

summarizing the findings and management implications. 

Special effort should be placed on the edges of species ranges 

and environmental tolerances where we are most likely to see 

early trends.

Fire Regimes.—How climate change will alter fire 

regimes in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert is an important 

and largely unanswered question. To what extent will climate 

change effect woody vegetation, fuel loading, and watershed 

hydrology? Relationships between human population growth 

and resource requirements may overwhelm other stressors. 

Managers need an anthropogenic focus and assistance with 

triage decisions.

Integration

Recommendations from the aquatics breakout group for 

addressing climate change generally fall into the categories of 

public education, communication, and coordination between 

managers and scientists, and adaptive management. Scientists 

and land managers in this breakout group felt that the agencies 

could not simply ignore the disconnection between climate 

science and public perceptions.

• Communication (education) needs to occur at a local 

level between communities and agency staff. The 

climate change topic needs to be reframed, avoiding 

accumulated political baggage and addressing issues 

of direct public impact, such as water rights impacts, 

water use impacts, and recreational impacts. Involving 

stakeholders in conservation efforts on public lands 

may be an effective means of communication.

• The value of species and ecosystems in a changing 

environment must be effectively communicated 

so the public understands how it relates to their 

concerns and needs. The value of the environment 

and aquatic ecosystems must be tied to water quality 

and availability. The importance of ecosystems and 

ecosystem services should be included in outreach 

programs to build support for environmental 

protection.

• Communication frameworks and tools are needed to 

share scientific information with the public and to 

increase public understanding of the unique effects of 

climate change in desert ecosystems.

The need for effective communication and coordination 

across agencies, universities, Tribes, NGOs, management, 

and science partners to address climate change was 

discussed extensively by participants. A number of existing 

collaborations and approaches linking scientists and managers 

were identified, such as the Great Basin Research and 

Management Partnership, the Great Basin Joint Fire Science 

Learning Together Project, and the Cooperative Ecosystem 

Studies Units. Participants felt that it was important that the 

new DOI-led climate change initiatives build upon existing 

collaborations as opposed to developing new and competing 

efforts. The following focal components for collaboration 

were identified by participants.

• A central framework of communication between 

the managers and scientists to provide unbiased, 

peer-reviewed information for setting research 

and management priorities. Priorities of various 

agencies and NGOs need to be communicated in 

order for resources to be effectively pooled. Multiple 

stakeholder mission statements would help to clarify 

priorities. Centrally served datasets would facilitate 

communication.

• Adaptive management is the application of the 

scientific method to dealing with difficult problems 

of public resource management. Participants in this 

aquatics workgroup endorsed the use of adaptive 

management but believed it to be infrequently and 

inadequately used.

• Inflexibility in management plans for water resources 

was thought to hinder rather than help sustain these 

resources. The management planning process should 

start with the best available scientific information 

clearly and transparently communicated to both the 

managers and the public. Communication is a key 

in the beginning so that all stakeholders are aware 

of research findings, available data, data needs, and 

management issues. A process for updates should be 

built into plans including budgetary and regulatory 

constraints. Steps for keeping plans current and 

including new research findings should be included 

along with employee performance standards to provide 

for flexibility given new information and changing 

conditions. The planning and management process 

is important for maintaining flexibility to update and 

adapt water resource management plans.

• Monitoring is an essential component of adaptive 

management that is missing from many of the 

aquatic resource management actions in the Great 

Basin and Mojave Desert. Monitoring needs to be 

implemented in a standard way to enable comparisons 

across organizations and ecosystems. Monitoring 

should include, and in some cases focus on, physical 

functioning and systems management—not just 

specific species or components. Monitoring needs to 

be tied to periodic reviews of management plans and 

communicated to stakeholders consistently.
Conclusions 29

• It was clear to the group that scientific information on 

desert groundwater and aquatic systems will always 

be incomplete. Although more research is needed, 

managers also need to act in the absence of complete 

knowledge. Managers and policy makers need to 

make decisions and implement management actions 

in the framework of adaptive management, using 

the outcomes and monitoring as input to adaptation. 

Politics and public input may help with setting 

priorities but managers need to focus on scientific data 

for adapting to climate change.

• Adaptive management on a large scale has been 

implemented in the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive 

Management Program. Great Basin and Mojave Desert 

managers can learn from the successes and failures 

of this and other existing plans. Designs should be 

scalable as, for example, the Incident Command 

System, so that adaptive management programs 

can be applied to climate change-related resource 

management issues appropriate to the size of the 

problem and various constraints.

• Adaptive management may be made more effective 

through partnerships. Strengthening partnerships with 

academia will help to improve the interdisciplinary 

scientific bases for adapting management actions. 

Public-private partnerships are indispensable as some 

of the most important aquatic ecosystems occur on 

private lands.

Conclusions

Managers of public lands and natural resources in the 

Great Basin and Mojave Desert foresee significant challenges 

ahead in coping with the consequences of a changing 

climate. Modified hydrologic conditions in the Colorado 

River basin, for example, will compound adverse ecosystem 

impacts through complex interactions between decreasing 

water supplies and increasing urban populations. Adaptation, 

both proactive and reactive, was a term frequently used to 

characterize approaches to managing the effects of climate 

change on the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems of this arid 

ecoregion. The formal methods of Adaptive Management 

are widely perceived to be applicable but underutilized. An 

essential component often missing in practice is monitoring 

to assess the effectiveness of management actions. Adaptive 

Management and ecosystem monitoring require data 

maintenance and access, both of which are areas with much 

room for improvement. Strategic planning is necessary to 

coordinate agency actions across boundaries at a landscape 

scale. Many obstacles to effective management at the 

bureaucratic level are exemplified by conflicting missions, 

conflicting policy mandates, and asynchronous budget 

cycles. Sufficient funding is a prerequisite to effective 

management, but constraints on the way funding can be used 

are often more restrictive than the total available budget. 

Substantial improvements in management efficiency are 

possible by modifying the way public funds can be used 

by land management agencies, for example, by facilitating 

the partnerships that are essential for ecosystem-scale 

management of public lands. Strategic restructuring of agency 

goals should include incentives for collaboration at both the 

individual employee and agency levels. 

Although many workshop participants identified a need 

for coordinated funding and cooperation among agencies 

and partners, others pointed out that existing collaborative 

mechanisms are underutilized and that better communication 

between managers and scientists in identifying research 

needs and management issues was needed. Improved 

information and data sharing was perhaps the most common 

recommendation for facilitating communication. Several 

partnerships and data sharing websites, summarized in 

“Collaborations and Partnerships,” were mentioned in 

presentations as excellent examples of communication. 

Working together in cooperative partnerships, sharing data 

and research results, and communicating lessons learned in 

both successes and failures will not alone be sufficient to meet 

the challenges posed by global climate change, but these are 

essential components of any successful approach. 

This workshop revealed areas where much is known 

about the impact of climate change but also highlighted 

important information needs. Based on repeated comments 

from land managers, an assessment of information needs and 

research priorities should begin with an inventory of basic 

datasets such as species distributions and current ecological 

conditions. New research projects should be designed in 

consultation with managers and be oriented ultimately towards 

providing decision support tools. Absence of information, 

however, is not an excuse for inaction but rather should 

motivate natural resource professionals, scientists, and the 

public to collaborate and implement Adaptive Management 

so that we learn from our efforts. The participants of the 

workshop repeatedly called for political and agency obstacles 

to be removed so that collaborations and partnerships 

can address climate change at an ecosystem scale. Future 

directions must involve collaboration among scientists, 

managers, partners, community stakeholders, and the public 

for applying scientific knowledge to the management of public 

lands. Collaboration is an equal and shared responsibility, with 

managers helping scientists to identify the highest priority 

research questions, scientists conducting research to assist 

managers with problem solving, and both working closely to 

communicate with the public.
30 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

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Glossary 33

Glossary

Adaptation Actions by individuals or systems to avoid, 

withstand, or take advantage of current and projected climate 

changes and impacts. Adaptation decreases a system’s 

vulnerability, or increases its resilience to impacts (Pew Center 

on Global Climate Change, 2009).

Adaptive Management Adaptive Management is a 

decision process that promotes flexible decision making 

that can be adjusted in the face of uncertainties as outcomes 

from management actions and other events become better 

understood. Careful monitoring of these outcomes both 

advances scientific understanding and helps adjust policies 

or operations as part of an iterative learning process. 

Adaptive management also recognizes the importance of 

natural variability in contributing to ecological resilience and 

productivity. It is not a ‘trial and error’ process, but rather 

emphasizes learning while doing. Adaptive management 

does not represent an end in itself, but rather a means to more 

effective decisions and enhanced benefits. Its true measure is 

in how well it helps meet environmental, social, and economic 

goals; increases scientific knowledge; and reduces tensions 

among stakeholders (Williams and others, 2009)

Ecological threshold The point at which an ecosystem does 

not return to its original state via natural processes following 

disturbance but instead transitions to a new alternative state.

Engaged scholarship Empirical research conducted in 

partnership with public and private stakeholders, with the 

goal of addressing critical social issues and contributing to 

the public good. Often, community partners are included in 

the research process, either as informants, in collecting data, 

in analyzing the data, or all of the above (UCLA Center for 

Community Partnerships, 2008).

Mitigation Any action taken to permanently eliminate or 

reduce the long-term risk and hazards of climate change.

Resilience The ability of ecosystems to absorb recurrent 

disturbances while retaining essential structures, processes, 

and feedbacks (Sugden, 2001; Craig, 2009).

Restoration The act of returning a disturbed area, ecosystem, 

or natural process to a former, original, normal, or unimpaired 

condition.

Stationarity A random or stochastic process is said to be 

stationary if its statistical properties, (for example, mean, 

variance, and autocorrelation) do not change in time or space. 
34 Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

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Hughson and others— Natural Resource Mitigation, Adaptation and Research Needs Related to Climate Change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert—Scientific Investigations Report 2011–5103