CLIMATE CHANGE

Various Adaptation 

Efforts Are Under Way 

at Key Natural 

Resource Management 

Agencies 

Report to Congressional Requesters

May 2013

GAO-13-253

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

 

Highlights of GAO-13-253, a report to 

congressional requesters

May 2013

CLIMATE CHANGE 

Various Adaptation Efforts Are Under Way at Key 

Natural Resource Management Agencies

Why GAO Did This Study

Climate change poses a variety of 

threats to federally managed natural 

resources, such as forests and wildlife, 

including possibly more frequent and 

severe droughts and wildfires. 

Adaptation—adjustments in natural or 

human systems to a new or changing 

environment that exploits beneficial 

opportunities or moderates negative 

effects—can be used to help manage 

the risks to vulnerable natural 

resources. GAO was asked to review 

federal agencies’ efforts to incorporate 

climate change adaptation into their 

natural resource planning and 

management since GAO last reported 

on this issue in 2007. 

This report examines (1) steps key 

federal natural resource management 

agencies—Forest Service, NOAA, Fish 

and Wildlife Service, National Park 

Service, and Bureau of Land 

Management—have taken since 2007 

to address adaptation and (2) how 

these agencies have collaborated at 

the national level on adaptation since 

2007. GAO analyzed the agencies’ 

climate change adaptation guidance 

and planning documents and 

interviewed agency officials. GAO also 

visited one field location for each 

agency, selected using a 

nonprobability approach, so the results 

are not generalizable to all of the 

agencies’ field locations. 

GAO is not making any 

recommendations. GAO received 

written comments from the Department 

of Agriculture, which said the Forest 

Service agreed with the findings. GAO

also received general and technical 

comments from the Departments of 

Commerce and the Interior, which 

were incorporated as appropriate. 

What GAO Found

Since 2007, the Forest Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration (NOAA), the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park 

Service have taken steps to establish strategic directions for addressing climate 

change adaptation. For example, the Forest Service developed a strategic 

framework document that established climate change adaptation as a central 

agency priority and another document, known as “the roadmap,” which identified 

actions that national forest managers were taking or could take to implement the 

direction outlined in the framework, including re-vegetating ecosystems that had 

been affected by fire with plant species that are better adapted to current and 

future climates. These four agencies have also developed guidance, training, and 

other tools for managers to use in adapting to climate change. For example, the 

National Park Service is developing guidance for park-based climate change 

adaptation plans that includes steps such as identifying conservation targets and

conducting vulnerability assessments. The Bureau of Land Management has 

not established a strategic direction for addressing climate change impacts but is 

planning to develop a high-level climate change adaptation strategy by the end of 

the summer 2013. In addition, GAO visited one field location within each agency 

and found that managers at four of the five locations have taken steps to address 

climate change adaptation. For example: 

• Chugach National Forest managers have begun an assessment of the 

vulnerability to climate change of key resources to help set priorities and 

identify adaptation actions. For example, the vulnerability assessment 

will include information on how changes in climate are likely to affect 

snow cover and salmon populations, as well as an analysis of how these 

projected changes may affect residents in the region who rely on snowbased tourism and salmon for their livelihoods. 

• Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary managers are beginning to 

assess whether parts of their management plan should be revised to 

address climate change adaptation and have taken actions to protect 

marine resources, such as coral reefs, from climate change impacts. For 

example, the sanctuary is collaborating with local stakeholders to 

develop systems and techniques to grow coral and other reef species for 

replanting in depleted reef systems.

Managers at the Bureau of Land Management’s Kingman Resource Area, which 

manages its lands for livestock grazing and other uses, have not taken steps to 

address climate change adaptation and are awaiting agency direction. 

The federal natural resource management agencies GAO reviewed are 

collaborating on climate change adaptation. For example, agencies are 

collaborating through landscape conservation cooperatives, comprising public 

and private organizations working to define shared goals and provide science for 

conservation planning, among other things. In addition, agencies have 

collaborated in developing national strategies for addressing climate change 

adaptation in the federal government. For example, the Fish and Wildlife Service, 

NOAA, and others collaborated on a strategy, released in March 2013, for 

addressing climate change adaptation in managing fish, wildlife, and plants. 

View GAO-13-253. For more information, 

contact Anne-Marie Fennell at (202) 512-3841 

or fennella@gao.gov.
Page i GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Letter 1 

Background 6

Four of the Five Agencies Have Developed Climate Change 

Adaptation Strategies and Four of the Five Sites We Visited Have 

Taken Steps to Address Adaptation 23

The Agencies Have Begun Using Several Mechanisms to 

Collaborate and Have Prepared National Adaptation Strategies 

and Climate Assessments 57

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 66

Appendix I Comments from the Department of Agriculture 68

Appendix II GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 69

Table

Table 1: Current and Projected Impacts of Climate Change in the 

United States 7

Figures

Figure 1: Map of the National Forest System 10

Figure 2: Map of the National Marine Sanctuary System 11

Figure 3: Map of National Wildlife Refuges 13

Figure 4: Map of the National Parks 15

Figure 5: Map of Lands Managed by the Bureau of Land 

Management 18

Figure 6: Map of Chugach National Forest 27

Figure 7: Map of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary 

Boundaries 33

Figure 8: Map of Florida’s Reef Management Jurisdictions 36

Figure 9: Map of San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge 43

Figure 10: Map of Glacier National Park 49

Figure 11: Map of the Bureau of Land Management’s Rapid 

Ecoregional Assessments 54

Figure 12: Map of Kingman Resource Area and Arizona Field Office 

Administrative Boundaries 56

Figure 13: Map of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives 59

Contents 
Page ii GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Abbreviation

NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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Page 1 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

May 31, 2013

The Honorable Max Baucus

Chairman

Committee on Finance

United States Senate

The Honorable Sheldon Whitehouse

Chairman

Subcommittee on Oversight

Committee on Environment and Public Works

United States Senate

According to multiple scientific studies, including those done by the U. S. 

Global Change Research Program,1 climate-related changes will likely 

adversely affect many aspects of the natural environment in the United 

States.2 These changes include increases in air and water temperatures, 

wildfires, and drought; forests stressed by drought becoming more 

vulnerable to insect infestations; rising sea levels; and reduced snow 

cover and retreating glaciers. In addition, various species are expected to 

be at risk of becoming extinct due to the loss of habitat critical to their 

survival. Many of these changes have already been observed on federally 

managed lands and waters and are expected to continue. As we reported 

in October 2009,3 policymakers are increasingly viewing adaptation—

defined by the National Research Council4

 

1

The U.S. Global Change Research Program coordinates and integrates federal research 

on changes in the global environment and their implications for society. Led by a team of 

officials from each of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s 13 participating 

departments and agencies, the U.S. Global Change Research Program engages in a 

variety of activities designed to strengthen and strategically direct climate change 

research in the U.S. and improve the flow of that information to federal, state, and local 

decision makers, and the public.

as adjustments in natural or 

2

Thomas R. Karl, Jerry M. Melillo, and Thomas C. Peterson, eds., U.S. Global Change 

Research Program, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States (New York, New 

York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

3

GAO, Climate Change Adaptation: Strategic Federal Planning Could Help Government 

Officials Make More Informed Decisions, GAO-10-113 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 7, 2009).

4

National Research Council, America’s Climate Choices: Adapting to the Impacts of 

Climate Change, (Washington, D. C.: 2010). 

 
 

Page 2 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

human systems to a new or changing environment that exploits beneficial 

opportunities or moderates negative effects—as a risk-management 

strategy to protect vulnerable natural resources that might be affected by 

changes in the climate.

The federal government manages nearly 30 percent of the land in the 

United States. Specifically, federal agencies manage natural resources 

on about 650 million acres of land, including 401 national park units and 

155 national forests. In addition, federal agencies also manage marine 

resources in the United States and its exclusive economic zone,5

In August 2007, we reported that federal natural resource managers 

lacked specific guidance for incorporating climate change into their 

planning efforts and management actions.

including fisheries and protected species, and marine protected areas 

that include13 national marine sanctuaries. These resources are 

managed primarily by the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service; the 

Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration (NOAA); and the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Land 

Management.

6 Without such guidance, we 

reported that their ability to address climate change and effectively 

manage resources was constrained. We recommended, among other 

things, that the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior 

develop clear written guidance that explains how federal natural resource 

managers are expected to address the effects of climate change. The 

three departments generally agreed with our recommendation and have 

been taking steps to address it. In addition, in October 2009, we reported 

that climate change is a complex, interdisciplinary issue with the potential 

to affect every sector and level of government operations and that 

government-wide adaptation planning and collaboration could assist 

climate change adaptation efforts.7

 

5

The United Sates has jurisdiction over the U.S. exclusive economic zone—an area 

typically extending from 3 to 200 nautical miles off the coast—including jurisdiction to 

manage natural resources and protect and preserve the marine environment. The U.S. 

exclusive economic zone is the largest in the world covering about 3.4 million nautical 

miles or 1.7 times the landmass of the contiguous United States.

We concluded that adaptation will 

6

GAO, Climate Change: Agencies Should Develop Guidance for Addressing the Effects 

on Federal Lands and Water Resources, GAO-07-863 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 7, 2007).

7

GAO-10-113. 
 

Page 3 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

require new approaches to match new realities and that old ways of doing 

business—such as making decision based on the assumed continuation 

of past climate conditions—will not work in a world affected by climate 

change. In 2013, we added climate change to our list of high-risk areas 

because it poses significant financial risks to the federal government. One 

of the areas where the federal government’s fiscal exposure is expected 

to increase is in its role as the manager of large amounts of land and 

other natural resources.8

In an October 2010 report, the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation 

Task Force, established by the President and made up of representatives 

from more than 20 federal departments and agencies, concluded that the 

federal government has the responsibility to manage climate-related 

impacts on federal resources by, among other things, leading and 

supporting actions that reduce vulnerability, increase resilience, and 

enhance coordination.9 In response to recommendations from the task 

force or initiatives from their Secretaries, the Departments of Agriculture, 

Commerce, and the Interior have developed various mechanisms to 

address climate change impacts on natural resources and the people, 

industries, and communities that depend on them.10

 

8

GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, 

These mechanisms 

include, for example, climate change adaptation strategies within the 

departmental strategic plans, adaptation-related policies and guidance, 

and national interagency collaborative initiatives. In addition, the three 

departments have all, in various ways, informed their respective agencies 

to begin addressing climate change adaptation.

GAO-13-283 (Washington, D.C.: February 2013).

9

The White House Council on Environmental Quality, Progress Report of the Interagency 

Climate Change Adaptation Task Force: Recommended Actions in Support of a National 

Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, 2010. 

10In addition, the October 5, 2009 Executive Order 13514 on Federal Leadership in 

Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance directs federal agencies to evaluate 

their climate change risks and vulnerabilities and manage the effects of climate change on 

the agency’s operations and mission in both the short- and long-term. In response to the 

Executive Order, the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior submitted 

adaptation plans for fiscal year 2013 to the Council on Environmental Quality in June 2012 

as part of their annual Strategic Sustainability Performance Plans. The Council on 

Environmental Quality is an office within the Executive Office of the President that, among 

other things, oversees implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act and 

develops and recommends to the President national polices to foster and promote the 

improvement of environmental quality. 
 

Page 4 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

You asked us to review what federal agencies are doing to incorporate 

climate change adaptation into their natural resource planning and 

management activities. This report examines (1) steps key federal natural 

resource management agencies have taken since 2007 to address 

climate change adaptation and (2) how these agencies have collaborated 

with each other at the national level since 2007 to address climate 

change adaptation. While federal agencies have taken many different 

climate change adaptation actions, we focused on those actions that we 

determined were most directly relevant to helping guide the management 

activities of the field location we visited at each agency.

We selected the following four key federal natural resource management 

agencies to review because they administer over 90 percent of the 

federal lands in the United States. The four agencies are (1) the Forest 

Service, (2) the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, (3) the National Park 

Service, and (4) the Bureau of Land Management. We selected NOAA 

because it manages coastal and ocean natural resources, such as the 

national marine sanctuary system.11

To learn how one natural resource site managed by each of the agencies 

has addressed climate change adaptation since 2007, we visited five 

sites, reviewed planning documents, and interviewed agency officials that 

manage the resources at those sites. The five sites we visited were (1) 

the Forest Service’s Chugach National Forest in south-central Alaska; (2) 

NOAA’s Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in southern Florida; (3) 

the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s San Pablo Bay National Wildlife 

Refuge in northern California; (4) the National Park Service’s Glacier 

National Park in northwestern Montana; and (5) the Bureau of Land 

Management’s Kingman Field Office in northwestern Arizona. We visited 

four of these sites—Chugach National Forest, Florida Keys National 

Marine Sanctuary, Glacier National Park, and Kingman Field Office—

because they were also included in our 2007 review.

To determine how the five natural 

resource management agencies have addressed climate change 

adaptation since 2007, we reviewed and analyzed relevant strategic 

plans, actions plans, policies, resource management plans, and guidance 

documents for the five agencies and interviewed senior officials at each 

agency.

12

 

11NOAA also manages coastal and ocean ecosystems, marine fisheries, protected 

resources, and other marine protected areas.

For the 2007 

12GAO-07-863. 
 

Page 5 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

review, we selected the sites we visited to ensure geographic 

representation across the country and to include the four principal 

ecosystem types that are managed by federal agencies—forests, 

grasslands and shrublands, coasts and oceans, and fresh waters.13 For 

this review, we included the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge so 

that we could review a site managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service. Because we selected a nonprobability sample of five sites,14

To learn how the natural resource management agencies have 

collaborated with each other at the national level since 2007 to address 

climate change adaptation, we reviewed documents such as the October 

2011 Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force progress 

report

the 

results we obtained from these sites are not generalizable to all of the 

natural resource areas managed by the five agencies; however, they 

provide specific examples of how some federally managed natural 

resource areas have addressed climate change adaptation at the site 

level. We also interviewed stakeholders, including state, local, and tribal 

government officials and representatives from nongovernmental 

organizations, to discuss their adaptation efforts.

15 and the National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation 

Strategy.16

We conducted this performance audit from December 2011 to May 2013 

in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

We also interviewed officials from the five agencies, including 

officials who have roles and responsibilities related to collaboration.

 

13An ecosystem is a coexisting set of species and their habitat, generally characterized by 

a particular type of climate and other physical conditions (e.g., soil types on land, water 

depths in freshwater and marine environments), as well as by the set of species present.

14A nonprobability sample means that the five sites were not selected randomly. 

15Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, Federal Actions for a Climate 

Resilient Nation: Progress Report of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task 

Force (October 2011). The task force includes representatives from more than 20 federal 

departments and agencies including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and the 

Interior. 

16National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Partnership. National Fish, Wildlife 

and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy: Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, 

Council on Environmental Quality, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Great Lakes Indian Fish 

and Wildlife Commission, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 

(Washington, D.C.: 2012).
 

Page 6 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Climate change is having a variety of impacts on natural resources in the 

United States, including more severe drought and increased wildfires. 

The five key federal natural resource management agencies included in 

this review—the Forest Service, NOAA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 

National Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management—have unique 

roles and are facing a variety of management challenges related to 

climate change. Climate change is also altering assumptions that have 

been central to natural resource planning and management in the past 

and recent reports have highlighted the importance of establishing climate 

change planning in the federal government to help ensure it can continue 

to provide important services in a changing environment.

According to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, changes in the 

climate have been observed in the United States and its coastal waters 

and will adversely affect aspects of the nation’s natural environment. As 

table 1 shows, changes in the climate—including warmer temperatures, 

changes in precipitation patterns, rising sea levels, and more intense 

storms—affect the natural environment in a number of ways including 

more severe drought, increased frequency of large wildfires, insect 

infestations, changed habitats, and possible loss of species that cannot 

survive in the changed conditions.

Background 

Climate Change Impacts 

in the United States
 

Page 7 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Table 1: Current and Projected Impacts of Climate Change in the United States

Category Current and projected impacts

Examples of impacts to natural 

resources

Temperature • U.S. average temperature has risen more than 2 degrees 

Fahrenheit over the past 50 years and is projected to rise 

more in the future—how much more depends primarily on 

the amount of heat-trapping gases emitted globally and how 

sensitive the climate is to those emissions.

• Higher ocean temperatures. 

Drought; increased frequency of 

large wildfires; insect infestations; 

changes to habitat and species 

loss; melting of glaciers.

Stronger storms with higher wind 

speeds and more rainfall; coral 

bleaching.

Precipitation • Precipitation has increased an average of about 5 percent 

over the past 50 years. Projections of future precipitation 

generally indicate that northern areas will become wetter 

and southern areas, particularly in the West, will become 

drier. 

• The amount of rain falling in the heaviest downpours has 

increased approximately 20 percent on average in the past 

century, and this trend is very likely to continue, with the 

largest increases in the wettest places.

• In most regions of the country, the fraction of precipitation 

falling as rain has increased in the last 50 years.

Loss of snow cover; increased 

flooding in some areas; more 

severe drought in some areas.

Extreme weather events and 

storms

• Many types of extreme weather events, such as heat waves 

and regional droughts, have become more frequent and 

intense during the past 40 to 50 years.

• The destructive energy of Atlantic hurricanes has increased 

in recent decades. The intensity of these storms are likely to 

increase in this century, and along with it, associated wind, 

precipitation, and storm surges.

• In the eastern Pacific, the strongest hurricanes have 

become stronger since the 1980s, even while the total 

number of storms has decreased.

• Cold season storm tracks are shifting northward, and the 

strongest storms are likely to become stronger and more 

frequent.

Flooding, erosion, and inundation 

of coastal ecosystems.

Sea levels • Sea level has risen along most of the U.S. coast over the 

last 50 years and will likely rise more in the future.

• The magnitude of sea level rise on the U.S. coast is 

expected to vary by region. Due to land subsidence, in 

some regions, local sea level rise is expected to exceed 

global mean sea-level rise, which is estimated to be .2 to 2 

meters by the end of the century. In other regions, such as 

Alaska and the Pacific Northwest coast, land uplift may 

reduce the local effects of global sea level rise. 

Inundation of some coastal areas; 

erosion; changes to habitats and 

possible species loss due to, 

among other things, saltwater 

intrusion. 
 

Page 8 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Category Current and projected impacts

Examples of impacts to natural 

resources

Ocean acidification • Seawater becomes less alkaline (its pH decreases) when 

the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 

The pH of seawater has decreased significantly since 1750, 

and is projected to drop much more dramatically by the end 

of the century if carbon dioxide concentrations continue to 

increase.

Affects the process of calcification 

by which living things create 

shells and skeletons, with 

substantial negative 

consequences for coral reefs, 

mollusks, and some plankton 

species important to ocean food 

chains. 

Sources: GAO analysis of Information from the U.S. Global Change Research Program and NOAA.

According to a 2009 study by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, 

in areas where weather events become more intense and frequent with 

climate change, economic and social costs will increase.17

Precisely how and to what extent changes in the climate will affect 

particular federal lands and waters in the future is uncertain, but climaterelated changes have already been observed on federally managed lands

and waters. Moreover, some of these changes are expected to continue 

and increase in intensity, according to the U.S. Global Change Research 

Program.

For example, 

insect pests are economically important stressors on forest ecosystems in 

the United States. Coupled with pathogens, they account for $1.5 billion 

in damage every year, according to the study. Changes in climate have 

contributed to major insect pest outbreaks in the United States over the 

past several decades because rising temperatures increase insect 

outbreaks in a number of ways, according to the study. For example, 

longer and warmer seasons allow some insects to develop faster, 

sometimes completing two life cycles instead of one in a single growing 

season, and warmer conditions also help expand the ranges of some 

insects. In addition, recreation and tourism are important to the economy 

and the quality of life for many people. In many communities, according to 

the study, recreation and tourism generate billions of dollars for regional 

economies through activities such as fishing, hunting, skiing, hiking, and 

diving and some of these economic benefits could be reduced or lost as a 

result of the impacts from climate change.

 

17U.S. Global Change Research Program, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United 

States, 2009.
 

Page 9 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

The Forest Service. The Forest Service’s mission is to sustain the health, 

diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet 

the needs of present and future generations. The Forest Service 

manages 193 million acres of national forest and national grasslands. The 

nation’s 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands contain much of 

the nation’s terrestrial biodiversity and provide a range of ecosystem 

services.18 For example, national forests provide important habitat for 

many rare, threatened, and endangered species as well as timber and 

fresh water.19 The agency manages national forests for a variety of uses 

including recreation, timber harvesting, livestock grazing, mining, and 

wilderness protection. Wildfires, invasive species, and extreme weather 

events are among the critical stressors currently affecting national forests, 

and they are all expected to be exacerbated by climate change. 

According to a 2011 report by the Interagency Climate Change 

Adaptation Task Force, these impacts put at risk the many benefits 

Americans receive from forests.20

 

18Ecosystem services are benefits to human society that result from ecosystem 

processes. Examples of ecosystem processes include photosynthesis by plants, 

respiration by a variety of organisms, and decomposition by bacteria. Examples of 

ecosystem services resulting from ecosystem processes are pollination of flowers and 

crops; purification of air, water, and soil; and the management of flows of fresh water. 

See figure 1 for a map of the National 

Forest System.

19According to the Forest Service, nearly one-fifth of the nation’s water originates in the 

national forest system.

20Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, Federal Actions for a Climate 

Resilient Nation: Progress Report of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task 

Force (October 2011). The task force includes representatives from more than 20 federal 

departments and agencies.

Roles of the Five Key 

Federal Natural Resource 

Management Agencies and 

Climate Change Impacts to 

the Natural Resources 

They Manage
 

Page 10 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Figure 1: Map of the National Forest System

NOAA. NOAA’s mission includes understanding and predicting changes 

in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts and conserving and managing 

coastal and marine ecosystems and resources. Among its many diverse 

responsibilities, NOAA administers the 13 national marine sanctuaries 

and 1 marine national monument that make up the marine sanctuary 

system, according to a senior NOAA official. The system encompasses 

more than 165,000 square miles of coastal, ocean, and Great Lakes 

waters. Sanctuaries are managed to protect and conserve their resources 
 

Page 11 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

and to allow uses that are compatible with resource protection. For 

example, coral reefs are an important natural resource found in some 

sanctuaries, and they are susceptible to the effects of climate change,21

including increased temperatures that cause bleaching,22 and ocean 

acidification23

Figure 2: Map of the National Marine Sanctuary System

that inhibit the production of coral skeletons. See figure 2 

for a map of the national marine sanctuary system.

 

21Coral reefs cover less that 1 percent of the ocean floor but support an estimated 25 

percent of all known marine species. Scientists estimate that more than 1 million species 

of plants and animals are associated with coral reef ecosystems. 

22Changes in water temperatures—warming and cooling—can stress coral polyps, 

causing them to lose algae, which give coral their color. This results in the coral turning 

completely white or bleached. The algae also provide coral polyps the nutrition they need 

to survive. Bleached corals are under greater stress and are less resistant to other threats, 

such as disease. Corals can recover from bleaching events, but if they do not regain algae 

within a relatively short time frame, they do not survive.

23The ocean absorbs approximately one-third of the atmosphere’s excess carbon dioxide, 

resulting in a more acidic ocean. For a coral reef to grow, it must produce calcium 

carbonate at a rate faster than the reef is being eroded. Ocean acidification slows the rate 

at which coral reefs generate calcium carbonate, thereby slowing the growth of coral 

skeletons.
 

Page 12 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is 

responsible for managing lands under its jurisdiction primarily to conserve 

and protect fish and wildlife and their habitats, although other uses such 

as hunting and fishing are allowed when they are compatible with the 

primary purposes for which the lands are managed. The service manages 

561 national wildlife refuges and 209 waterfowl production areas on about 

150 million acres of land throughout the nation.24 The national wildlife 

refuge system is a network of lands and waters across the country 

designated for the conservation; management; and, where appropriate, 

restoration of fish, wildlife, and plant resources and their habitats. Wildlife 

refuges are home to, among other things, more than 700 species of birds,

220 species of mammals, and more than 200 species of fish. According 

to the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, one of the climate changerelated issues of concern at refuges is that species may become 

separated from the resources they need to survive.25

 

24Waterfowl production areas are lands comprising small natural wetlands and grasslands 

that provide breeding, resting, and nesting habitat for millions of waterfowl, shorebirds, 

grassland birds, and other wildlife. These areas are administered by administrative units 

known as wetland management districts.

For example, 

projected sea level rise may significantly alter habitat at coastal refuges 

for certain protected plant and animal species. If these species do not 

have the ability to relocate, they may be unable to survive. See figure 3 

for a map of the national wildlife refuges.

25U.S. Climate Change Science Program, Preliminary Review of Adaptation Options for 

Climate-Sensitive Ecosystems and Resources (June 2008). 
 

Page 13 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Figure 3: Map of National Wildlife Refuges

National Park Service. The National Park Service’s mission is to preserve 

unimpaired the natural and cultural resources of the national park units for 

the enjoyment of current and future generations.26

 

26National park units consist of, among others, national battlefields, historical sites, 

monuments, parks, reserves, and seashores. 

The park service 

manages 401 national park units covering more than 84 million acres 
 

Page 14 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

throughout the United States and its territories. See figure 4 for a map of 

the 59 national parks. The national park system contains representative 

landscapes from all of the nation’s ecosystems, and national parks can be 

found across a broad range of average temperatures (from tropical heat 

to arctic cold) and elevations (from the mountain tops to sea level). 

Climate change is expected to significantly alter the natural resources in 

national parks. For example, one computer-based model predicts that 

some of the park’s largest glaciers in Glacier National Park will melt by 

2030, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
 

Page 15 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Figure 4: Map of the National Parks
 

Page 16 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Bureau of Land Management. The Bureau of Land Management 

manages federal land for multiple uses, including recreation; range; 

timber; minerals; watershed; wildlife and fish; natural scenic, scientific, 

and historical values, as well as for the sustained yield of renewable 

resources.27 The bureau manages about 245 million acres of surface 

lands located primarily in 12 western states. The agency manages and 

issues permits for activities such as energy development, recreation, 

livestock grazing, timber harvesting, and mining. The bureau generally 

has a three-tiered organizational structure in the states where it manages 

land, beginning with the state office that oversees district offices, which 

coordinate between the state and field offices. Field offices are 

responsible for managing designated areas of land, which are known as 

resource areas. The field offices manage lands that are environmentally 

significant to the nation. For example, the Kingman Field Office in Arizona 

manages lands that include 9 wilderness areas,28 12 areas of critical 

environmental concern,29 and 5 river segments under consideration for 

wild and scenic river designations.30

 

27The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 defines the term “multiple use” to 

mean, among other things, the management of the public lands and their various resource 

values so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the present and 

future needs of the American people. The act also defines the term “sustained yield” as 

the achievement and maintenance in perpetuity of a high-level of annual or regular 

periodic output of the various renewable resources of the public lands consistent with 

multiple use.

Wildfires, invasive species, and 

droughts are among the stressors currently affecting land managed by 

the bureau and may be exacerbated by climate change, which may affect 

28Wilderness areas are undeveloped federal lands retaining their primeval character and 

influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which are protected and 

managed so as to preserve their natural conditions and which generally appear to have 

been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially 

unnoticeable; have outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined 

type of recreation; are at least 5,000 acres or large enough to make practicable their 

preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and may also contain ecological, 

geological, or other features of scientific, scenic, or historical value.

29When the Bureau of Land Management determines that certain public land areas 

require special management attention to protect and prevent irreparable damage to 

important historic, cultural, or scenic values, fish and wildlife resources, or other natural 

systems or processes, it may designate, after public comment, such lands as areas of 

critical environmental concern.

30The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act created the National Wild and Scenic River System in 

1968 to preserve certain rivers with outstandingly remarkable scenic, cultural, recreational, 

and other similar values in a free-flowing condition and to protect their immediate 

environments for the enjoyment of present and future generations.
 

Page 17 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

the land’s capacity to be managed for multiple uses. For example, 

according to a senior bureau official, if droughts persist and increase, the 

bureau may have to consider limiting livestock grazing on certain land 

parcels to protect drought-stressed plant and animal species. See figure 5 

for a map of the lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
 

Page 18 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Figure 5: Map of Lands Managed by the Bureau of Land Management

Note: The Bureau of Land Management’s Eastern States Office manages 30,000 acres of surface 

land (not shown on this map) and 40 million acres of land with subsurface minerals scattered 

throughout 31 states.
 

Page 19 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

The laws governing resource management for the five key agencies 

generally do not require them to take specific actions but rather give them 

discretion to decide how best to carry out their responsibilities in light of 

their respective statutory missions, as well as the need to comply with or 

implement specific substantive and procedural laws, such as the 

Endangered Species Act,31 or the National Environmental Policy Act.32

The agencies are generally authorized to plan and manage for changes in 

resource conditions regardless of the cause that brings about the change. 

Therefore, although not specifically required to, the five key federal

resource management agencies are generally authorized to address 

climate change adaptation in their planning and management.

According to a 2010 National Research Council report, climate change is 

altering assumptions that have been central to natural resource 

management and planning in the past.33

 

31The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. §§ 1531-1544) protects plant and 

animal species that are either facing extinction (endangered species) or are likely to face 

extinction in the foreseeable future (threatened species) and protects the ecosystems 

upon which they depend. The act includes provisions for listing species that need 

protection, designating habitat deemed critical to a listed species’ survival, developing 

recovery plans for the conservation and survival of listed species, and protecting listed 

species against certain harms caused by federal and nonfederal actions. The act is 

administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries 

Service. 

Traditionally, natural resource 

management has assumed that past climate conditions would continue—

with similar patterns of variation and the same probabilities of extreme 

events. However, according to the report, that assumption is no longer 

valid. Due to the level of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, 

even if significant efforts to reduce emissions of these gases are 

undertaken, climate change is expected to continue. Furthermore, natural 

resource management has historically been based on the idea of 

maintaining current environmental conditions or restoring species and 

habitats to some desired former condition. As the climate continues to 

32Under the National Environmental Policy Act (42 U.S.C. §§ 4321-4347) federal agencies 

must assess the effects of major federal actions—those they propose to carry out or to 

permit—that significantly affect the environment. The act has two principal purposes: (1) to 

ensure that an agency carefully considers detailed information concerning significant 

environmental impacts and (2) to ensure that this information will be made available to the 

public.

33National Research Council, Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change, (Washington, 

D.C.: 2010).

Addressing Climate 

Change Adaptation in 

Natural Resource 

Management and Planning
 

Page 20 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

change, this approach to resource management will become increasingly 

more difficult if not impossible to maintain, according to recent studies 

highlighted in a July 2011 National Wildlife Federation report.34 For 

example, national wildlife refuges were established as specific locations 

that could provide safe havens for species, but as climate change alters 

these environments, managers may not be able to maintain them in their 

current condition and, as a result, they may no longer provide the habitats 

necessary to help conserve and protect vulnerable species. According to 

a 2012 report,35 protected areas like national parks, forests, or wildlife 

refuges, may not be sufficient to conserve a diverse array of biological 

resources in a changing climate, which will likely require a greater 

emphasis on landscape-scale conservation and connectivity among 

protected habitats.36 As we reported in October 2009, efforts to build 

large, connected landscapes will become more important as species 

attempt to migrate or otherwise adapt to climate change.37

The options for managing natural resources can be thought of as a 

continuum moving from promoting resistance to encouraging resilience to 

facilitating transformation, according to the National Fish, Wildlife and 

Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy report.38

 

34National Wildlife Federation, Moving the Conservation Goalposts: A Review of Climate 

Change Adaptation Literature (Washington, D.C.: June 2011).

A natural resource system, 

such as a forest, can be managed to promote its ability to withstand 

disturbances, such as pest outbreaks, without losing any of its current 

functions. According to the report, this first approach focuses on 

35Michelle D. Staudinger, Nancy B. Grimm, Amanda Staudt, Shawn L. Carter, F. Stuart 

Chapin III, Peter Kareiva, Mary Ruckelshaus, Bruce A. Stein. Impacts of Climate Change 

on Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and Ecosystem Services: Technical Input to the 2013 

National Climate Assessment, 2012.

36Landscape level (and landscape scale) typically means a regional system of 

interconnected properties that is larger than the boundaries of any single land 

management jurisdiction, such as a national park. Managing natural resources at the 

landscape level involves defining the scope of the landscape to be managed, identifying 

specific conservation objectives, and collaborating with stakeholders to achieve them.

37GAO-10-113. 

38National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Partnership. National Fish, Wildlife 

and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy: Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, 

Council on Environmental Quality, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Great Lakes Indian Fish 

and Wildlife Commission, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 

(Washington, D.C.: 2012).
 

Page 21 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

managing for resistance. If that is not possible, a second approach could 

be to manage a forest to promote resilience, which, according to the 

report, means the ability to recover from disturbances and maintain 

current functions to the extent possible. For example, forest thinning, 

while not preventing forest fires, can make forests more resilient so that 

when fires do occur they are not as severe, and the forest can recover 

more quickly. A third approach, however, attempts to facilitate a transition 

of the natural environment by planning for anticipated changes and taking 

management actions to help guide them. For example, according to the 

Forest Service, managers could broaden the genetic variety of the trees 

and other plants used for restoration to help ensure they are better suited 

to projected future climatic conditions. However, the extent to which 

natural resource managers can use any of the approaches along the 

continuum is determined by, among other things, their agency’s mission, 

laws, and regulations.

Several recent reports have highlighted the importance of establishing 

climate change adaptation planning throughout federal agencies and 

have identified similar frameworks for conducting such planning.39 For 

example, in October 2010, the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation 

Task Force, co-chaired by the Council on Environmental Quality, NOAA, 

and the Office of Science and Technology Policy,40 concluded that 

climate change will challenge the operations and programs of nearly 

every federal agency and that implementing adaptation planning would 

help ensure that the federal government has the capacity to execute its 

missions and maintain important services in the face of climate change.41

 

39The White House Council on Environmental Quality, Progress Report of the Interagency 

Climate Change Adaptation Task Force: Recommended Actions in Support of a National 

Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, 2010. Michelle D. Staudinger, Nancy B. Grimm, 

Amanda Staudt, Shawn L. Carter, F. Stuart Chapin III, Peter Kareiva, Mary Ruckelshaus, 

Bruce A. Stein. Impacts of Climate Change on Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and Ecosystem 

Services: Technical Input to the 2013 National Climate Assessment, 2012. National 

Research Council, Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change, (Washington, D.C.: 2010). 

Glick, P., B.A. Stein, and N. A. Edelson, eds. Scanning the Conservation Horizon: A Guide 

to Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment (Washington, D.C.: National Wildlife 

Federation, 2011).

40The Office of Science and Technology Policy was established by statute in 1976 to 

serve as a source of scientific and technology analysis judgment. 

41The White House Council on Environmental Quality, Progress Report of the Interagency 

Climate Change Adaptation Task Force: Recommended Actions in Support of a National 

Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, 2010.
 

Page 22 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

The report recommended, among other things, encouraging and 

mainstreaming climate change adaptation planning across the federal 

government. The report also recommended that federal agencies should 

use a flexible planning framework for conducting agency adaptation 

planning that is both consistent across agencies and tailored to the 

specific planning needs of each agency.

Although different reports use different terminology, the climate change 

adaptation planning frameworks they outline generally consist of four key 

elements that are reviewed and revised as needed as new information 

emerges. These four elements are:

• Identify conservation targets and success measures. As part of this 

element, an agency sets a mandate for action on climate change 

adaptation; articulates clear goals and objectives related to the 

resources it manages; and identifies ways to measure whether it has 

been successful in meeting its goals.

• Assess and understand the risks, vulnerabilities, and opportunities 

posed by climate change. As part of this element, agencies seek to 

understand (1) what aspects of the climate are changing and over 

what periods; (2) which resources will be most at risk; (3) why these 

resources are likely to be vulnerable, including how climate changes 

are interacting with existing stressors, such as drought; and (4) what 

uncertainties are associated with the predicted climate change 

impacts and how this may impact adaptation efforts.

• Develop and prioritize management adaptation actions. As part of this 

element, agencies determine how they should respond to the risks 

they have identified by considering a wide array of possible adaptation 

measures. Agencies then determine the highest priority adaptation 

measures, based at least in part on technical, financial, or legal 

considerations.

• Implement management options, evaluate the results, and use the 

lessons learned from the process to improve future adaptation. As 

part of this element, an agency implements its adaptation actions and 

then monitors and evaluates its results to determine the actions’ 

effectiveness and makes adjustments as necessary. Because the 

climate is expected to continue to change, adaptation actions will 

need to be regularly monitored to determine if they continue to be 

effective. Agency adaptation plans must also be able to incorporate 

new information about risks, lessons learned from implementation, 

and modified priorities to retain their effectiveness.
 

Page 23 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

The Forest Service, NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the 

National Park Service have all developed a strategic direction for 

addressing climate change adaptation through a variety of planning 

documents. The agencies have also developed guidance, training, and 

other tools for managers to use in adapting to climate change. The one 

field location we visited for each agency has taken various steps to 

address climate change adaptation, such as conducting vulnerability 

assessments. The Bureau of Land Management has not developed a 

strategic direction for addressing climate change impacts, but it has taken 

some adaptation-related steps. Managers at the bureau field location we 

visited, absent direction from headquarters, have not taken steps to 

address climate change adaptation.

In October 2008, the Forest Service developed a strategic framework for 

responding to climate change.42

 

42Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Service Strategic Framework for 

Responding to Climate Change (Washington, D.C.: 2008).

According to the framework, addressing 

climate change adaptation must be a central priority for the agency 

because many ecosystem services provided by national forests—which 

include water for drinking and agriculture, as well as lumber and fiber for 

paper—may be lost or significantly altered if national forest ecosystems 

are left to adapt on their own. The framework also stated that 

management strategies based on historical or current conditions will need 

to be adjusted or replaced with approaches that support adaptation to 

changing conditions brought about by climate change. According to the 

framework, Forest Service natural resource managers will use current 

science to better understand and predict the impacts of climate change 

on natural resources, including plant and animal species. The agency will 

also use an iterative approach, according to the framework, meaning that 

natural resource managers are to modify their management actions, if 

needed, as new scientific information emerges. They also are to 

collaborate with partners—including private landowners and tribal 

entities—to share technical expertise and coordinate management 

actions across land ownership boundaries to more effectively address 

adaptation.

Four of the Five 

Agencies Have 

Developed Climate 

Change Adaptation 

Strategies and Four of 

the Five Sites We 

Visited Have Taken 

Steps to Address 

Adaptation 

The Forest Service Has Set 

a Strategic Direction, 

Established a Performance 

Goal, and Provided Tools 

for National Forests to 

Address Climate Change 

Adaptation 
 

Page 24 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

In February 2011, the Forest Service published a document, known as 

“the roadmap,” which identified actions that natural resource managers in 

national forests were already taking or could take to implement the 

strategic direction outlined in the agency’s strategic framework.43

The Forest Service has also established a performance goal for national 

forests. In 2011, the Forest Service informed national forest managers 

that by 2015 they are expected to address at least one of the following 

three areas related to climate change adaptation: (1) assessing the 

vulnerability of key resources—such as the availability of clean and 

abundant drinking water from national forest watersheds—to the impacts 

of climate change, (2) reducing the vulnerability of key resources to 

climate change, and (3) monitoring and evaluating climate change 

impacts and the effectiveness of adaptation activities. To help track 

progress in achieving the goal, the Forest Service also directed each 

national forest to report annually on its status, plans, and actions for 

assessing vulnerabilities, reducing vulnerabilities, and monitoring and 

evaluating effectiveness. The agency also published guidance in 2011 to 

assist the national forests in preparing their annual reports, which are 

referred to as climate change performance scorecard reports. For 

example, regarding monitoring, the guidance provided examples of 

current national monitoring programs that could be used to track climate 

change impacts, as well as instructions on where to find additional 

information about such programs.

According to the roadmap, ongoing actions that agency natural resource 

managers were already taking include collaborating with scientists to 

assess the vulnerability of key species to climate change and revegetating ecosystems that had been affected by fire or other major 

disturbances with plant species that are better adapted to current and 

future climates. Actions that natural resource managers could begin 

taking in the short term, according to the roadmap, include collaborating 

with partners to develop strategies for creating and protecting connected 

habitat by, for example, establishing corridors across private lands to 

allow species affected by climate change to migrate to landscapes to 

which they are better adapted. Longer-term actions include developing 

comprehensive strategies for maintaining and restoring the connectivity of 

habitats.

 

43Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, National Roadmap for Responding to Climate 

Change (Washington, D.C.: 2011).
 

Page 25 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

In addition, the agency has taken other steps to help national forests 

address adaptation. Specifically, in April 2012, the Forest Service 

finalized a new planning rule that includes climate change adaptation 

requirements.44

The Forest Service has also begun developing decision support tools to 

help its natural resource managers address climate change adaptation. 

For example, in 2012, the Forest Service issued the Climate Project 

Screening Tool, which was developed by agency scientists to help natural 

resource managers determine how, if at all, climate change 

considerations could impact decisions to proceed with, modify, or cancel 

proposed projects. The tool includes, for a variety of project types, 

examples of key questions natural resource managers might consider to 

address climate change adaptation. For example, on a proposed project 

to restore an aquatic species, managers might consider whether the 

species is likely to survive in the landscape if the waters continue to grow 

warmer as a result of climate change. The tool provides a template that 

natural resource managers can use to record climate change 

considerations in their decision-making process. Specifically, the template 

allows managers to document information about the proposed project, 

climate change trends and local impacts, their responses to key 

Also, in February 2013, the agency issued draft guidance 

outlining specific steps that forests can take to implement these 

requirements. Each national forest is governed by a land management 

plan—referred to as a forest plan—which must be revised at least every 

15 years to guide its long-term natural resource management actions. 

The planning rule is intended to ensure, among other things, that forest 

plans will be responsive and can adapt to issues such as the challenges 

of climate change. The rule also requires that each national forest have a 

monitoring program that addresses climate change impacts. To help the 

forests translate the monitoring requirement into action, the draft agency 

guidance we reviewed stated, for example, that in developing their 

monitoring programs, the forests could consider monitoring types of 

vegetation that are likely to be among the first affected by climate change. 

According to the draft guidance, doing so could help natural resource 

managers in the forests to identify opportunities to assist those natural 

resources in adapting to climate change. Agency officials told us they 

plan to finalize the guidance by the end of 2013.

 

4477 Fed. Reg. 21162 (Apr. 9, 2012).
 

Page 26 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

questions, and their decisions about whether or how to proceed with the 

project.

The Forest Service is also providing information and training to help 

natural resource managers address climate change adaptation. For 

example, the agency continues to update its Climate Change Resource 

Center—a publicly accessible web portal it developed as a reference for 

natural resource managers and decision makers who need information 

and decision support tools to address climate change adaptation in the 

national forests, among other purposes.45 The website includes peerreviewed resources such as lectures on addressing climate change 

adaptation in natural resource management. In one of these lectures, for 

example, a Forest Service scientist discusses how agency scientists 

partnered with natural resource managers at the Olympic National Forest 

and Tahoe National Forest to address climate change adaptation at those 

forests, and what managers in other forests might learn from this effort.

In 2011, Forest Service officials at the Chugach National Forest began 

conducting a vulnerability assessment to determine how key natural 

resources, communities, and economies in and around the national forest 

may be affected by climate change. The officials we spoke with at the 

forest said that the vulnerability assessment will help them determine 

which resources may have a natural capacity to adapt successfully to 

climate change and which resources may not. This is a change from 

August 2007, when we reported that, while officials at the Chugach 

National Forest recognized that climate change was harming some 

natural resources in the forest, they had not taken steps to incorporate 

climate change adaptation into planning and management in part 

because it was not an agency priority.46

 

45The Climate Change Resource Center can be found online at 

Officials at the Chugach National 

Forest attributed the change to a number of factors, including the 

strategic direction provided by the Forest Service to address climate 

change adaptation. Figure 6 shows a map of the Chugach National 

Forest.

http://www.fs.fed.us/ccrc. 

46GAO-07-863. 

The Chugach National 

Forest Has Begun to 

Conduct a Climate Change 

Vulnerability Assessment
 

Page 27 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Figure 6: Map of Chugach National Forest

As of March 2013, the forest had established teams of subject area 

experts who were working on the vulnerability assessment. These experts 

included ecologists, physical scientists, and social scientists from the 

Forest Service’s Research and Development branch, the U.S. Geological 

Survey, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and 

the University of Alaska. Chugach National Forest officials told us that the 

vulnerability assessment will include information on the expected 

ecological impacts of climate change on key natural resources, such as 

snow and salmon, as well as information on the expected social and 

economic impacts of these ecological changes. For example, some 

climate projections suggest that the forest will have more rain and less 

snow, and that, in some areas, changes in climate could result in salmon 

that are smaller and face more threats to their survival, according to 

Forest Service researchers. These projected climate change impacts may 

affect various users, including residents in the region who rely on snowbased tourism and salmon for their livelihoods and Alaska Native 

residents in the region who rely on forest resources for subsistence 

hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering. Officials at the national forest 
 

Page 28 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

told us they plan to complete a draft vulnerability assessment by the 

summer of 2013.

Moreover, officials at the national forest told us that conducting a climate 

change vulnerability assessment is important because it will help the 

forest to successfully incorporate climate change adaptation when it 

revises its forest plan. They told us that that the current forest plan—

which was finalized in 2002—does not address climate change 

adaptation. The national forest has established a team that will be 

responsible for beginning to revise the forest plan in 2013. The Forest 

Service’s April 2012 planning rule requires that national forests use the 

best available scientific information, such as information about the 

impacts of climate change and the ability of species and habitat in the 

forest to adapt, to inform the forest planning process. Chugach National 

Forest officials said that the vulnerability assessment will help the national 

forest to implement these requirements. Revising the forest plan will 

include collaboration with tribes and other stakeholders, as well as 

outreach to the public, according to officials we spoke with. National 

forest officials expect to finalize the revised forest plan by 2016.

Officials we spoke with at the Chugach National Forest said they also 

plan to use information included in the climate change vulnerability 

assessment to identify specific steps that the forest can take to address 

climate change adaptation. These officials said that the results of the 

climate change vulnerability assessment could inform management 

decisions related to recreation in the forest, among other things. For 

example, they told us that the climate change vulnerability assessment 

could help them identify changes in forest conditions due to climate 

change, resulting in expansion of the distribution of important wildlife, 

such as the Sitka black-tailed deer. This could lead to new hunting and 

viewing opportunities for national forest users, according to forest 

officials.

A Chugach National Forest official identified a challenge to addressing 

climate change adaptation at the forest. The official said that the forest 

and its stakeholders in the region, including other resource management 

agencies and university researchers, will likely face challenges in 

collaborating on climate change adaptation. The official said this is due to 

limited resources, competing priorities, and a lack of formal mechanisms 

to ensure that forest officials and stakeholders communicate key 

information about climate change impacts and adaptation efforts.
 

Page 29 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

In January 2012, NOAA published a strategic plan that includes, among 

other things, a long-term goal of responding to climate change and its 

impacts.47

In an effort to coordinate climate change adaptation activities across the 

agency and with its federal and nonfederal partners, NOAA established a 

climate adaptation team in January 2011. A senior NOAA official said the 

adaptation team is developing and coordinating a variety of initiatives that 

will help the agency address the impacts of climate change. For example, 

the adaptation team is developing a comprehensive inventory of NOAA’s 

existing and emerging climate change adaptation activities, which is to 

help the agency coordinate, communicate, and promote adaptation 

activities across the agency. In addition, the adaptation team has 

proposed actions that NOAA can take to strengthen interagency 

relationships with the Department of the Interior’s landscape conservation 

cooperatives.

The strategic plan includes four objectives to help achieve this 

goal: (1) improve scientific understanding of climate change and its 

impacts, (2) conduct assessments that identify potential climate change 

impacts and inform climate science decisions, (3) support adaptation 

efforts through a coordinated source of reliable and timely climate 

information, and (4) provide sources of information to educate the public 

about climate change. According to the strategic plan, understanding and 

predicting climate change is urgent, particularly at the regional and local

levels. Therefore, scientists’ ability to better understand and predict 

climate change trends and impacts will be critical to climate change 

adaptation planning and decision making. In addition, according to the 

strategic plan, assessments are needed to help identify gaps in climate 

science research and inform research priorities, a coordinated source of 

climate information is needed to provide decision makers with climate 

science information that is readily available and easy to use, and 

education is needed to help inform the public about climate change 

vulnerabilities and challenges.

48

 

47Department of Commerce, NOAA, Chart of the Future, NOAA’s Next Generation 

Strategic Plan (Silver Spring, MD: 2012).

For example, one of the proposed actions is for NOAA to 

provide clear guidance to all levels within the agency to seek 

48Interior has developed a network of collaborative landscape conservation cooperatives, 

comprising public and private agencies, working to provide the science and technical 

expertise needed to support conservation planning at landscape scales and to promote

collaboration among their members in defining shared conservation goals.

NOAA Has Set a Strategic 

Direction and Provided 

Guidance and Tools for 

Marine Sanctuaries to 

Address Climate Change 

Adaptation 
 

Page 30 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

opportunities to collaborate with landscape conservation cooperatives 

wherever applicable. 

NOAA has also developed a framework for ensuring that climate change 

adaptation is considered at national marine sanctuaries. In March 2009, 

NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, which guides the activities 

of the nation’s marine sanctuary system, published its policy on 

addressing climate change impacts on sanctuaries’ resources. According 

to the policy, the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries will work with 

NOAA’s Climate Program Office, among others, to assess climate change 

impacts on sanctuaries’ resources and develop options for addressing 

these impacts.49 The policy also stated that the Office of National Marine 

Sanctuaries was developing a long-term initiative that would address 

climate change impacts on individual sanctuaries. Subsequently, the 

office developed the Climate Smart Sanctuary Initiative in June 2010 to 

help address climate change impacts throughout the national marine 

sanctuary system.50

The goal of the Climate Smart Sanctuary Initiative is to have each 

national marine sanctuary meet specific standards that will allow it to 

receive climate smart certification. Examples of standards that 

sanctuaries must meet to receive climate smart certification include (1) 

preparing or updating a sanctuary condition report on resources so it is 

less than 5 years old,51

 

49Established in 2005, NOAA’s Climate Program Office provides guidance and oversight 

for the agency’s climate science and services program, and manages competitive 

research programs. NOAA funds, among other things, high-priority climate science, 

assessments, decision support research, outreach, education, and capacity building 

activities designed to advance an understanding of Earth’s climate system, and to foster 

the application of this knowledge in risk management and adaptation efforts. 

(2) developing a report that identifies climate 

change impacts over the next 50 to 100 years that are most 

consequential to a sanctuary’s resources, (3) undergoing training on how 

to plan and manage for climate change impacts, and (4) developing and 

implementing a climate change action plan that addresses the impacts 

identified in the climate change impacts report. According to the Climate 

50Department of Commerce, NOAA, NOAA’s Climate Smart Sanctuaries: Helping the 

National Marine Sanctuary System Address Climate Change (Silver Spring, MD: 2010).

51A condition report provides a summary of a sanctuary’s resources, pressures on those 

resources, current conditions and trends, and management responses to the pressures 

that threaten the integrity of the marine environment. 
 

Page 31 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Smart Sanctuary Initiative, the action plan is to include strategies that, for 

example, consider addressing the most urgent issues first and are clear, 

simple, and explicit. However, the plan is not intended to address every 

climate impact—only those identified as priorities. Moreover, the 

strategies identified in the plan are supposed to be practically attainable 

within the resources currently or potentially available to the sanctuary. 

The initiative also includes a peer and public review and evaluation 

process that is designed to help determine whether the sanctuary has 

met the certification standards.

The Climate Smart Sanctuary Initiative is currently being piloted at the 

Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in California, the 

National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa, and the Olympic Coast 

National Marine Sanctuary in Washington. According to a senior Office of 

National Marine Sanctuaries official, although the sanctuaries are not 

required to participate in the initiative, it is anticipated that all of them will 

work toward developing climate change action plans that eventually will 

be incorporated into their management plans.52

Furthermore, coral reefs are one of the most important natural resources 

in national marine sanctuaries, and NOAA has taken steps to provide 

guidance to sanctuary managers and others about how to help protect 

them from threats related to climate change. In June 2009, NOAA’s Coral 

Reef Conservation Program published guidance that identified four goals 

to help coral reef managers overcome climate change threats to coral 

reef ecosystems.

However, the official said 

the rate of climate change action plan development will depend on factors 

such as budget, individual sanctuary priorities, and timelines for the 

management plan review and update process.

53

 

52A sanctuary management plan details the goals and objectives, management 

responsibilities, research activities, interpretive and educational programs, and 

enforcement, including surveillance activities, for the sanctuary.

For example, one of the goals focuses on increasing 

coral reef resilience to climate change through effective management 

strategies such as reducing land-based sources of pollution and other 

stressors. The guidance also identifies objectives to help coral reef 

managers achieve each of the goals, such as providing training 

opportunities to increase their understanding of the management 

53Department of Commerce, NOAA, NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program Goals and 

Objectives 2010-2015 (Silver Spring, MD: 2009).
 

Page 32 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

strategies available to address climate change impacts. A Coral Reef 

Conservation Program official said that they are currently in the process 

of drafting a climate change implementation plan that will help guide coral 

reef managers’ efforts to address the goals and objectives outlined in the 

guidance document. According to the official, the plan is expected to be 

released in the spring of 2013.

In addition, NOAA has made climate information and products available 

to decision makers through its climate web portal for use in managing 

climate change impacts.54

coral 

bleaching

For example, users can access decision 

support tools such as NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch Program. The program 

has a suite of map-based products from NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation 

Program that provide information on the environmental conditions of coral 

reef ecosystems. For example, satellite data provides current reef 

environmental conditions to quickly identify areas at risk for 

. Sanctuary managers can also access coral bleaching alerts 

that can be used to trigger bleaching response plans and support 

appropriate management decisions.

The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is currently in the process of 

reviewing its management plan to determine whether its existing 

management strategies are sufficient to address threats, such as climate 

change, to marine resources.55 This is a change from August 2007 when 

we reported that resource managers at the Florida Keys National Marine 

Sanctuary said that they did not have guidance for how or whether they 

should account for climate change in planning and management 

decisions.56

 

54NOAA’s climate web portal was established in February 2010 and provides access to 

the agency’s and its partners’ diverse portfolios of climate data and information. 

A senior sanctuary official attributed the change to a number 

of factors, including the desire to address climate change impacts in 

accordance with the Climate Smart Sanctuary Initiative. Figure 7 shows 

the boundaries of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

http://www.climate.gov/about.html. 

55Department of Commerce, NOAA, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Revised 

Management Plan (Silver Spring, MD: 2007). 

56GAO-07-863. 

The Florida Keys National 

Marine Sanctuary Is 

Beginning to Consider 

How to Address 

Adaptation and Has Also 

Taken Steps to Increase 

Coral Reef Resilience
 

Page 33 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Figure 7: Map of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Boundaries

According to a senior sanctuary official, the sanctuary is currently 

reviewing 2 of the 14 action plans—regulatory and marine zoning—that 

make up its management plan.57

 

57The action plans that make up the management plan cover a variety of other topics as 

well, such as science management; research and monitoring; education and outreach; 

enforcement; and damage assessment and restoration.

The regulatory action plan contains 

strategies for regulating certain activities within the sanctuary—through 

permitting, certification, and notification and review processes—

depending on how specific areas of the sanctuary have been categorized 

or zoned. Marine zoning is designed to protect and preserve sensitive 

parts of the ecosystem, such as coral reefs, while allowing activities that 

are compatible with resource protection. The marine zoning action plan 

for the sanctuary includes five types of zones with varying levels of 

protection. During this review of action plans, the sanctuary and its 

advisory council—with input from the public—will evaluate whether 

existing regulations and marine zones are sufficient to address threats, 
 

Page 34 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

such as climate change, to marine resources.58 Depending on the 

outcome of the review, the marine zoning action plan could be revised to 

include access restrictions to sanctuary waters in some zones as a way to 

protect bleached corals when they are most vulnerable, according to a 

senior Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary official.59

To help establish a strategy to respond to the expected impacts of climate 

change on coral reefs, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary 

contributed to the development of a climate change action plan for the 

Florida reef system.

For example, the 

revised plans could restrict the amount of fishing allowed; limit snorkeling 

and diving; and prevent boats from dropping anchor. The plan revision 

process requires a significant amount of time to develop and review 

scientific data, collaborate with stakeholders, develop alternatives, and 

obtain internal and external comments on any new proposals, according 

to a senior sanctuary official. The regulatory and marine zoning review 

process began in December 2011, and officials anticipate that the 

process will continue into 2015.

60 According to a senior sanctuary official, the action 

plan is the culmination of several years of collaborative effort among coral 

reef scientists, managers, and others to ensure actions are taken to build 

coral reef resilience—the ability of the coral reef system to recover from 

climate change impacts. Furthermore, the action plan was developed to 

add Florida-specific actions to the framework outlined in NOAA’s Coral 

Reef Conservation Program Goals and Objectives 2010-2015 guidance 

document.61

 

58Sanctuary advisory councils are community-based advisory groups established to 

provide advice and recommendations about sanctuary operations and projects, including 

education and outreach, research and science, regulations and enforcement, and 

management planning. They are particularly critical in helping a sanctuary during its 

The plan contains specific recommendations on coral reef 

management plan review process, according to sanctuary documents. The Florida Keys 

National Marine Sanctuary advisory council includes representatives from federal, state, 

and local governmental agencies located in the Florida Keys. 

59Extreme water temperatures—hot and cold—can stress coral polyps, causing them to 

lose algae, which give coral their color. This results in the coral turning completely white or 

bleached. The algae also provide coral polyps the nutrition they need to survive. While a 

bleached coral is not dead, and corals can survive bleaching events, they are under 

greater stress and are less resistant to other threats, such as disease.

60Climate Change Action Plan for the Florida Reef System 2010-2015. Florida Reef 

Resilience Program (2010).

61Department of Commerce, NOAA, Coral Reef Conservation Program Goals and 

Objectives 2010-2015 (Silver Spring, MD: 2009). 
 

Page 35 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

climate change adaptation actions for the Florida reef system and 

identifies management actions that can be taken to increase reef 

resilience to climate. For example, the plan recommends Florida’s coral 

reef management jurisdictions work to improve regulations and 

management that facilitate adaptation to climate change and ocean 

acidification. Figure 8 shows Florida’s reef management jurisdictions. 

Another key action in the plan is to identify the potential effects of climate 

change on reef-dependent industries such as commercial and 

recreational fishing to determine the costs and benefits of any proposed 

climate change adaptation measures. According to a senior sanctuary 

official, the sanctuary has not implemented any of the adaptation action 

items listed in the plan, and its ability to do so will depend on having 

adequate funding.
 

Page 36 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Figure 8: Map of Florida’s Reef Management Jurisdictions

According to a senior Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary official, the 

sanctuary has not conducted vulnerability assessments of the natural 

resources it is responsible for managing as of February 2013. However, a 

senior official with the Department of the Interior’s Peninsular Landscape 

Conservation Cooperative in Florida said that the four landscape 

conservation cooperatives that represent the Gulf Coast states are 

among several agencies—including NOAA—that are implementing a Gulf 

Coast-wide vulnerability assessment project. The goal of the project is to 

enhance conservation and restoration planning by providing an 

understanding of the effects of climate change on Gulf Coast ecosystems. 

Furthermore, steps will be taken to develop Gulf Coast climate change 
 

Page 37 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

adaptation strategies after the vulnerability assessment is completed. 

According to the senior landscape conservation cooperative official, this 

type of coordinated effort is an attempt by the Department of the Interior 

and NOAA to better integrate their programs and to more effectively use 

agency resources.

The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is currently in the process of 

taking a variety of management actions to help protect marine resources, 

such as coral reefs, from the stresses associated with climate change. 

For example:

• Monitoring reefs for bleaching. The sanctuary provides funds for and 

helps to coordinate a program known as BleachWatch through Mote 

Marine Laboratory.62

• Monitoring overall reef ecology and health. Since 1996, the sanctuary 

has collaborated in establishing a coral reef monitoring program that 

was developed to collect information about the sanctuary’s reef 

ecosystem. The sanctuary issues permits to scientists from Florida’s 

Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission so that they can 

systematically monitor coral reefs throughout the sanctuary. This 

research program, called the Coral Reef Evaluation and Monitoring 

Project, studies various aspects of reef ecology and health and 

employs numerous survey methods, such as recorded digital video to 

track the effects of increasing ocean temperatures and sea level rise 

associated with climate change. As of 2009, the program was 

The program is designed to monitor the Florida 

Keys coral reef ecosystem for signs of coral reef bleaching. Trained 

volunteers monitor the reefs on a regular basis during the bleaching 

season in the summer for early warning signs of coral bleaching and 

report their field observations to the BleachWatch program 

coordinator. Information from this program and other sources is 

summarized and published at various intervals during the bleaching 

season in a report that describes the potential risk for coral bleaching 

and helps sanctuary managers determine what actions they need to 

take—such as closing areas at high risk of bleaching to human 

activities—to offset coral bleaching events, according to a senior 

sanctuary manager.

 

62Mote Marine Laboratory, headquartered in southwest Florida, was founded in 1955 as 

an independent marine research institution. The core function of this nonprofit 

organization is marine and coastal research that is designed to ensure the conservation 

and sustainable use of marine resources to benefit local, national, and international 

communities. 
 

Page 38 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

collecting and assessing data from 109 sampling stations throughout 

the sanctuary.

• Coral restoration. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is 

participating in a coordinated effort with Mote Marine Laboratory and 

The Nature Conservancy that is designed to develop systems and 

techniques to grow coral and other reef species for replanting in 

depleted reef systems. In 2009, NOAA’s restoration center provided 

funding to The Nature Conservancy to expand Mote Marine 

Laboratory’s restoration and coral nursery efforts.63

A Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary senior official told us that the 

sanctuary faces challenges in adapting to climate change. A key 

challenge that limits the sanctuary’s ability to develop climate change 

adaptation strategies is the lack of scientific information specific to its 

location about climate trends or extreme weather events due to climate 

change, according to the senior sanctuary official. This was also the case 

in August 2007 when we reported that a lack of adequate scientific 

information limited the ability of sanctuary resource managers to plan for 

and manage the effects of climate change.

The first planting 

of coral fragments was completed in the fall of 2010, and an additional 

planting occurred in the spring of 2011. According to Mote Marine 

Laboratory documents, as of early 2012, the survival rate for these 

corals was 90 percent.

64

 

63NOAA’s restoration center was created in 1991 and is responsible for restoring the 

nation’s coastal, marine, and migratory fish habitat. The center focuses on funding four 

habitat restoration approaches that have the biggest impact on fishery production—

opening rivers to fish migration, reconnecting coastal wetlands, rebuilding shellfish 

populations, and restoring corals. 

According to NOAA’s 2012 

strategic plan, scientific uncertainties limit decision makers’ ability to 

understand and predict climate change, especially at the regional and 

local levels where such information is highly important for planning and 

decision-making purposes. A senior sanctuary official said that another 

challenge is that sanctuary staff have not received climate change 

adaptation training that focuses on specific climate change impacts that 

are relevant to the sanctuary’s marine ecosystems. Instead sanctuary 

staff rely on high-level information gathered from conferences, 

workshops, on-the-job training, and lessons learned from colleagues. The 

official said it would be helpful to have training that is more focused than 

the high-level climate change information that is currently available; for 

example, training on why some corals that have experienced bleaching 

64GAO-07-863. 
 

Page 39 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

are susceptible to disease, while other bleached corals are not. 

Understanding these differences could help managers determine climate 

change adaptation strategies, according to the official. A senior Office of 

National Marine Sanctuaries official said the office has developed climate 

change adaptation training courses, but budget constraints have limited 

the implementation of these courses in the field.

In September 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established a 

strategic direction for addressing climate change adaptation in natural 

resource management in its climate change strategic plan.65

• Science-based, iterative, and collaborative. The strategic plan stated 

that the agency would use the best available science to better predict, 

understand, and address the effects of climate change on fish, 

wildlife, and their habitat. However, because of uncertainty about, 

among other things, how climate change will affect particular 

landscapes and interact with nonclimate stressors, such as invasive 

species, the plan stated that the agency would take an iterative 

approach and refine its planning and management actions as it 

learned more. Furthermore, the plan also stated that the agency 

would collaborate with partners to address climate change adaptation. 

For example, it would collaborate with state and tribal partners who 

share direct responsibility for managing some of the nation’s wildlife 

resources to address climate change adaptation on landscapes that 

are beyond the reach or resources of any one organization to 

address.

According to 

the plan, the agency’s approach to addressing climate change adaptation 

would be:

• Based on clear priorities. The plan identified a need to be strategic 

with the agency’s limited resources to effectively address climate 

change adaptation and stated that the agency would continue to 

establish and revise priorities to guide its actions. For example, one 

priority identified in the plan was to focus on protecting those species 

that are most vulnerable to climate change impacts, such as species 

that are dependent on sea ice. The agency stated that it would rely on 

the results of vulnerability assessments and field expertise to identify 

 

65Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Rising to the Urgent 

Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to Accelerating Climate Change (Washington, 

D.C.: 2010).

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service Has Established a 

Strategic Direction, Taken 

Steps to Implement that 

Direction, and Developed 

Resources to Address 

Climate Change 

Adaptation 
 

Page 40 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

plant and animal species that are especially vulnerable to climate 

change impacts.

• Increasingly focused on facilitating change based on expected future 

conditions. The strategic plan stated that in the near-term, the 

agency’s climate change adaptation efforts would likely focus on 

maintaining current conditions, restoring historic conditions, or 

promoting the ability of a landscape to return to current or historic 

conditions after a severe wildfire or other disturbance caused or 

exacerbated by climate change. However, in the long-term, the 

agency stated that its climate change adaptation efforts would 

increasingly focus on facilitating changes based on predicted future 

conditions by, for example, using plant species that are more resistant 

to fire or better adapted to drier climates when restoring devastated 

landscapes. The plan said the agency would focus increasingly on 

such forward-looking efforts as it better understands how the climate 

is likely to change and how those changes will affect ecosystems.

The climate change strategic plan also outlined some of the steps the 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would take to implement its strategic 

direction. For example, according to the plan, the agency would take the 

following steps:

• Help develop landscape conservation cooperatives. Within the 

Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has 

taken the lead in developing the system of 22 landscape conservation 

cooperatives, which are formal partnerships between federal and 

state agencies, tribes, nongovernmental organizations, universities, 

and others to define and address conservation goals and combat 

stressors at the landscape level.66

• Review agency policies to more effectively address climate change 

adaptation. The agency directed all of its regional and program offices 

Many of these stressors, such as 

water scarcity and the spread of invasive species, are caused or 

exacerbated by climate change. According to a senior U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service official we spoke with, all of the cooperatives are 

addressing climate change adaptation, but the extent to which climate 

change adaptation is a priority varies.

 

66Landscape level (and landscape scale) typically means a regional system of 

interconnected properties that is larger than the boundaries of any single land 

management jurisdiction, such as a national park. Managing natural resources at the 

landscape level involves defining the scope of the landscape to be managed, identifying 

specific conservation objectives, and collaborating with stakeholders to achieve them.
 

Page 41 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

to submit recommendations for policies that the agency should 

consider revising to allow for a more effective response to climate 

change adaptation. As of February 2013, the agency had received 

responses from most offices but had not determined which of its 

policies, if any, it needed to revise to more effectively address climate 

change adaptation. For example, based on a summary of responses 

from regional and program office officials prepared by the agency, 

some respondents recommended that the agency update its land 

acquisition policies to consider predicted climate change impacts 

when evaluating proposed land purchases. The agency planned to 

review these and other issues identified by respondents in 2013, 

according to an agency official we spoke with.

• Enhance climate change monitoring capabilities. In July 2009, the 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began to develop and implement an 

inventory and monitoring program that is designed to help ensure that 

the wildlife refuges have the information they need to, among other 

things, successfully manage for climate change and other stressors. 

This includes, for example, baseline information on fish, wildlife, and 

plant communities, as well as water, air, and soil, which will help 

natural resource managers identify and respond to changes to these 

resources due to climate change, according to an agency official. In 

September 2010, the agency finalized a plan for the inventory and 

monitoring program that outlined six initial objectives and specific 

tasks to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2011. For example, 

one initial objective was to collect, synthesize, and manage 

information needed to assess the vulnerability of the refuge system’s 

coastal and marine resources to sea level rise, rising ocean 

temperatures, and ocean acidification. One task identified in the plan 

was to model the potential impacts of sea level rise on the resources 

for all 147 coastal refuges where rising seas could impact coastal and 

estuarine wetland habitats. According to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service official we spoke with, by the end of 2012 modeling had been 

completed for all but 11 coastal refuges for which the necessary data 

were not available.

Furthermore, in its 2010 climate change strategic plan, the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service directed its National Conservation Training Center to 

implement a climate change curriculum to train agency employees in 

methods to address climate change in their day-to-day activities. In 

response, the center has begun addressing climate change adaptation in 

some of its training courses, according to an agency official we spoke 

with. For example, the center has offered a 3-day in-person training 

course on how to conduct climate change vulnerability assessments. 

According to course documents, the training was intended to help 
 

Page 42 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

participants design assessments that would meet their needs and help 

them understand how to evaluate, interpret, and use a completed 

assessment, among other things. The center developed this training in 

collaboration with partners, including other federal agencies. The training 

center has also offered an 8-week online training course on decision 

analysis for climate change that is intended to help natural resource 

managers make management decisions despite uncertainty about how 

climate change will impact the natural resources they manage. 

In addition, in June 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also 

published guidance on conducting climate change vulnerability 

assessments in a technical guide and a manager’s guide.67 The technical 

guide includes an 8-step process for assessing vulnerabilities and 

selecting management actions to address these vulnerabilities. It also 

provides detailed guidance for conducting each step of the vulnerability 

assessment process. For example, one step of the process is to identify 

data needs. The technical guide includes a checklist of potential data 

needs, such as projected information on invasive species, sea levels, and 

storm surges. The manager’s guide includes information about time 

frames, cost, and other resources needed to complete a vulnerability 

assessment. For example, the manager’s guide estimates that conducting 

a vulnerability assessment will cost from $150,000 to $200,000, and 

provides a budget outlining these estimated costs.

In October 2011, the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge finalized its 

first Comprehensive Conservation Plan to guide its management actions 

for a 15-year period.68

 

67Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Refuge Vulnerability 

Assessment and Alternatives Technical Guide (Arlington, VA: 2012); Department of the 

Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Manager’s Guide to Refuge Vulnerability 

Assessment and Alternatives: Overview and Practical Considerations (Arlington, VA: 

2012). 

Among other things, the plan established, for the 

first time at the refuge, a goal to identify, assess, and adapt to current and 

future climate change impacts to refuge resources. Figure 9 shows a map 

of the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

68Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, San Francisco Bay National 

Wildlife Refuge Complex, San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge Final Comprehensive 

Conservation Plan (Newark, CA: 2011). 

The San Pablo Bay 

National Wildlife Refuge 

Has Established a Climate 

Change Adaptation Goal 

and Objectives
 

Page 43 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Figure 9: Map of San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge

To address this goal, the plan identified three climate change adaptation 

objectives as well as strategies for achieving these objectives. 

Specifically, the three objectives are:

• Assess climate change impacts and conduct adaptation planning. To 

achieve this objective, by October 2014, the refuge plans to (1) 

assess the potential impacts of climate change to refuge resources, 

including promoting and supporting research on the vulnerability of 

endangered species within the refuge to climate change impacts and 

(2) conduct adaptation planning, which includes developing strategies 

for addressing climate change adaptation and prioritizing 

management actions for addressing climate change adaptation in 

both the short-term and the long-term.

• Prioritize acquisitions and projects based on projected climate change 

impacts. During the life of the plan, the refuge intends to use climate 

change data to prioritize both land acquisitions—a method of 

increasing habitat for refuge species—and projects to restore or 
 

Page 44 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

enhance tidal marshes and other tidal habitat. One strategy identified 

in the plan for prioritizing acquisitions was to identify lands that will be 

important for the refuge to acquire to protect its marshlands by 

allowing them to migrate inland as sea levels rise.69 The refuge also 

has ongoing and planned projects intended to restore or enhance tidal 

circulation to marshes.70

• Develop and implement a climate change inventory and monitoring 

plan. According to the conservation plan, by October 2016, the refuge 

intends to develop and implement a climate change inventory and 

monitoring plan to guide its long-term monitoring of natural resources 

such as wildlife populations and marshlands. An inventory and 

monitoring plan would facilitate more effective evaluation of how the 

refuge’s natural resources are being affected by climate change 

impacts such as sea level rise, according to a refuge official we spoke 

with.

For example, Cullinan Ranch—historically a 

tidal marsh within the refuge—was drained for oat hay farming in the 

late 1800s, and the refuge is working with the California Department 

of Fish and Wildlife and others to restore its historic marshlands by, 

among other things, breaching and lowering tidal levees. As of 

February 2013, refuge staff were reviewing information about which 

areas within the refuge are projected to be most vulnerable to sea 

level rise to help them prioritize critical restorations and avoid costly 

restorations that are unlikely to be successful because of climate 

change impacts to such projects, according to the refuge manager.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials we spoke with said that the climate 

change adaptation goal and objectives established by the refuge are 

ambitious and that the refuge will face challenges in achieving them 

because of limited resources. For example, the four U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service officials assigned to the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge, 

 

69The San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge is largely located below sea level and, as a 

result, its natural resources are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts such as sea 

level rise. The refuge’s natural resources include tidal marshes, which are vegetated 

wetlands that are inundated with water subject to the tidal influences of the Pacific Ocean. 

Even though tidal marshes are vulnerable to sea level rise, natural resource managers 

can help protect them by ensuring they have space to migrate inland as sea levels rise or 

restoring or enhancing tidal circulation to the marshes to help ensure that they can grow at 

a rate that outpaces sea level rise.

70Marshes grow as water moves slowly through their soft-stemmed vegetation, allowing 

sediment to settle and accumulate on the floor of the marsh; however, some historic 

marshlands in the refuge have little or no tidal circulation as a result of, for example, dikes 

and levees constructed to develop farmlands, among other purposes.
 

Page 45 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

including the refuge manager, are also responsible for two additional 

refuges in the region, according to officials we spoke with. One official 

told us that, although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is providing the 

refuges with tools for addressing climate change adaptation, such as 

guidance on assessing vulnerabilities, limited resources make it difficult 

for staff at the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge to take on 

additional tasks beyond what they are already doing. However, the San 

Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge may be able to address its climate 

change adaptation goal and objectives, in part, by collaborating with 

partners, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials. For 

example, the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge is collaborating with 

the U.S. Geological Survey to implement a tool to conduct monitoring of 

sediment growth in relation to sea level rise, according to a U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service official. According to the official, this tool could help 

natural resource managers at the refuge determine whether the marshes 

are growing at a sufficient rate to outpace sea level rise. The official said 

that a critical step for addressing climate change adaptation is to use 

information gathered from this tool and other information to identify 

specific management actions for addressing adaptation. However, 

according to the official, funding to identify climate change adaptation 

options using information from this tool and other information is not 

available at this time.

The National Park Service published a climate change response strategy 

in 2010 that established climate change adaptation priorities, goals, and 

objectives for natural and cultural resources and facilities.71

 

71U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Climate Change Response 

Strategy (Washington, D. C.: 2010).

According to 

this strategy, one of the park service’s priorities is the development of a

climate change adaptation planning approach that includes conducting 

risk assessments, developing and implementing climate change action 

plans, and monitoring and evaluating the progress of adaptation actions. 

In addition, the response strategy established several goals, such as 

incorporating climate change considerations and responses at all levels of 

the agency’s planning, as well as implementing climate change 

adaptation strategies that promote ecosystem resilience. The response 

strategy also includes key climate change objectives that the park service 

and its park managers could pursue to achieve the goals, such as 

The National Park Service 

Has Developed a Strategic 

Direction, an Action Plan, 

and Training to Address 

Climate Change 

Adaptation 
 

Page 46 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

developing guidance for addressing climate change in planning products 

and conducting climate change scenario planning.72

To guide the implementation of its climate change response strategy, the 

National Park Service released a climate change action plan in November 

2012.73 This action plan outlines specific areas the park service plans to 

focus on in the short-term, such as (1) developing climate change 

guidance; (2) providing climate change science to parks; (3) fostering 

partnerships to address climate change; and (4) applying climate change 

adaptation tools, such as scenario planning. In addition, the plan identifies 

high-priority collaborative actions for the park service to undertake 

between 2012 and 2014. For example, one action involves the National 

Park Service’s Climate Change Response Program,74

The National Park Service has also provided training on climate change 

adaptation. For example, between 2007 and 2012, according to an 

agency official, the park service held 17 workshops to train park 

managers on scenario planning. During these workshops, participants 

discussed climate change-related case studies and how they might 

incorporate climate change scenario planning results into their planning. 

In addition, the park service’s Climate Change Response Program has 

been providing climate change-related training to park service staff since 

2007. For example, in July 2012, the park service held four webinars for 

national park superintendents to discuss approaches for addressing 

climate change-related issues at national parks. Specifically, participants 

discussed management actions that can be taken to address climate 

change, lessons learned from adaptation actions that have been taken, 

and available resources for park superintendents preparing to address 

park scientists, and 

others developing a park service climate change vulnerability assessment

approach that will ensure vulnerability assessments are conducted 

consistently and comprehensively across all of the national parks.

 

72Climate change scenario planning is a tool that involves evaluating the possible impacts 

of climate change under a variety of plausible climate futures.

73U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Climate Change Action Plan 

2012–2014 (Washington, D.C.: 2012).

74The Climate Change Response Program supports initiatives to implement elements of 

the climate change response strategy, helps develop methods for assessing the 

vulnerability of agency resources to climate change, and develops adaptation strategies 

for natural resources in climate-sensitive areas, among other efforts. 
 

Page 47 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

climate change. For example, one webinar included lessons learned from 

the Assateague Island National Seashore’s experience incorporating 

climate change adaptation into the park’s general management plan 

using scenario planning and current climate science.

In addition, the National Park Service is developing additional climate 

change adaptation guidance and has identified a climate change 

adaptation tool that park managers can use. Draft climate change 

adaptation guidance has been created for the park service’s 

Intermountain Region75

According to a senior park service official, the park service faces a 

challenge in addressing climate change adaptation because of a 

reduction in funding for the agency’s Climate Change Response Program. 

Specifically, the official said the program received approximately $10 

million dollars in both fiscal years 2010 and 2011, but it received 

approximately $3 million dollars in fiscal year 2012. The official said the 

reduced funding has limited the Climate Change Response Program’s 

ability to provide financial support for enhanced monitoring as a part of 

the National Park Service’s Inventory and Monitoring Program. For 

example, an official said the funding reduction affected the program’s 

ability to monitor changes in park conditions, including those related to 

that outlines a process for developing park-based 

climate change adaptation plans. The guidance includes steps such as 

identifying conservation targets, conducting vulnerability assessments, 

and implementing management actions. According to a senior park 

official, the primary audience for the guidance will be managers in the 89 

national park units within the National Park Service’s Intermountain 

Region, but it will also be available for other park managers to use. As of 

February 2013, the draft guidance was being reviewed internally, and the 

park service had not determined its release date. In addition, according to 

a senior park service official, the agency’s Inventory and Monitoring 

Program can be used to address climate change. For example, park 

managers can use information gathered by the program to help 

understand the status and trends of natural resources in their parks, such 

as water availability and species occurrence and distribution. A park 

official said this information can be used in climate change vulnerability 

assessments and to develop climate change adaptation plans.

 

75The Intermountain Region includes Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, 

Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. 
 

Page 48 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

climate change such as water availability in desert national parks. A 

senior park service official said, with less funding, Inventory and 

Monitoring Program officials are not able to collect data as frequently, 

which affects the data’s reliability. As a result, the official said the data’s 

usefulness in helping park managers draw conclusions related to climate 

change has been limited.

Glacier National Park managers have taken steps to address climate 

change adaptation in their management activities. This is a change from 

August 2007 when we reported that park officials said they had not 

addressed climate change because they had not received explicit 

National Park Service guidance or funding.76 For example, Glacier Park 

managers said they are monitoring various species in the park, such as 

pika, to help determine their abundance and distribution.77 This baseline 

data will be used to detect changes in pika distribution over time, 

according to a senior park official. In addition, according to the National

Park Service, Glacier National Park is taking other adaptation steps 

including planting trees in new habitats, managing invasive plants, and 

restoring native vegetation. Glacier National Park managers also 

participated in a National Park Service climate change scenario planning 

workshop in 2010 to help inform future management decisions about the 

Crown of the Continent ecosystem, which includes Glacier National 

Park.

78

 

76

In preparation for and during this workshop, participants 

discussed potential climate change vulnerabilities and ecosystem 

changes within Glacier National Park and the Crown of the Continent 

ecoystem, including the sensitivities, vulnerabilities, and resiliency of 

GAO-07-863. 

77The American pika is a small mammal that inhabits vegetation in alpine and subalpine 

mountain areas extending south from central British Columbia and Alberta into the Rocky 

Mountains of New Mexico and the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, according to the 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The pika is particularly sensitive to temperature changes; 

death can occur after brief exposures to ambient temperatures greater than 77.9 degrees 

Fahrenheit. 

78The Crown of the Continent ecosystem includes 42,000 square kilometers of land that 

encompasses the Rocky Mountain region of Montana; British Columbia; and Alberta, 

Canada. The ecosystem includes grasslands, rock, ice, mountain peaks, and forests. 

Glacier National Park Has 

Taken Steps to Address 

Climate Change 

Adaptation 
 

Page 49 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

aquatic and terrestrial systems to climatic and nonclimatic stressors. 

Figure 10 shows a map of Glacier National Park.79

Figure 10: Map of Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park resource managers said they have also taken steps 

to collaborate with several groups to address climate change adaptation. 

For example, Glacier National Park is a partner in the Crown Managers 

Partnership, which is a group of American and Canadian land

management agencies within the Crown of the Continent ecosystem 

 

79In 1932, Glacier National Park was combined with Waterton Lakes National Park in 

Alberta , Canada to form the world’s first International Peace Park. 
 

Page 50 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

working to, among other things, assess regional ecological health factors 

such as climate change to help inform management decisions. The 

partners include universities and federal, provincial, state, local, First 

Nations80

As of February 2013, Glacier National Park managers said that they had 

no plans to update their current general management plan for the park in 

the immediate future.

and tribal governments. In particular, according to the 2011 to 

2012 annual report, the Crown Managers Partnership has been 

developing approaches to identify the current condition of ecological 

health in the Crown of the Continent ecosystem. Specifically, the 

partnership is using indicators, such as landscape change, habitat 

connectivity, invasive species, and water quantity, to establish a baseline, 

so that these indicators can be tracked over time to identify any changes 

that may be related to climate change. Glacier National Park managers 

said they have also collaborated with the U.S. Geological Survey’s 

Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center on mapping the effects of 

glacial melt on the park’s alpine vegetation.

81

 

80First Nations refers collectively to individuals of Aboriginal origin residing in Canada. 

While the current plan does not directly address 

climate change adaptation, park managers said it offers adequate 

guidance for both their natural resource management and climate change 

adaptation activities. For example, a park manager said the management 

plan guides the park’s natural resource management activities—such as 

monitoring wildlife population trends, invasive species, and wildfires—

which park mangers also consider to be climate change adaptationrelated activities. The plan also outlines guiding principles, management 

strategies, and regional cooperation methods for park natural resource 

preservation, among other things. In addition, a Glacier National Park 

official said the park is planning to begin developing—starting late in 

2013—what is known as a “foundation plan,” which will describe the 

park’s purpose, significant resources, and data and planning needs. It is 

also likely that the document will address climate change, according to 

the official. All parks are supposed to have completed their foundation 

documents by 2016, according to a senior National Park Service official. 

81Glacier National Park, Final General Management Plan and Environmental Impact 

Statement Volume 1 (West Glacier, MT: Sept. 2, 1999). According to a park official, 

management plans are generally updated every 20 years. 
 

Page 51 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Glacier National Park managers said they have encountered challenges 

in addressing climate change adaptation because of limited funding. 

According to park managers, funding is needed to monitor existing natural 

resources and conduct vulnerability assessments that would inform the 

development and implementation of a risk management strategy to 

protect vulnerable resources that might be affected by climate change.

For example, park staff said additional funding could be used to address 

increased western spruce budworm infestations. This insect normally 

infests trees for 3 years, but due to temperature increases, its infestation 

period has lengthened to 7 to 15-year cycles, according to park 

managers. As a result, hundreds of forested acres of Glacier National 

Park have been weakened, which could increase their susceptibility to 

fires.

The Bureau of Land Management has not developed a strategic direction 

for its state, district, and field offices to help guide their efforts to address 

climate change impacts.82

In addition, the bureau has not provided guidance to its offices on steps 

they can take to incorporate climate change adaptation into their natural 

resource planning and management. A Bureau of Land Management 

senior official said the agency has guidance to help managers address 

issues such as drought and invasive species, which he believes is 

sufficient to help them address climate change. Another official said that 

the bureau’s natural resource managers could consider climate change 

adaptation when they are preparing documents, such as environmental 

However, a Bureau of Land Management 

senior official said the agency is planning to develop a high-level climate 

adaptation strategy by the end of the summer 2013 in response to the 

climate change adaptation policy the Department of the Interior issued in 

January 2013. According to the official, this strategy will complement the 

agency’s existing resource management strategies, such as those that 

guide its drought management activities. For example, the strategy may 

address how the agency plans to respond to the reductions, in cases of 

prolonged drought, of the availability of forage for domestic livestock, wild 

horses and burros, and wildlife, which may result from climate change.

 

82The bureau has a three-tiered organizational structure within each state, beginning with 

the state office that oversees district offices, which coordinates between the state and field 

offices. Field offices are responsible for managing designated areas of land, which are 

known as resource areas.

The Bureau of Land 

Management Has Not 

Developed a Strategic 

Direction to Address

Climate Change 

Adaptation but Has Taken 

Some Adaptation-Related 

Steps 
 

Page 52 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

assessments and environmental impact statements, in accordance with 

the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.83

One step that the Bureau of Land Management has taken that may prove 

useful in addressing climate change adaptation is establishing a regional 

approach to managing public lands that includes an assessment of 

regional vulnerabilities. The bureau believes this regional approach is an 

essential and critical element of an effective climate adaptation strategy.

A bureau information bulletin released in April 2012 indicates that 

stressors affecting landscapes—such as climate change and wildfires—

called for an approach that would transcend traditional land management 

boundaries and enable the bureau to better respond to these stressors 

across programmatic, organizational, land ownership, and political 

boundaries. This bulletin also refers to what the Bureau of Land 

Management calls a “landscape approach for managing the public lands” 

to address the bureau’s land restoration needs in a broad context. The 

first step in implementing the new approach is conducting rapid 

ecoregional assessments,

Another 

official said the bureau has not developed climate change adaptation 

guidance because it is waiting until the Council on Environmental Quality 

finalizes its draft National Environmental Policy Act guidance on how to 

consider the effects of climate change when preparing environmental 

assessments or environmental impact statements. An official from the 

Council on Environmental Quality said the council is continuing to move 

forward on developing the draft guidance but did not indicate when it 

would be finalized.

84

 

83Bureau of Land Management offices and other federal agencies are required to prepare 

either environmental assessments or environmental impact statements, which are more 

detailed, when they evaluate certain proposed actions, such as drilling for oil on Bureau of 

Land Management land, to determine their impacts on the environment. These documents 

also evaluate alternatives to the proposed action, which could avoid or minimize adverse 

impacts to the environment. Ultimately, agencies may use the document to decide 

whether to prohibit a proposed action, allow it as proposed, or allow it with modifications.

which map areas of high ecological value, 

gauge their sensitivity and resilience to environmental change, and 

establish baseline data that can be used to help determine the 

84An ecoregion is a large landscape that contains relative homogeneity in ecological 

systems or in relationships between organisms and their environments. It typically 

encompasses areas larger than those managed by an individual Bureau of Land 

Management field office and may include land managed by multiple federal, state, private, 

or other land managers. The Sonoran Desert in the southwestern United States is an 

example of an ecoregion.
 

Page 53 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

effectiveness of management actions. Although the focus of the 

“landscape approach” is broader than just climate change adaptation, a 

senior bureau official explained that rapid ecoregional assessments 

address how already occurring stressors, such as drought, invasive 

species, and wildfire, may be exacerbated by climate change. For 

example, one of the assessments’ goals is to identify lands that are most 

susceptible to seasonal changes in temperature or precipitation as a 

result of changes in climate. As of February 2013, a bureau official said 

that one rapid ecoregional assessment was complete (Colorado Plateau), 

one was near completion (Sonoran Desert), eight others had been 

initiated, and four more were in the planning phase. Figure 11 shows the 

locations of the Bureau of Land Management’s ecoregional assessments.
 

Page 54 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Figure 11: Map of the Bureau of Land Management’s Rapid Ecoregional Assessments

Another step the bureau has taken that is related to climate change 

adaptation involves collaborating with other agencies to develop a draft 

field guide for vulnerability assessments. Bureau officials said that the 

completion date for the field guide was undetermined as of February 

2013. The purpose of the field guide is to help inform natural resource 

managers about vulnerability assessments that are being conducted 
 

Page 55 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

throughout the nation and to help reduce duplication of vulnerability 

assessment efforts.

Kingman Resource Area managers have not taken action to address 

climate change adaptation since we first reported in August 2007.85

 

85

At 

that time, we found that they (1) were unaware of any requirements to 

address climate change, (2) did not have guidance for how to consider 

climate change in their planning and management efforts, and (3) did not 

include climate change among the highest priority issues for the Kingman 

Resource Area. The Kingman official we spoke with said that since 2007 

the Bureau of Land Management has not provided any direction on 

integrating climate change adaptation into Kingman’s natural resource 

planning and management. In addition, the official said Kingman 

Resource Area staff still do not consider climate change adaptation a 

priority because the bureau does not require them to address climate 

change. As of February 2013, resource area staff had not conducted any 

climate change vulnerability assessments, developed specific adaptation 

plans, or taken any adaptation management actions, according to a 

Kingman resource manager. Figure 12 shows where the Kingman 

Resource Area is located and the Arizona field office administrative 

boundaries.

GAO-07-863. 

The Bureau of Land 

Management Kingman 

Resource Area Has Not 

Taken Steps to Address 

Climate Change 

Adaptation 
 

Page 56 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Figure 12: Map of Kingman Resource Area and Arizona Field Office Administrative 

Boundaries

Although the Bureau of Land Management has not provided guidance to 

Kingman Resource Area managers to incorporate climate change 

adaptation into their planning, the bureau’s Arizona state office—with 

assistance from the bureau’s headquarters office—conducted an internal 

evaluation in 2010 of the Kingman resource management plan that found 

that Kingman could develop and document its strategy for adapting to 
 

Page 57 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

climate change in its management plan.86 However, as of February 2013, 

a Kingman manager said no amendments or updates to the resource 

management plan to address climate change were planned, mainly due 

to budget constraints. According to the 2010 internal evaluation of the 

Kingman resource management plan, Kingman Resource Area managers 

need the Bureau of Land Management and its state offices to develop 

guidance for bureau resource managers on how to address climate 

change in their planning. As of February 2013, this need had not been 

addressed. According to officials from the bureau’s Arizona state office, 

they did not develop any guidance, in part, because they are waiting to 

receive instructions from Bureau of Land Management headquarters.

The federal natural resource management agencies we reviewed 

recognize that there are limits to what they can accomplish on their own 

and therefore are also collaborating on climate change adaptation with, 

among others, each other, state and local government agencies, tribes, 

nongovernmental organizations, and other federal agencies. In addition, 

agencies have collaborated in developing reports that provide crosscutting, national strategies for addressing climate change adaptation in 

the federal government and national climate assessments.

Since 2007, key federal natural resource management agencies have 

identified a need to collaborate on climate change adaptation to leverage 

funding, staff, and resources; develop common goals; develop tools and 

strategies to inform landscape-scale planning and management 

decisions; facilitate information exchange among stakeholders; and avoid 

duplication. For example, the Forest Service included a collaboration goal 

in its October 2008 strategic framework for responding to climate change 

because the agency believes that collaborating with partners will be 

 

86Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Kingman Resource Area 

Proposed Resource Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement

(Kingman, AZ: 1993). The resource management plan is the key document that Kingman 

resource managers use to guide their management of the public lands and associated 

resources within their jurisdiction. 

The Agencies Have 

Begun Using Several 

Mechanisms to 

Collaborate and Have 

Prepared National 

Adaptation Strategies 

and Climate 

Assessments 

Federal Natural Resource 

Management Agencies 

Have Identified a Need to 

Collaborate on Climate 

Change Adaptation and 

Are Using Several 

Mechanisms to Do So
 

Page 58 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

essential to address climate change across land ownership boundaries. 

According to the framework, the Forest Service manages 8 percent of all 

lands in the United States, but climate change impacts will extend across 

land ownership boundaries, and the Forest Service has a responsibility to 

work with others to address those impacts. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service also included a collaboration goal in its September 2010 climate 

change strategic plan because the agency believes collaboration is 

necessary to build shared scientific and technical capabilities, among 

other reasons.

Landscape conservation cooperatives are one mechanism established 

since 2007 that enable federal agencies to collaborate in addressing 

climate change adaptation. At the direction of the Department of the 

Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began establishing the network 

of 22 cooperatives in fiscal year 2009. They provide a forum for federal 

agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park 

Service, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and NOAA, to work 

collaboratively with state and local government agencies, tribes, and 

nongovernmental organizations to address at a landscape level climate 

change impacts on wildlife, water, land, and cultural resources. As of 

February 2013, all 22 cooperatives have been established, but because 

some were established more recently, they are at different stages of 

development. The cooperatives are located throughout the United States 

and extend into Canada and Mexico. Figure 13 shows the locations of the 

cooperatives.
 

Page 59 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Figure 13: Map of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives

Some landscape conservation cooperatives have begun taking actions to 

address climate change adaptation at the landscape level. For example, 

in August 2012, one cooperative, working with the nonprofit organization 
 

Page 60 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Nature Serve, hosted a 2-day workshop to develop climate change 

adaptation strategies for managed lands including the Sonoran and 

Mojave Deserts in the southwestern United States.87

Landscape conservation cooperatives have also begun collaborating with 

the eight regional Climate Science Centers established by the 

Department of the Interior,

Workshop 

participants included representatives from nonprofit organizations, 

universities, state agencies, and federal agencies including the U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park 

Service. For major ecosystem types within the region, the participants 

identified “no-regrets” climate change adaptation management strategies 

they could take within 5 years, longer-term management strategies they 

could take further in the future, and priorities for research and monitoring 

to lower uncertainty around identified strategies. In addition, a cooperative 

has funded several projects to identify climate change impacts on a 

variety of species and their habitat. For example, in 2010, the cooperative 

funded a nonprofit organization to collaborate with partners, including 

federal agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. 

Geological Survey, to develop a plan and establish programs for longterm monitoring of wintering shorebirds in coastal California and northern 

Baja California, Mexico. This project was expected to, among other 

things, provide baseline information about these shorebirds to allow 

federal natural resource management agencies and others to identify 

changes as a result of climate change, according to the project proposal.

88

 

87Nature Serve is a nonprofit conservation organization that provides information on rare 

and endangered species and threatened ecosystems. The information is used by, among 

others, government agencies, conservation groups, and academia to help inform natural 

resource management decisions.

as well as other stakeholders to facilitate the 

coordination of climate science capabilities and monitoring activities 

across their regions, among other things. According to a Department of 

the Interior plan, the cooperatives and science centers are the 

cornerstones to an integrated approach to climate change science and 

88According to Interior, the eight regional Climate Science Centers deliver basic climate 

change impact science to Landscape Conservation Cooperatives within their respective 

regions, including physical and biological research, ecological forecasting, and multi-scale 

modeling. Science centers will prioritize their delivery of fundamental science, data, and 

decision support activities to meet the needs of the cooperatives. This includes working 

with the cooperatives to provide climate change impact information on natural and cultural 

resources and to develop decision support tools for managers.
 

Page 61 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

adaptation at the department.89

The Interagency Land Management Adaptation Group is another 

collaborative mechanism established since 2007 by natural resource 

management agencies to address climate change adaptation in federal 

land management activities. The group was established in January 2012 

and meets monthly as an informal network of high-level officials from 

federal land management and science agencies including the Bureau of 

Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service, 

and the National Park Service. Key non-land management members 

include the Council on Environmental Quality, NOAA, and the U.S. 

Geological Survey. According to group documents, members have 

shared information on federal climate change adaptation-related 

programs and activities; identified gaps that need to be addressed in 

federal agency climate change adaptation planning and management; 

identified challenges that federal land management agencies encounter 

when attempting to address climate change adaptation; discussed 

potential policy changes; and explored opportunities for further 

collaboration. One of the challenges they identified was the difficulty in 

identifying past or ongoing climate change vulnerability assessments, 

which creates a potential for duplication of effort, according to documents 

developed by group members. To address this challenge, in January 

2013, the group agreed to develop a web-based searchable database, 

which will contain climate change vulnerability assessments prepared by 

federal agencies. The U.S. Geological Survey has agreed to compile the 

assessments and make the information available to all resource 

managers working to develop climate change adaptation plans. The 

The science centers are responsible for 

providing scientific information, tools, and techniques that land, water, 

wildlife and cultural resource managers and other interested parties can 

apply to anticipate, monitor, and adapt to climate change and other 

stressors at regional and local scales. In June 2012, the science center 

for the Southwest collaborated with four cooperatives and other partners 

to host a climate summit to identify the climate-related science needs of 

tribes and other stakeholders. For example, participating tribal members 

identified a need to develop climate change vulnerability assessments for 

species and locations that are culturally significant to tribes, among other 

needs.

 

89Department of the Interior, Interior’s Plan for a Coordinated, Science-based Response to 

Climate Change Impacts on Our Land, Water, and Wildlife Resources (Washington D.C.: 

2010).
 

Page 62 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

interagency adaptation group has also formed work groups to develop 

and guide national-level collaborative actions in key areas of interest, 

including options and best practices for conducting vulnerability 

assessments, as well as adaptation planning, monitoring, and training.

Federal natural resource management agencies have also collaborated to 

support NOAA’s long-standing Regional Integrated Sciences and 

Assessments program, according to a program official. The program 

consists of 11 research teams that emphasize regional and local climate 

research and work with regional partners, such as NOAA’s Regional 

Climate Centers, to help inform climate change adaptation planning and 

management.90

According to a program official, the Regional Integrated Sciences and 

Assessments’ teams are collaborating with federal agencies on building 

regional capacity to address climate change.

For example, research team scientists provide 

information that decision makers can use to help understand the impacts 

of drought, understand climatic influences on wildfires, and assess 

climate impacts on air quality. Another function of the research teams is 

to develop tools that enable decision makers to take into consideration 

the potential impacts of climate change. For example, the Carolinas’ 

research team developed a climate change planning tool referred to as 

the Vulnerability and Consequence Adaptation Planning Scenarios that 

can be used by decision makers in coastal regions to determine potential 

climate change impacts and identify climate change adaptation actions.

91

 

90NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center manages six Regional Climate Centers that 

produce climate data and other resources for decision makers and other users at the 

local, state, regional, and national levels. 

 For example, NOAA 

initiated a fiscal year 2012 competitive grant process to promote 

collaborative research partnerships in support of regional climate 

adaptation. According to a Regional Integrated Sciences and 

Assessments program official, NOAA’s priorities for selecting grant 

applications for funding include research related to: (1) addressing 

91Participating federal agencies include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. 

Geological Survey, and the Forest Service. Participating offices within NOAA include, 

among others, the National Marine Fisheries Service; the National Ocean Service; the 

Earth Systems Research Laboratory; the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction 

Center; and the Climate Program Office’s Modeling, Analysis Predictions and Projections 

program and Climate and Societal Interactions program. The U.S. Geological Survey and 

the Forest Service were among the agencies that contributed funds to projects in the 

grants competition. 
 

Page 63 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

interactions between climate and nonclimate stressors in marine 

environments; (2) evaluating the use of climate information by coastal 

managers and the effectiveness of adaptation actions; (3) advancing the 

development and application of approaches for assessing the 

vulnerability of public lands; and (4) improving ways of communicating 

climate information to water managers across multiple regions of the 

United States. NOAA developed the funding priorities collaboratively with 

the Department of the Interior’s Climate Science Centers and federal 

agencies, including the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Army Corps 

of Engineers, Forest Service, and National Park Service. According to a 

Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program official, by 

setting priorities collaboratively, federal agencies can direct and leverage 

their resources and avoid potential duplicative or overlapping research 

projects.

Federal natural resource management departments and agencies have 

also collaborated through the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation 

Task Force, which the President established in 2009. The task force is 

co-chaired by the Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Science 

and Technology Policy, and NOAA, and includes representatives from 

more than 20 federal departments and agencies. In a 2010 report, the 

task force recommended a set of climate change adaptation policy goals 

and actions.92

 

92The White House Council on Environmental Quality, Progress Report of the Interagency 

Climate Change Adaptation Task Force: Recommended Actions in Support of a National 

Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, 2010. 

For example, the task force recommended that federal 

agencies establish and implement adaptation action plans that address 

the challenges that climate change poses to their missions, operations, 

and programs. The task force also recommended that agencies address 

cross-cutting issues by developing, among other things, (1) a national 

action plan to strengthen climate change adaptation for freshwater 

resources; (2) a strategy for reducing the impacts of climate change on 

the nation’s fish, wildlife, and plant resources and their habitats; and (3) a 

strategic action plan for strengthening the resilience of coastal, ocean, 

and Great Lakes communities and ecosystems to climate change. In 

October 2011, the task force reported that federal agencies had made 
 

Page 64 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

significant progress in addressing the goals outlined by the task force in 

2010.93

Since 2007, federal natural resource management agencies have 

collaborated to develop the three national strategies recommended by the 

Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force. These strategies are 

as follows:

• National Action Plan for Managing Freshwater Resources.

94

• National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy.

Finalized 

in October 2011, the national action plan was prepared by officials 

from various federal agencies including the Bureau of Reclamation, 

the Forest Service, and NOAA. According to the plan, climate change 

impacts will pose challenges to protecting the quantity and quality of 

freshwater resources, including aquatic life and habitats. The plan 

established a national goal of having citizens and government 

agencies collaboratively manage freshwater resources in response to 

a changing climate to ensure adequate water supplies; safeguard 

human life, health, and property; and protect water quality and aquatic 

ecosystems. It included six recommendations for meeting that goal 

and outlined specific actions that federal agencies are taking or 

should take to address these recommendations. For example, one 

recommendation was to strengthen the assessment of water resource 

vulnerability to climate change. Actions identified to address this 

recommendation included ongoing Forest Service efforts to assess 

the vulnerability of watersheds and aquatic systems in national forests 

and grasslands. According to Forest Service officials, as of February 

2013, the agency had completed all 12 pilot watershed vulnerability 

assessments. 

95

 

93Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, Federal Actions for a Climate 

Resilient Nation: Progress Report of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task 

Force (October 2011). 

The 

national strategy, developed as directed by a congressional

94Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, National Action Plan: Priorities for 

Managing Freshwater Resources in a Changing Climate, 2011. 

95National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Partnership. National Fish, Wildlife 

and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy: Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, 

Council on Environmental Quality, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Great Lakes Indian Fish 

and Wildlife Commission, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 

(Washington, D.C.: 2012). 

Federal Natural Resource 

Agencies Have 

Collaborated on National 

Strategies to Address 

Climate Change 

Adaptation and Climate 

Assessments
 

Page 65 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

committee, was released in March 2013. It was developed with input 

from a steering committee led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 

NOAA, and the New York Division of Fish, Wildlife, and Marine 

Resources with officials from 11 additional federal agencies, 4 

additional state fish and wildlife agencies, 2 intertribal commissions, 

and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The strategy 

stated that fish, wildlife, and plant resources are already being 

affected by climate change and described projected future impacts. 

The strategy also outlined goals for addressing climate change 

adaptation for fish, wildlife, and plants as well as strategies for 

addressing these goals. For example, one goal is to conserve habitat 

to support healthy fish, wildlife, and plant populations and ecosystem 

functions in a changing climate. Strategies for addressing the goal 

include identifying areas that are likely to be resilient to climate 

change and taking steps to ensure that those areas are protected.

• National Ocean Policy Implementation Plan. Federal natural resource 

management departments contributed to preparing this plan, which 

identifies actions federal agencies will take to bolster the ocean 

economy, improve ocean health, and provide better science, among 

other things.96 In July 2010, the President issued an Executive Order 

regarding stewardship of our oceans, coasts, and the Great Lakes.” 97

 

96National Ocean Council, National Ocean Policy Implementation Plan, (Washington, 

D.C.: 2013). 

The national ocean policy calls for management practices that will 

enhance the understanding of and capacity to respond to climate 

change and ocean acidification, among other things. The National 

Ocean Council, which includes the Secretaries of Agriculture, 

Commerce, the Interior, and the NOAA Administrator, published the 

implementation plan for the national ocean policy in April 2013. 

Among other things, the plan stated that federal agencies will enable 

and support efforts to understand, minimize, and adapt to the impacts 

of climate change, ocean acidification, sea-level rise, and extreme 

weather events, strengthening the resilience of coastal communities. 

For example, according to the implementation plan, federal agencies 

will offer tools and training courses on how to design and implement 

vulnerability assessments and develop assessments of coastal and 

ocean climate impacts in support of the National Climate Assessment. 

97Executive Order 13547, Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes

(July 19, 2010). 
 

Page 66 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Federal agencies have also collaborated on national climate 

assessments, which analyze current trends in global change, both 

human-induced and natural, and project major trends for the subsequent 

25 to 100 years. The Global Change Research Act of 1990 requires 

publication of a national climate assessment not less frequently than 

every 4 years—the first and second assessments were first published by 

the U.S. Global Change Research Program in 2000 and 2009, 

respectively.98 Thirteen federal agencies, including the Forest Service, 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and NOAA, 

contributed to the third assessment that was released as a draft for public 

comment in January 2013.99 The draft assessment provides information 

on climate change impacts and the status of climate change science, and 

it highlights ongoing climate change adaptation efforts, among other 

things. For example, the draft assessment states that, although 

substantial climate change adaptation planning is occurring at all levels of 

government, adaptation actions have been limited. According to the draft 

assessment, challenges to implementing adaptation actions include lack 

of resources and leadership, and difficulties in using climate change 

projections, which can be complex and difficult to apply to management 

decisions. To help ensure that natural resource managers and other 

decision makers have timely and relevant information, the draft 

assessment includes information on creating a sustained climate 

assessment process to more efficiently collect and synthesize climate 

change science. The draft assessment also states that climate change 

adaptation actions have rarely been evaluated for effectiveness because 

such actions have only recently begun to be initiated and comprehensive 

metrics for evaluating these actions have not been developed. The 

assessment is expected to be finalized by the end of 2013.

We provided a draft of this report for review and comment to the 

Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior. In its written 

comments, which are included in appendix I, the Department of 

Agriculture stated that the Forest Service agreed with our findings and will 

 

98Pub. L. No. 101-606, § 106 (1990). In 2007, a federal district court held that the failure to 

complete an assessment at least every 4 years violated the Global Change Research Act. 

Center for Biological Diversity v. Brennan, 571 F. Supp. 2d 1105, 1131 (N.D. Cal. 2007).

99The January 2013 draft National Climate Assessment was prepared under the 

leadership of the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee, a 

federal advisory committee appointed by the Secretary of Commerce.

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation
 

Page 67 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

continue to engage in the collaborative efforts we identified to more 

efficiently and effectively address climate change adaptation.

We received general comments from the Departments of Commerce and 

the Interior. The Department of Commerce stated that it appreciated our 

efforts to identify the progress made by key natural resource 

management agencies to address climate change. It also said that 

climate change adaptation efforts will improve over time through review 

and evaluation processes, and our report contributes to that effort. The 

Departments of Commerce and the Interior also said they have other 

programs, field locations, and climate change adaptation-related activities 

that were not discussed in the report. By design, our report focused on 

specific programs, and we visited only one field location in each of the 

five agencies we examined. We acknowledge in the report that, while 

federal agencies have taken many different climate change adaptation 

actions, we focused on those actions that we determined were most 

relevant to the field location we visited at each agency. We also received 

technical comments from the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and 

the Interior, which we incorporated as appropriate. 

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Anne-Marie Fennell

Director, Natural Resources and Environment
Appendix I: Comments from the 

Department of Agriculture

Page 68 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Appendix I: Comments from the 

Department of Agriculture
Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 69 GAO-13-253 Climate Change Adaptation

Anne-Marie Fennell, (202) 512-3841 or fennella@gao.gov

In addition to the individual named above, Stephen Secrist, Assistant 

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contributions to this report. Candace Carpenter; Brad Dobbins; Armetha 

Liles; and Janice Poling provided additional technical assistance.

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact 

Staff

Acknowledgments 

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