CLIMATE CHANGE

ADAPTATION PLAN

July 2022
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Message from NRCS Chief 3

Introduction 4

Climate Change Effects and 

Vulnerabilities 7

Climate Change Adaptation Actions 13

Cross-Cutting Adaptation Issues 

and Considerations 21

Table 1: NRCS Adaptation Actions To 

Address Climate Change 23

Acronym Definitions 33
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MESSAGE FROM NRCS CHIEF

Dear Reader, 

At NRCS, we have a long history of working with farmers, ranchers and 

landowners to identify and address the natural resource challenges they face. 

From controlling soil erosion to improving water and air quality, our agency 

was founded on helping people help the land through locally led conservation 

that leverages the passion and commitment of agricultural producers. We 

use the best available science and a comprehensive conservation planning 

process to provide producers with technical and financial assistance to 

meet their objectives. For nearly 90 years, we have continued to fulfill this 

conservation legacy, all while adapting to changing concerns and taking 

on new responsibilities to address current and future challenges.

Climate change is altering our Nation’s agricultural landscape as we know it, 

presenting new challenges and opportunities. In working one-on-one with 

America’s producers, we know that they are on the frontlines of climate 

change, experiencing impacts such as increased and more intense droughts 

and floods, as well as shifting weather patterns and growing seasons. These 

impacts threaten production as well as conservation efforts. More than ever, 

planning and decision-making need to account for the impacts of climate 

change, and we have a responsibility to provide relevant information, tools, 

resources, and assistance to support producers in these endeavors.

This Adaptation Plan lays out a framework for how we will continue to build 

on our expertise and ensure our tools and programs meet the demands of 

this changing agricultural landscape. It serves as a starting point for our 

National, State and local staff, together with partners and communities, to 

further develop necessary actions based on local impacts, experiences, and 

knowledge. But this is just the beginning. We know that we must continuously 

improve our programs and services to ensure we’re giving farmers, ranchers 

and landowners the best tools possible to conserve our natural resources. 

Together, we can lead the way with conservation solutions that improve the 

resilience, health, productivity, and profitability of the Nation’s agricultural 

operations, while also addressing the impacts and root causes of climate change. 

Recognizing the urgency of the climate crisis, one of our top agency priorities 

this year is increasing assistance for climate-smart agriculture and forestry, 

including and alongside our commitment to ensure equity throughout program 

and service delivery as well as serve urban agricultural communities. These 

priorities will be integrated into all the work we do at NRCS to ensure the 

long-term sustainability and productivity of our Nation’s natural resources. 

As we adapt to the demands of a changing climate, our mission to 

deliver conservation solutions will remain steadfast. In the months 

and years ahead, NRCS will continue to serve as a leader, using the 

best science, research, and conservation tools to assist producers 

and address climate change, while we do our part to support 

healthy landscapes and communities for generations to come. 

“Together, we 

can lead the way 

with conservation 

solutions that 

improve the 

resilience, health, 

productivity, and 

profitability of the 

Nation’s agricultural 

operations, while 

also addressing 

the impacts and 

root causes of 

climate change. ”

Terry Cosby

NRCS Chief
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INTRODUCTION

The Natural Resources Conservation Service 

(NRCS) is the primary Federal conservation agency 

working cooperatively on private lands to preserve 

and enhance our Nation’s natural resources. 

More than 70% of the land surface in the 

United States is privately owned. NRCS’s 

mission is to deliver conservation solutions 

so agriculture producers can protect 

natural resources and feed a growing 

world. The agency’s vision is a world of 

clean and abundant water, healthy soils, 

resilient landscapes, and thriving agriculture 

communities through voluntary conservation.

NRCS helps farmers, ranchers, and forest 

landowners, and the communities in which they live, 

improve the long-term viability of their operations 

while protecting our natural resources.

The anticipated impacts of climate change will create both 

challenges and opportunities for NRCS and the clients 

and communities it serves. NRCS is committed to helping 

clients identify and implement the actions needed to 

adapt and become more resilient in the face of climate 

change. NRCS has a history of changing our operations 

to address emerging needs based on the best available 

science. The challenges and opportunities presented by 

climate change are no different. NRCS continues to work 

with diverse partners to implement locally led strategies 

to address soil degradation, landscape instability, 

extreme weather and climate events, increasing climate 

variability, natural disasters, and other issues. Through 

the expansion of current activities and the development 

and implementation of innovative science, programs, 

activities, and practices, NRCS will continue to assist 

clients in identifying and applying contextually appropriate 

solutions to adapt to climate change and develop more 

resilient ecosystems. NRCS also will continue to build 

on existing and expanded activities that will enable 

clients to contribute to mitigation strategies that reduce 

present and future atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) 

concentrations. Providing clients with the information, 

recommendations, and assistance they need to address 

climate change represents a significant expansion of 

NRCS activities. As a consequence, this work will require 

substantial NRCS investments over the next decade.

A steering team, comprised of experts from across the 

agency, was assembled to review the agency’s 2014 

Climate Change Adaptation Plan and provide an updated 

assessment and recommendations for the agency. This 

effort builds upon earlier policy and strategic efforts 

to identify climate vulnerabilities and define necessary 

action that began more than a decade ago. This 2022 

Climate Change Adaptation Plan (“Adaptation Plan”) 

includes an evaluation of current vulnerabilities to 

NRCS’s mission, operation, and infrastructure that 

may be affected by climate change impacts, as well 

as actions to address these vulnerabilities. The 2022 

steering team assembled seven sub-teams focusing 

on each identified vulnerability. These teams included 

NRCS staff from deputy areas, divisions, centers, states 

offices, and Climate Hubs. The plan highlights seven areas 

identified as key agency vulnerabilities. It also includes 

a list of prioritized actions that can be taken to address 

the agency vulnerabilities. The details of the resulting 

plan are organized by the following action areas: 
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7 

ACTION 

AREAS

Increase climate literacy 

and staffing capacity to 

deliver assistance that is 

reflective of climate change 

Enhance science, research, 

and data for understanding, 

measuring, and tracking climaterelated impacts and outcomes 

Integrate climate information 

into current business 

procedures, assessments, 

and opportunities

Ensure current and future 

applied conservation 

investments are reflective 

of climate change needs

Assess and address 

disproportionate climate 

change impacts on 

vulnerable communities 

Strengthen partnerships 

and collaboration to 

address climate change

Address risks to agency 

infrastructure 

This Adaptation Plan serves as a framework for the 

key actions that NRCS will take to research, develop, 

implement, and finance climate change adaptation 

activities at the agency. These proposed actions will 

guide national, state, and local decision-making to 

further identify priorities, implement actions, and work 

with farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners as they 

voluntarily apply conservation on their operations. 

Furthermore, these actions will complement other ongoing 

and proposed work targeted specifically towards climate 

change mitigation activities that provide opportunities to 

voluntarily reduce GHG emissions and increase carbon 

sequestration, supporting USDA’s wider climate-smart 

agriculture and forestry strategy as outlined initially in the 

USDA Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry Strategy: 

90 Day Progress Report. The framework also complements 

other Department-wide efforts to increase resilience 

across the sector, including options proposed within the 

USDA Agri-Food Supply Chain Assessment: Program and 

Policy Options for Strengthening Resilience. Many of the 

actions in this plan encompass changes to overarching 

NRCS operations and procedures to better respond 
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to and incorporate climate change information, which 

support climate change mitigation as well as adaptation 

and resilience. Given the significant overlap that targeted 

climate investments provide for both mitigation and 

adaptation, implementation of this Adaptation Plan will 

support both critical efforts. As one of NRCS’s identified 

priorities for FY22, targeting assistance for climatesmart agriculture and forestry to support producers in 

mitigating climate change and building resilience across 

their operations is an important focus area for the agency, 

alongside ensuring equity throughout NRCS programs 

services, supporting urban farmers and communities, 

and other FY22 priorities. All this work will contribute 

to the vision and goals laid out in USDA’s Strategic Plan 

Fiscal Years 2022-2026, in particular Strategic Goal 

1 to Combat Climate Change to Support America’s 

Working Lands, Natural Resources, and Communities. 

Over the coming decades, NRCS technical and financial 

assistance will help transform vulnerable working 

lands to more healthy and resilient landscapes. NRCS 

is committed to being inclusive and equitable while 

delivering assistance to address current and emerging 

issues and natural resource concerns ranging from longstanding priorities such as soil erosion, water quality, 

air quality, and soil health to emerging issues such as 

pollinator habitat and invasive species control. NRCS 

strives to equitably serves farmers, ranchers, forest 

landowners and communities of all sizes, including Tribes 

and historically underserved populations, to help them 

manage their lands in ways that are more adaptable 

and resilient to future environmental changes. 
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CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS AND VULNERABILITIES

Key climate change impacts 

on agriculture and natural 

resources

The effects of climate change on agriculture and natural 

resources are already apparent in the United States 

and throughout the world. These impacts to food, 

fuel, and fiber production, wildlife habitat, pollinators, 

native species composition, acceleration of invasive 

species establishment and proliferation, and wider 

ecosystem services are projected to increase. The 

Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) identified 

many examples of likely climate change impacts on 

agriculture and natural resources. These include:

` Food and forage productivity decline in many regions 

experiencing temperature and moisture stress 

and more frequent and longer drought periods.

` Temperature and rainfall driven shifts in cropping and 

grazing systems to less-ideal areas for production 

where more inputs (e.g., irrigation, fertilizer, 

lime) are needed to maintain productivity.

` Increased risk of pest and disease pressure 

due to plant stress and the spread of 

invasive species into new areas.

` Increased risk of degradation of soil and 

water resources due to excessive runoff and 

associated erosion from more frequent and 

larger extreme events (e.g., floods, hurricanes).

` Increased challenges to maintaining livestock health 

and productivity under increased heat and potential 

water stress; and

` Increased occurrence and spread of wildfire 

driven by shifting precipitation frequency 

and patterns as well as species changes.

These largely physical and biological issues are 

compounded by economic and social issues faced by 

many of our clients and potential clients. Far too many 

individuals, families, and communities, especially 

members of historically underserved and vulnerable 

communities, have limited capacity to respond to climate 

change impacts due to poverty and resource limitations. 

In addition, community and individual infrastructure 

including communications, transportation, water, and 

sanitary facilities are vulnerable to climate-change 

related disruptions, especially extreme weather events. 

These broad national trends—both the physical and 

biological issues, as well as the economic and social issues—

were consolidated into four key vulnerabilities in the USDA 

Action Plan for Climate Adaptation and Resilience (2021):

` Decreased agriculture productivity

` Threats to water quality and quantity

` Disproportionate impacts on vulnerable communities

` Shocks due to extreme climate events

As the USDA agency charged with assisting farmers, 

ranchers, and forest landowners in addressing natural 

resource concerns on their properties to ensure the 

development and maintenance of resilient, productive, 

and sustainable managements systems, NRCS is already 

addressing these key risks. The agency remains committed 

to broadening and deepening the wide range of its work 

and services, including its technical and financial assistance 

programs and opportunities, to address and account for 

climate change through the actions described in this plan. 
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Vulnerabilities to NRCS 

Mission and Operations 

The impacts described above will affect farmers, 

ranchers, and forest landowners in different ways, 

depending on their local contexts, the impacts and 

stressors experienced and anticipated, and their 

existing capacities to respond. NRCS’s approach to 

addressing climate change must be flexible to cover this 

wide range of impacts and accommodate a variety of 

adaptation options and strategies. Rather than focus on 

vulnerabilities tied to specific climate change impacts 

and hazards, NRCS assessed how delivering its mission 

could be impacted by a variety of climate change impacts 

and how it could be improved by institutionalizing 

climate change data and information into everyday 

business processes across its deputy areas. NRCS 

identified seven key climate change vulnerabilities 

needing to be addressed to prepare the agency to 

effectively and appropriately continue delivering on its 

mission. Addressing these fundamental vulnerabilities 

will enable NRCS to in turn better support clients and 

communities in adapting and building their resilience 

to the specific climate change impacts they may face.

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VULNERABILITIES

Climate change preparedness 

depends on a climate literate 

and capable workforce

The pace and intensity of 

climate change impacts may 

exceed existing conservation 

science, knowledge, 

and data systems

Shifting climate trends and 

increasing variability require 

nimble and comprehensive 

business processes that support 

adaptive conservation

Climate change impacts 

threaten the viability 

and longevity of current 

and future applied 

conservation investments

Climate change 

disproportionately impacts 

vulnerable communities 

The scale and complexity of 

climate change demands broad 

and diverse partnerships 

Increasing frequency, severity, 

and extent of disturbances 

pose risks to current 

agency infrastructure
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Vulnerability 1: Climate 

change preparedness 

depends on a climate literate 

and capable workforce

With over 9,000 staff at approximately 3,000 field offices 

and centers across the country and territories, NRCS 

risks the effectiveness of its operations if its employees 

are not climate literate. NRCS identifies the need to 

continually provide training and education to keep up 

with the latest climate science and to accommodate new 

hires. Staff education is essential to providing technical 

assistance and conservation planning that plans for a 

spectrum of future conditions and not just historical 

averages. Furthermore, because climate change impacts 

vary at regional to local scales, there is a strong need to 

build climate literacy at all levels of the agency, from field 

offices to national headquarters. Because NRCS provides 

one-on-one help to clients to evaluate and communicate 

risks on individual operations, it is imperative that every 

planner, and not just a limited number of agency experts, 

be knowledgeable about climate change impacts.

In addition to understanding the climate science and 

regional impacts, staff need to be trained in the use of 

planning tools that help them incorporate potential 

climate change impacts in their discussions and 

recommendations to clients. Staff need to build skills to 

help them communicate climate change risks to clients and 

to promote actions that will increase the resilience of their 

operations. Staff also need to be well versed on the range 

of opportunities, assistance, and resources NRCS has to 

offer to help clients address these impacts and implement 

climate solutions on their operations. Without increased 

climate literacy, conservation planning accounting for 

climate impacts is likely to be sporadic and less effective, 

and key tools and resources will remain underutilized. 

To meet these needs, NRCS must expand its methods of 

educating staff about global climate change and localized 

impacts through providing a variety of learning options 

that account for differences in access to materials, time 

availability, and learning styles. Training also must be 

equally accessible to all employees. This is necessary 

to account for the fact that people learn differently, 

have various needs and available time, and require 

different levels of knowledge for different positions.

Vulnerability 2: The pace 

and intensity of climate 

change impacts may exceed 

existing conservation science, 

knowledge, and data systems

As a science-based agency, another major vulnerability 

that NRCS faces is the increased need for improved and 

up-to-date science, research, and data for understanding, 

measuring, and tracking climate-related impacts and 

outcomes. Risks within this broader vulnerability include 

the inadequate management of climate information 

such that it is not available to inform conservation 

planning and other core agency business processes; 

changes in natural and managed environments that 

have not been seen before (sometimes called “novel 

ecosystems”) that require the development of new 

conservation guidance and tools beyond current 

processes; and knowledge gaps which continue to make 

it difficult to connect and coordinate voluntary field- and 

farm-scale actions to regional priorities and plans. 

Although NRCS’s current operations and procedures 

aim to incorporate the most recent science related to 

the natural resources impacted by—and impacting—

agricultural operations, NRCS currently lacks a systematic 

way to organize, analyze, synthesize, and curate climate 

information and relevant research at scales appropriate 

to our agency’s field and landscape level conservation 

planning model. Despite the amount of climate information 

available, individuals are often unable to determine 

the imminent climate change threats for a particular 

operation, especially when climate change information is 

provided at the regional scale, as it often is. Thus, there 

is a need to improve field-level data collection related 

to climate change impacts to better understand local 

impacts, support planning, and continue to refine model 

estimates. In addition, the emergence of novel ecosystems 

will present new challenges for how NRCS considers and 

plans for present and future conditions. Climate change, 

along with other ecosystem change driving forces, is 

creating novel agroecosystems that will require new 

conservation systems to stabilize and maintain them 

and the ecosystem services they provide. NRCS needs 

to actively address these issues to ensure that staff can 

provide the best possible information to our clients. 
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NRCS remains committed to the locally led conservation 

model that has served the agricultural community well for 

nearly 100 years. This will be a critical component to our 

ability to help farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners 

face globally known, but locally emerging issues, such as 

impacts to crops and grasslands from expanded ranges 

and impacts of invasive species or “ghost forests” resulting 

from sea level rise. The multiple-scale impacts of climate 

change, from site-specific to global, present a challenge 

for NRCS. As climate change accelerates, cumulative 

effects on ecosystem level processes are resulting in 

demonstrable large-scale opposing trends, especially in 

areas such as arid rangelands. In some cases, successful 

efforts to address the impacts of climate change will 

require coordination across multiple clients and multiple 

local jurisdictions. This presents challenges for local, 

state, and national staff and program managers. 

NRCS takes a multi-scalar approach in several aspects of its 

work, communication structure, and organizing principles 

including through area-wide planning, targeted initiatives, 

and a distributed agency structure that consistently relays 

information between states, regions, centers, and national 

headquarters. Nonetheless, many current NRCS processes 

often do not always connect or articulate national or 

regional conservation priorities and needs to local 

activities, nor do they clearly describe how local activities 

and outcomes can be scaled-up to capture and project 

regional impacts. Improving these existing processes to 

better link field scale actions to landscape and regional 

outcomes will require up-to-date soil and landscape 

properties data, assessment, monitoring, and modelling 

at multiple geographic and temporal scales. The demand 

for these data and information products from a range of 

internal and external clients will also likely increase across 

a variety of potential reporting and monitoring scenarios.

Vulnerability 3: Shifting climate 

trends and increasing variability 

require nimble and comprehensive 

business processes that support 

adaptive conservation

NRCS staff follow a set of core business procedures 

including assessments to ensure consistent 

implementation of the agency’s conservation planning 

mission. Most of the current business procedures and 

assessments do not fully integrate climate change and 

weather variability impacts. This poses a risk to the 

agency’s abilities to design and deliver assistance to 

clients. While Vulnerability 2 describes the need for 

continually updating and improving the underlying 

science and data that NRCS produces or works with, 

this vulnerability looks at the need to ensure that up-todate science is in turn incorporated appropriately into 

necessary business procedures that in turn support the 

agency’s program and assistance delivery. Procedures 

associated with the conservation planning process, 

including the identification and evaluation of natural 

resource concerns, comprise a fundamental piece of 

NRCS’s conservation model. NRCS has identified a 

need to institutionalize and integrate climate data into 

NRCS core planning procedures, assessments that 

inform priority setting, short and long-range planning, 

and financial assistance eligibility and ranking. 

NRCS also needs to improve its ability to quickly 

integrate the science of climate change into operational 

definitions and procedures including supporting 

documents such as handbooks, manuals, and technical 

guidance materials. Therefore, business processes 

need to be updated to efficiently and nimbly integrate 

emerging climate change science into the conservation 

planning process. Furthermore, NRCS assessments 

need to better assist landowners in making their 

operations adaptable and resilient to climate change. 

Capturing field level data on climate change impacts 

is needed so that NRCS planners can more effectively 

and efficiently evaluate the existing conditions and 

identify natural resource concerns, recommend and 

support the implementation of conservation practices, 

and monitor conservation practice effectiveness at the 

local level. In addition to improving the quality of the 

information and technical recommendations provided 

by staff, NRCS will continue to increase information on 

outcomes of implementing climate-smart agriculture and 

forestry (CSAF) practices. This will facilitate informed 

decisions on the cost and benefits of implementing these 

practices. Data and research created or used by NRCS 

must meet the highest standard for scientific integrity.

Vulnerability 4: Climate 

change impacts threaten 

the viability and longevity of 

current and future applied 

conservation investments

In addition to risks associated with not fully incorporating 

climate information into current business tools and 

procedures, NRCS recognizes the need to also make 
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its current investments adaptive to climate change as 

well. This includes planned and implemented practices 

on private lands that must be flexible enough to meet 

local climate conditions and client needs, as well as longterm conservation easements that require flexibility to 

accommodate habitat loss, species shifts, and changing 

resource conditions due to climate change. Disaster 

programs such as the Emergency Watershed Protection 

(EWP) Program may need adjustments to better support 

innovative climate change resilient engineering solutions 

and pre-disaster preparedness in the face of increasingly 

frequent natural disaster events. Structures constructed 

through the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention 

Act (Public Law 566, PL-566) are experiencing challenges 

that may not have existed at the time of enrollment or 

construction. NRCS products, including conservation 

practice standards, technical directives, resource 

concern information sheets, and planning criteria, also 

will need to reflect current and anticipated conditions 

caused by climate change and provide the most upto-date science-based conservation information.

NRCS must also identify measurements of baseline 

conditions and success to understand how and where 

investments are proving useful in making clients more 

resilient to climate change. Unlike climate change 

mitigation, for which methods exist to quantifiably 

estimate the greenhouse gas emission reductions or 

carbon sequestration benefits associated with certain 

practice installations, climate change adaptation and 

resilience do not lend easily to the same type of benefits 

analysis. Measuring adaptation is challenging as outcomes 

may not be evident in the short-term, effects are 

influenced by a variety of interacting physical and social 

factors, and there is often a lack of consensus around goals, 

which are subject to change given changing conditions 

and are defined differently by various stakeholders. 

Evaluating the impact and success of investments that 

support adaptation will therefore require a unique 

approach involving the analysis of existing science and 

outcome procedures, through the lens of the resilience 

goals of a particular region. Defining and measuring these 

successes could provide an opportunity to more clearly 

attribute, quantitatively or qualitatively, adaptation 

outcomes to our conservation programs and practices. 

NRCS investments that address climate change must be 

dynamic and adaptive as local conditions change, whether 

the change happens gradually or catastrophically. Sea 

level rise, water availability, salinization of irrigated lands, 

changing habitat of threatened and endangered species, 

declines in pollinator availability, richness and diversity, and 

invasive species control are all examples of climate changerelated stressors that are now becoming challenges on 

lands and investments that NRCS provides assistance on or 

holds responsibilities over. Without action to acknowledge 

potential climate change impacts and add flexibilities 

to address them, current and future investments of the 

agency will not be suitable to endure the wide range of 

impacts expected to increase under climate change. 

Vulnerability 5: Climate change 

disproportionately impacts 

vulnerable communities

Vulnerable communities—including historically 

underserved, low-income, minority and rural populations 

as well as American Indians, Alaska Natives, and sovereign 

Tribal governments—are often subject to multiple, 

simultaneous stressors such as pollution, increased 

exposure to extreme weather events, poor air quality, 

environmental injustice, habitat fragmentation, and 

poverty. Because climate change can have a multiplier 

effect on these stressors it is necessary to assess impacts 

on these communities from a holistic perspective, with 

the aim to strengthen the weakest links first. Additional 

resources are needed to adequately address the 

composite threats faced by vulnerable communities and 

to assess tradeoffs among costs, benefits, and risks. 

For NRCS, these disproportionate impacts result in several 

areas where the agency needs to improve its operations 

and services to meet the needs of vulnerable communities. 

This includes the need to understand, strengthen, measure, 

and evaluate ecosystem services specific to vulnerable 

communities that protect livelihoods and to support 

food production and associated conservation activities. 

NRCS must be able to assess and tailor responses 

to extreme weather events specific to vulnerable 

communities, increase competencies of NRCS staff and 

clients on equity and environmental justice issues, and 

develop ways to meaningfully engage with vulnerable 

communities. Lastly, NRCS should increase technical 

and financial assistance for vulnerable communities. 

Several NRCS programs have special provisions or 

dedicated funding for historically underserved producers, 

who may be more vulnerable to impacts of climate 

change, alongside impacts of systemic discrimination 

and racial, economic, health and social disparities. 

Further integrating equity into existing program 

implementation, including how funding is provided, 
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will remove barriers to participation, establish trust, 

transparency, and accountability, identify opportunities 

for broader inclusivity, and better target education 

and outreach efforts. The risk of not accounting for the 

unique challenges faced by vulnerable communities 

may result in NRCS not being able to adequately 

diagnose natural resource concerns and implement 

conservation systems, and, in turn, to effectively 

serve its clients in improving their operations and 

contributing to thriving agriculture communities. 

Vulnerability 6: The scale 

and complexity of climate 

change demands broad and 

diverse partnerships

NRCS has a long and productive history of collaboration 

with a wide-ranging group of partner organizations 

to help accomplish core mission objectives. These 

partnerships begin with the foundational relationship 

between NRCS and the Soil and Water Conservation 

Districts, and have expanded to include federal, state, 

and local agencies, educational institutions, producer and 

commodity groups, and non-profit and for-profit entities 

who share a commitment to improving the management 

of natural resources on private lands through voluntary 

locally led actions. This diversity of partners working on 

projects and initiatives at multiple scales creates a core 

vulnerability related to climate change adaptation planning 

and implementation at national to local levels. Efforts 

to address climate change adaptation needs will only 

be successful if relationships with current partners are 

maintained and strengthened to build from areas of mutual 

agreement, if the information provided to clients by NRCS 

and our partners is consistent, and if NRCS continues 

to work with new partners as appropriate to reach 

new audiences including historically underserved and 

underrepresented individuals and vulnerable communities.

Vulnerability 7: Increasing 

frequency, severity, and extent 

of disturbances pose risks to 

current agency infrastructure

A key vulnerability for NRCS is the risks that increasing 

frequency and intensity of extreme weather events 

and other climate change impacts pose to current and 

future NRCS infrastructure. This infrastructure includes 

physical structures and facilities, communication systems, 

information technology (IT) systems and components, 

weather information gathering systems, watershed 

structures such as dams, and vehicles within the NRCS 

fleet. This also includes mission critical facilities, 

such as the Plant Materials Centers (PMC) and other 

sites with unique equipment and vehicle inventories. 

Much of the physical infrastructure will require a 

coordinated effort across other Farm Production and 

Conservation (FPAC) agencies, as well as coordination 

with partner organizations who share resources.
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CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION ACTIONS

For NRCS to address these vulnerabilities and better 

support clients and partners in adapting to the specific 

climate change impacts they are and will continue to face, 

the agency proposes a number of priority actions. These 

priority actions are organized around seven action areas 

that seek to address the seven identified vulnerabilities.

Action Area 1: Increase climate 

literacy and staffing capacity 

to deliver assistance that is 

reflective of climate change.

Vulnerability: Climate change preparedness depends 

on a climate literate and capable workforce

Key Actions 

` Establish a comprehensive Communications 

Strategy that evaluates audiences, prioritizes 

actions, and assesses performance. 

` Communicate with external clients to increase 

awareness of NRCS programs and services 

that support voluntary conservation efforts 

furthering climate-smart agriculture and 

forestry, and specifically those that build climate 

resilience, through targeted outreach. 

` Develop a training curriculum to ensure NRCS 

staff continue to enhance their expertise and 

incorporate connections to climate within their 

area of responsibility; and to increase all NRCS staff 

ability to articulate the nexus of all conservation 

activities and practices with climate change. 

` Develop a staffing plan to support climate 

change needs, including identifying future 

capacity and workload; recruitment, training 

and retention of diverse new staff; and internal 

and external staffing support options.

Building a workforce that is competent in understanding, 

communicating, and delivering assistance to address 

climate change will be key to the success of this entire plan. 

NRCS will take several actions to leverage the strengths 

of its staff to improve the organization’s climate literacy 

and capacity. First, together with the FPAC Mission Area, 

NRCS will establish a comprehensive Communications 

Strategy that evaluates audiences, prioritizes actions, 

and assesses performance. The outcomes of this strategy 

include that (a) NRCS employees at all levels (especially 

field staff) are aware of terminology, basic climate change 

information, and the most likely impacts to agriculture 

and natural resources for their region/state/field office, 

(b) NRCS employees are aware of and understand how 

to utilize the USDA data sources for their local outreach, 

(c) NRCS employees understand what they can do to 

assist clients to mitigate risks and become more resilient, 

and (d) NRCS employees are able to articulate climate 

change information with their local partners and clients. 

Building on and guided by the Communications 

Strategy, NRCS will communicate with external clients 

to increase awareness of NRCS programs and services 

that support voluntary conservation efforts furthering 

climate-smart agriculture and forestry, and specifically 

those that build climate resilience, across the nation’s 

working lands. This will include targeted outreach, 

both to clients and partner groups at the local level to 

better support equitable delivery of NRCS programs and 

services supporting climate solutions, with an emphasis 
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on reaching historically underserved producers.

NRCS is currently made up of a myriad of technical 

professionals with a depth of knowledge of natural 

resources conservation. A training curriculum will be 

developed to ensure that these experts continue to 

enhance their expertise and incorporate connections to 

climate change within their areas of responsibility. NRCS 

employees will be aware of essential principles of climate 

science, how to assess the applicability of climate science, 

updated on recent trends and the most likely impacts for 

their region/state/field office, and will understand how 

to effectively communicate about climate change and 

use knowledge to inform the planning process. This will 

include identifying which clients face the most risk and 

what NRCS can do to assist them. Through improved and 

increased training opportunities, courses, and accessible 

resources, NRCS will implement this curriculum to increase 

its staff’s ability to articulate the nexus of all conservation 

activities and practices with a changing climate.

Lastly, NRCS will develop a staffing plan to support 

its climate change work to ensure it has adequate 

and appropriate capacity for delivering high quality 

assistance to clients. This may include identifying future 

capacity and workload with consideration of climate 

change trends; recruitment, training and retention 

of diverse new staff, including technical discipline 

specialists and social scientists; and identifying 

internal and external staffing support options.

NRCS is already making initial strides in this action area. 

In 2021, NRCS, in partnership with the USDA Climate 

Hubs, began hosting a series of Climate Conversations 

across the country. These 1–2-hour training sessions are 

tailored to each state covering local climate changes and 

how climate-smart agriculture and forestry can help clients 

and partners adapt. Over the past year, trainings were 

given to 16 states and staff at the East National Technology 

Support Center and the Easements Program Division. 

NRCS has begun and continues to build out additional 

resources to be used for training and communication. 

Action Area 2: Enhance 

science, research, and data 

for understanding, organizing, 

measuring, and tracking climaterelated impacts and outcomes

Vulnerability: The pace and intensity of climate 

change impacts may exceed existing conservation 

science, knowledge, and data systems

Key Actions

` Improve climate information management, 

including capturing, organizing, and 

integrating climate information and relevant 

research at appropriate scales 

` Better understand and address novel ecosystems 

and emerging issues, including by integrating 

new technology, evaluating and targeting 

plant materials, and developing regional 

priorities for new conservation systems, with 

a concerted effort on at-risk ecosystems 

` Establish multi-disciplinary climate change 

technical expertise team and strategies to 

evaluate and determine climate change 

requirements and guidance for conservation 

planning, implementation, assessment, 

research/demonstration, and investments

` Maintain, strengthen, and enhance climate-related 

SWAPA+HE-associated databases, information 

platforms, and datasets (including soil and 

vegetative information), as well as ongoing data 

collection, measurement, and modeling efforts

Within this action area, NRCS will take several steps 

to enhance its science and data processes and assets, 

organized around four broad priority actions. The first is to 

improve climate change data and information management, 

including capturing, organizing, and integrating climate 

information and relevant research at appropriate 

scales. This may involve reviewing and improving data 

collection related to measurement of climate change 

impacts and outcomes, along with continued research 

to develop new ways of describing and integrating 

climate attributes. This will also include enhanced 

management of basic soil and vegetation information 

used by NRCS modeling efforts, as well as the basis for 

collaboration with other agencies and organizations.

NRCS will act to better understand and address novel 
15

ecosystems. As part of this action, NRCS will work with 

partners to identify threats and develop priorities at the 

regional level for the development and application of new 

multi-year conservation systems to address emerging 

novel ecosystems. NRCS’s Plant Materials Center program, 

which has developed its own Climate-Smart Agriculture 

Action Plan, will play a leading role in this action, including 

through its ongoing work to target conservation plant 

selection efforts to increase adaptability, document 

changes in the adaptation of conservation plants, provide 

guidance to conservation planners on appropriate 

plant materials as ecosystems change, and evaluate 

establishment technologies and management strategies 

for plant materials subject to climate change. 

The third broad action seeks to establish climate change 

technical expertise and strategies to evaluate and 

determine climate change requirements and guidance 

for conservation planning, implementation, assessment, 

research/demonstration, and investments. This will 

include assembling a national level multi-disciplinary 

climate change technical team that evaluates climaterelated requirements for the agency’s planning and 

delivery processes. The action will also include developing 

climate-smart research and demonstration strategies 

that identify knowledge gaps and on-farm research 

needs to help guide investments, including through the 

Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) 

and Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program. 

NRCS will maintain, strengthen, and enhance its climaterelated databases, as well as ongoing data collection, 

monitoring, measurement, and modeling efforts. NRCS 

manages a wide range of information platforms, datasets 

and databases, as well as data collection and modelling 

efforts. NRCS will continue to maintain and expand existing 

databases and information platforms, such as the National 

Soils Information System (NASIS), Ecosystem Dynamics 

Interpretive Tool (EDIT) and Plant List of Acceptable 

Nomenclature, Taxonomy and Synonyms (PLANTS), as 

well as ongoing data collection and inventory programs 

including the National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS), 

National Resources Inventory (NRI), Snow Survey and 

Water Supply Forecasts (SSWSF), the Soil Climate Analysis 

Network (SCAN), and the Tribal Soil Climate Analysis 

Network (TSCAN). These data collection activities and 

associated databases systems provide the fundamental, 

geo-referenced, soil, vegetation, and weather data and 

information needed to understand climate change impacts 

and develop responses. In addition, NRCS will expand 

existing efforts to support the collaborative improvement 

of current models and tools like the Conservation Effects 

Assessment Program (CEAP) and the CarbOn Management 

Evaluation Tool (COMET) and the development of new 

models based on rapidly emerging climate change science. 

As part of this action, NRCS will take steps to maintain the 

integrity of these programs and improve upon them where 

possible, including through periodically reviewing data 

needs to ensure necessary climate data are timely and up 

to date, and further developing methods for measuring 

and evaluating climate change adaptation benefits. 

NRCS will also build upon the ongoing Department-wide 

partnership to enhance and scale up soil carbon monitoring 

efforts, including through Conservation Evaluation and 

Monitoring Activities (CEMA), which will enable the 

agency to provide more and better data on the impacts 

of management practices on soil health properties, 

including those that may contribute to resilience. 

Action Area 3: Integrate 

climate information into 

current business procedures, 

assessments, and opportunities

Vulnerability: Shifting climate trends and 

increasing variability require nimble and 

comprehensive business processes 

Key Actions

` Identify and prioritize climate change-related 

resource concerns and provide climate-smart 

opportunities based on producer needs/desires/goals 

` Address existing gaps in NRCS assessments 

for evaluating climate change impacts, 

including through integration of climate trends 

information into conservation planning process 

and IT applications such as business tools. 

` Provide support to make climate-smart 

practices economically feasible for the 

producer in order to make their operation 

adaptable and resilient to climate change. 

Leveraging the science and expertise available internally 

and through partners, NRCS will take steps to integrate 

climate information fully into current business procedures 

and assessments. NRCS proposes to evaluate current 

natural resource concerns and how they may be impacted 

by stressors identified in the current National Climate 

Assessment. Through this evaluation and input from NRCS 

clients, partners, and the public, NRCS will identify gaps 

and capture new or emerging natural resource concerns. 
16

The results of the analysis and input will enable NRCS 

to prioritize opportunities and increase assistance for 

CSAF while meeting the needs of their clients, including 

through targeted program opportunities and initiatives. 

Key to NRCS’s mission is the three-phase, nine-step 

conservation planning process. The latest science and 

technology behind that process is critical to NRCS 

providing the best services and assistance to farmers, 

ranchers, and forest landowners and the lands they 

manage. Integrating precipitation, drought, wildfire, and 

wildlife resiliency evaluations that reflect current weather 

and climatic trends into business tools using geospatial 

data is a key piece in NRCS’s adaptation to changing 

conditions. This necessitates consistent understanding 

and application of weather and climatic trends NRCSwide so that strategies can be implemented that would 

include the review of existing natural resource concerns, 

how they are inventoried and evaluated, and how weather 

and climatic trends will impact natural resource concerns 

on various land uses in urban and rural landscapes.

NRCS is acutely aware that their client’s bottom line 

is critical to implementing climate-smart practices. 

NRCS will develop a process to assess and quantify 

economic impacts of conservation practices that 

support climate change adaptation, mitigation, or 

both. The assessment of these impacts will include 

specific conservation measures that are scalable at 

the practice, field, and farm level. Additionally, NRCS 

will identify economic constraints to climate-smart 

conservation measures that affect all communities, 

with special emphasis on vulnerable communities. 

NRCS has already begun work in this area, including 

initial work to correlate climate change stressors 

identified in the 4th National Climate Assessment with 

the agency’s identified natural resource concerns for 

conservation planning. NRCS has also initiated several 

targeted program opportunities such as the EQIP 

WaterSMART Initiative (WSI) in collaboration with 

the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) to help farmers and 

ranchers conserve water and build drought resilience in 

their communities, and the EQIP Conservation Incentive 

Contracts pilot targeted at drought-impacted states 

to help alleviate the immediate impacts of drought and 

other natural resource challenges on working lands.

Action Area 4: Ensure 

current and future applied 

conservation investments 

are reflective of climate 

change needs.

Vulnerability: Climate change impacts threaten 

the viability and longevity of current and 

future applied conservation investments.

Key Actions

` Increase the presence of climate change 

information in professional certifications and 

provide examples of applying climate change 

information to conservation planning on 

agricultural lands under a variety of scenarios. 

` Integrate the science and understandings of climate 

change impacts to agriculture into the discussions and 

framework of NRCS’s State Technical Committees.

` Clarify policies that serve to evaluate the benefits 

of a long-term investment to be sure that climate 

change impacts and opportunities are addressed 

in addition to traditional ecological benefits. 

` Maximize the impact of NRCS funding investments 

by identifying areas of need that overlap for 

the priorities of environmental justice, climate 

adaptation needs, and vulnerable populations.

` Maximize local flexibility for using Conservation 

Practices to address natural resource 

issues by sharing examples, integrating new 

technologies, and prioritizing national review 

of practices that will have the most impact 

helping producers adapt to climate changes. 

` Develop criteria and data that can be used to describe 

and evaluate the success of NRCS investments 

in supporting adaptation to the general public. 

To address the vulnerabilities associated with the exposure 

of NRCS’s current and future investments to climate 

change, several actions have been proposed. First is to 

increase the presence of climate change information 

in professional certifications and provide examples of 

applying climate change information to conservation 

planning on agricultural lands under a variety of scenarios. 

This may include examples where it is appropriate to use 

future conditions as the planning objective for programs 

such as restoring habitat in coastal wetlands or designing 
17

infrastructure to meet future hazards. NRCS also will 

seek to integrate the science and understandings of 

climate change impacts to agriculture into the discussions 

and framework of NRCS’s State Technical Committees 

and local work groups in a way that considers regional 

variation and agricultural production systems. 

NRCS will review and make necessary adjustments to 

policy as possible. This would aim to clarify policies that 

serve to evaluate the benefits of long-term investments 

to ensure that climate change impacts and opportunities 

are addressed in addition to traditional ecological benefits. 

This could include policy and guidance for stewardship 

of perpetual easements that includes an evaluation 

of local climate change impacts and projections. 

To maximize the impact of its funding investments, NRCS 

will identify opportunities to incorporate climate change 

data targeting adaptation and disaster response needs (e.g., 

drought) into annual allocation planning to better target 

funding nationwide. This will require identifying areas 

of need that overlap for the priorities of environmental 

justice, climate adaptation needs, and vulnerable 

populations to direct resources toward areas of greatest 

needs for natural resources, producers, and communities. 

Conservation practice standards, along with the 

conservation planning process, are the foundation of 

NRCS’s technical assistance program and are used by 

local, state, and Federal government agencies as well as 

by non-governmental organizations engaged in working 

lands conservation. To respond to climate change, NRCS 

will take actions to maximize local flexibility for using 

these practices to address natural resource issues. This 

will entail developing an “actual cost” database that can 

be used to provide more accurate and accessible cost 

estimates, developing additional practice implementation 

flexibility examples of how to use practice standard 

flexibilities to address adaptation needs and local 

variabilities, integrating new technologies, and prioritizing 

national review of practices that will have the greatest 

impact helping clients adapt to climate changes. This 

may include continued work to improve measurement of 

field level data and refining practice standards, practice 

implementation, and program outreach accordingly.

Lastly, NRCS will develop criteria and data that can be 

used to evaluate and communicate the success of NRCS 

investments in adapting to climate change. Ecological 

benefits from NRCS activities are complex and interact at 

a variety of scales, from farm to landscape. Defining where 

and how they are successful in the context of climate 

adaptation will require establishing baseline resource 

conditions and linking data and information in new ways, 

including across temporal and spatial scales. This work 

would complement NRCS’s ongoing efforts to evaluate 

the mitigation outcomes of its practices and investments.

NRCS has already begun making progress in this area 

through several initial steps. These include allocations 

conversations for climate mitigation that can be leveraged 

for climate adaptation and resilience, as well as ongoing 

work with the Easement Division to strengthen the 

narrative describing environmental benefits of the 

NRCS easement portfolio. NRCS also has ongoing work 

to incorporate geospatial climate change information, 

such as drought data, into planning and decision-making 

tools and dashboards. Additionally, with initial funding 

provided through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 

NRCS is working with local communities to invest in 

new dam and flood prevention projects and in repairs 

on existing watershed infrastructure through the 

Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations (WFPO) 

Program, Watershed Rehabilitation Program (REHAB) 

and Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) Program, 

with initial priority to communities heavily impacted by 

drought and other natural disasters as well as historically 

underserved and limited resource communities. 

Action Area 5: Assess and 

address disproportionate 

climate change 

impacts on vulnerable 

communities through 

intentional engagement, 

planning, and assistance

Vulnerability: Assess and address disproportionate 

climate change impacts on vulnerable communities 

through intentional engagement, planning, and assistance 

Key Actions

` Understand, strengthen, measure, and evaluate 

ecosystem services specific to vulnerable 

communities to protect livelihoods

` Support food production and associated 

conservation activities in vulnerable communities

` Assess and tailor responses to extreme weather 

events specific to vulnerable communities 

` Increase awareness, skills, and abilities of NRCS staff 

and clients on equity and environmental justice issues
18

` Ensure outreach and meaningful engagement 

with vulnerable communities and that 

recommendations they provide are used to 

update and revise policy where possible.

` Increase technical and financial assistance 

for vulnerable communities 

Climate change planning provides the opportunity to 

take immediate and long-term action to strengthen and 

build resilience in ecosystem services, food production, 

conservation, and emergency responses in the most 

vulnerable communities, who are often disproportionately 

impacted by climate change. These actions include 

understanding ecosystem services specific to vulnerable 

communities and assessing and developing responses 

that are tailored to the unique climate change impacts 

they are experiencing. Actions will also include supporting 

food production and associated conservation activities 

in these communities, including strengthened urban 

agriculture efforts. Increasing NRCS’s internal awareness, 

skills, and abilities on equity and environmental justice 

issues and ensuring outreach and meaningful engagement 

with vulnerable communities will be essential to the 

success of NRCS’s efforts in this area. This will include 

learning from traditional ecological knowledge and 

other experiences and conservation approaches unique 

to Tribes and other communities and integrating that 

learning into NRCS’s work. NRCS will also increase 

technical and financial assistance for vulnerable 

communities, integrating the feedback gained through 

engagement. Several actions in this area intentionally 

overlap with actions proposed in other areas because the 

needs of this vulnerability touch nearly every aspect of 

NRCS’s operations. As such, NRCS will work across the 

organization to ensure these actions are coordinated and 

implemented in collaborative and complementary ways. 

Within these broader actions, some proposed steps 

include creating direct and indirect connections between 

conservation practices and increased health benefits to 

promote urban and small-scale production for vulnerable 

communities. NRCS can support adaptation and mitigation 

actions for conservation practices and enhancements to 

maintain cultural food gathering traditions, which could 

be lost as a result of climate change. NRCS can also build 

upon needs already identified by vulnerable communities 

such as soil testing and soil remediation for urban and 

small-scale production and conservation. NRCS can 

collaborate with the US Forest Service’s Burned Area 

Emergency Response (BAER) teams to create multistate 

or multiarea teams to rapidly deploy to any community, 

including vulnerable communities. NRCS can also establish 

subcommittees as part of the State Technical Committees 

to focus on urban and vulnerable communities.

Work in this action area is already underway. In FY21, 

NRCS invested $50 million in 118 partnerships to expand 

access to conservation assistance for climate-smart 

agriculture and forestry. Through the Office of Urban 

Agriculture and Innovative Production, NRCS updated the 

evaluation criteria on its funding opportunities to include 

climate, equity, and environmental justice considerations. 

NRCS purchased multiple portable X-ray fluorescence 

devices to conduct technical soil services in urban areas 

for food production and conservation considerations and 

detailed soil survey data is currently available for urban 

areas, including the cities of Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, 

Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, San Jose, St. 

Louis, Washington, D.C., and surrounding suburban areas. 

In FY22, NRCS has taken several actions to advance equity 

and support historically underserved communities and 

areas. These actions include policy changes and waiver 

options to allow more overall flexibility in program 

implementation and to streamline application and 

contracting processes, including through Alternative 

Funding Arrangements for EQIP and CSP. NRCS has 

also taken steps to prioritize selection and funding of 

historically underserved applicants within its programs, 

including through the Wetland Reserve Enhancement 

Partnership program in which $17 million was obligated for 

four projects with specific ties to historically underserved 

communities in the first year. Lastly, NRCS has made 

additional improvements to better serve Limited English 

Proficient customers and address barriers and access to 

program information, including through the translation 

of critical contract and other key program documents.

Action Area 6: Strengthen 

partnerships and collaboration 

to address climate change

Vulnerability: The scale and complexity of climate 

change demands broad and diverse partnerships

Key Actions

` Increase familiarity with the state/local climate 

change “landscape” in order to design and 

implement more effective and efficient programs 

and facilitate improved, targeted, communication.
19

` Expand existing partnerships and build 

new and essential partnerships to integrate 

all aspects of socio-economic and natural 

resource considerations into the agencies 

approach to addressing climate change. 

NRCS will take several steps to ensure its partnerships, 

and the way it engages with them, are sufficient to 

meet the demands created by climate change. NRCS 

will work to become familiar with the local climate 

change “landscapes” of states and other partners to 

design and implement more effective and efficient 

programs that are responsive to climate change. This 

will also allow NRCS to facilitate improved, targeted 

communication with these partners. To do this, NRCS 

will work through its regional and state offices to build 

and strengthen partnerships with state, Tribal, and 

community partners to ensure strategies are locally led.

NRCS will prioritize the expansion of existing partnerships 

and building new and essential partnerships to integrate 

socio-economic and natural resource considerations 

into the agency’s approach to addressing climate 

change. This may include leveraging existing capacity 

and partners to engage with underserved and new 

partners and working to overcome potential language 

or cultural barriers with new partners. New or enhanced 

outreach and partnership efforts will seek to include 

climate messaging around the unique impacts of 

climate change on historically underserved producers, 

Tribes, and vulnerable communities. NRCS will also 

seek to incorporate climate change considerations into 

its work on all emerging efforts around other USDA 

priorities including equity and urban agriculture. 

In addition to these priority actions, NRCS also will work 

to maintain connections with and continue providing 

information and assistance to existing partners even 

if approaches, understanding, and priorities around 

climate change are not in complete alignment. NRCS will 

further coordinate with partners to reduce duplicative 

activities in order to allow for more actions and broaden 

the collective impact. As a leader on several interagency 

groups and coalitions, including the National Drought 

Resilience Partnership and the Coastal Resilience 

Interagency Working Group, NRCS will continue to 

work with other agencies and partners to ensure its 

climate change work is coordinated and strategically 

aligned with efforts across the federal government. 

Action Area 7: Address risks

to agency infrastructure

Vulnerability: Increasing frequency, severity, and extent of 

disturbances pose risks to current agency infrastructure

Key Actions

` Explore alternative communication systems 

to have multiple forms available.

` Ensure national and regional datasets used 

in identification and assessment of climate 

change impacts are protected from loss.

` Work with Homeland Security Division and FPACBC to ensure one FPAC resilience portfolio to 

provide a unified mission area framework for 

tracking, evaluating, and managing risks to facilities 

and accessibility, including via COOP plans.

` Increase resilience of data collection and monitoring 

sites through additional sites and various 

measurement sensors, enhanced equipment, and 

functional redundancy in physical IT infrastructure 

` Continually update DamWatch dam monitoring 

tool as new climate data becomes available 

and enable watershed project sponsors to 

monitor their small watershed dams

` Support fleet resilience through improved 

tracking of utilization standards, service center 

enhancements, use of mobile workstations, and 

improved fuel efficiency and procurement. 

Critical to NRCS’s continued effectiveness in responding to 

client conservation needs is the infrastructure necessary 

for a geographically diverse workforce. Whereas existing 

infrastructure may be taken for granted on a day-to-day 

basis, emergency circumstances tend to highlight how 

vulnerable they are, especially when needed to respond 

to those emergencies. Much of this infrastructure has 

shared needs by NRCS’s FPAC sister agencies (Farm 

Service Agency and Risk Management Agency), as well as 

partners, such as Soil and Water Conservation Districts.

Many of these recommendations will require a coordinated 

effort with Farm Service Agency, Risk Management 

Agency, FPAC Business Center, and Office of the Chief 

Information Officer, and may rely on guidance from 

the Office of Contracting and Procurement and Office 

of Property and Environmental Management, where 

applicable. Although NRCS recommends several actions 
20

in this area, they recognize that they may not be the lead 

implementing agency for several of these actions. NRCS 

will assist and participate in activities that would be more 

appropriately handled by the FPAC Business Center.

NRCS identified various aspects of infrastructure that 

need to adapt to reduce ongoing and future vulnerabilities 

caused by climate change. Paramount to this is the 

need to maintain communication. NRCS proposes to 

review and identify alternative communication methods, 

as well as systems where redundancy can support 

the maintenance of communication in the event of 

disruptions. For instance, if cellular communication is 

compromised, NRCS must ensure that staff can continue 

communications with higher authorities via other means. 

NRCS maintains many sources of data housed within IT 

systems, including geospatial data, tabular data used in 

calculations, and historical data used for soils databases, 

among others. Additionally, NRCS has agreements with 

entities outside of our current IT systems that may be the 

main repository for similar data. NRCS’s action here is 

twofold. Data, regardless of format, needs to be updated 

regularly to keep pace with climate change. For NRCS 

IT business tools to remain up to date, these data must 

also be updated by data stewards outside of NRCS. The 

second part of this is protection of the data such that if 

there are events that are local, regional, or national in 

scope, there is no loss of data. This will require internal 

updates and continued protections, as well as coordination 

with partners and other outside entities to make sure the 

same level of data protection is consistently applied.

NRCS proposes that physical structures, including 

offices and facilities such as PMC, be evaluated through 

a dashboard to identify vulnerabilities and what can be 

done to adapt. This will also include keeping an up-todate Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP). Currently, 

the COOP is required to be reviewed annually. NRCS 

recommends that sections of the COOP be identified 

that may need a more frequent cadence of review 

and update, such as points of contact. Like physical 

structures, vehicles are a large portion of NRCS’s property 

portfolio that can be improved upon. This may include 

purchase of alternative energy vehicles, and careful 

consideration of other forms of transportation such 

as all-terrain vehicles, boats, snowmachines, mobile 

workstations, and emergency backup generators.

NRCS provides leadership and management to the 

Snow Survey and Water Supply Forecasting Program 

(SSWSF) and the Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN) 

programs which provide data that is instrumental in 

predicting available water critical to drinking water 

supplies, irrigations of crops, and aquatic habitat 

resources, particularly to vulnerable communities. The 

current programs rely on a set of nationally dispersed 

monitoring stations. NRCS will work to maximize the 

utilization and capacity of these programs to address 

limitations in the number, distribution and functionality 

of sites as increasingly common extreme events (storms, 

floods, wildfires) damage monitoring stations. 

Lastly, NRCS monitors over 11,000 small dams 

across the United States using software called 

DamWatch. DamWatch is critical in ensuring 

communities remain safe during extreme events. 

NRCS is recommending the underlaying data, used 

within the DamWatch system, is updated regularly as 

new weather and climate data becomes available.
21

CROSS-CUTTING ADAPTATION ISSUES 

AND CONSIDERATIONS

Environmental Justice 

Pursuing equity and environmental justice is paramount at 

NRCS. As such, NRCS is currently developing an agencywide Equity Plan making equity and environmental justice 

awareness mainstream across the agency and hiring staff 

that reflects the diversity of the communities the agency 

serves, including vulnerable communities. The Equity Plan 

will include building upon certified training programs to 

include the intersections between climate, equity, and 

environmental justice. It will also entail creating partner 

and stakeholder awareness of a clear and consistent 

vision of racial equity and inclusion in programs. 

In line with this agency priority, equity and environmental 

justice were considered and embedded throughout this 

entire plan. Disproportionate impacts on vulnerable 

communities were elevated as its own vulnerability and 

action area, with several corresponding actions to explicitly 

address the identified challenges and risks to vulnerability 

communities. Each of the other action areas also include 

activities that specifically target vulnerable communities, 

including historically underserved groups and urban 

settings. Actions within this plan will also support and be 

in alignment with NRCS’s contributions to the Justice40 

Initiative, a whole-of-government effort to deliver at least 

40 percent of the overall benefits from Federal investments 

in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities.

Workforce Climate Literacy

Workforce climate literacy is a key priority for NRCS 

and is highlighted as its own agency vulnerability with 

several identified actions. Adequate climate literacy and 

capacity among staff underpins much of the work of this 

plan and is essential to many of the identified actions. 

NRCS continues to build out actions to ensure its staff 

have the training, education, and resources to effectively 

meet the climate-related needs while working together 

with the Department to provide additional opportunities 

related to shared climate literacy needs across agencies. 

USDA Climate Hubs

Since their inception in 2014, the USDA Climate Hubs 

(Hubs) have developed and delivered science-based, 

region-specific information and tools that support 

climate-smart agriculture and forestry, including 

adaptation and mitigation efforts. The ten Regional 

Hubs are a unique interagency program leveraging the 

best science and resources across USDA and providing 

usable resources to American farmers, ranchers, forest 

landowners, land managers, and rural communities in 

preparing for and responding to climate-related risks 

and vulnerabilities. In addition, Hubs serve as a central 

source of connection, communication, information, tools, 

applied climate and weather-related information and 

technical assistance helping farmers, ranchers, forest 

managers, land operators and rural communities.

NRCS is named as one of the three co-lead agencies for the 

Hubs in the original charter. Although NRCS is not the lead 

administrative agency for any of the Hubs, the agency has 

maintained close connections with the Hubs and continues 

to be involved in all aspects of Hub governance and to 

support the collaborative development and dissemination 

of climate-related information and resources. 
22

NRCS support and collaboration with 

the Climate Hubs

NRCS supports Climate Hubs through many means. 

NRCS provides support through representation on the 

Climate Hubs Executive Committee. There is also an 

NRCS national representative to the Climate Hubs who 

works collaboratively with the Climate Hubs National 

Lead and representatives from ARS and USFS to provide 

national-level coordination of Hub activities. Select NRCS 

senior technical staff are designated as co-leads for each 

Regional Hub and members of the Regional Hub governing 

board. Some NRCS staff are assigned to a specific Hub 

or multiple Hubs on one-year details to conduct specific 

projects of mutual interest to the Agency and the 

Climate Hubs. A total of eighteen staff members have 

participated in this program since its inception in 2016.

NRCS has contributed direct financial support for 

Hub operations since the creation of the Hubs. 

NRCS has provided funding to the Hubs for projects 

that provide information, resources and tools 

that support NRCS priority needs. In FY21, NRCS 

provided a total of $550,000 for five projects. 

NRCS has partnered with the Hubs on several 

recent projects that support NRCS’s efforts 

around climate change adaptation, including: 

` Adaptation Resources for Agriculture and 

the Climate Adaptation Workbook

` Training materials for employees related to 

climate change (these are currently being updated 

to reflect the best available information and 

current Agency and Departmental Priorities)

` Climate Conversations: short (1-1.5 hour) meetings 

that provide high-level climate information (USDA 

approved sources) focused on Resiliency/Adaptation. 

` Identification, Mitigation, and Adaptation 

to Salinization on Working Lands in the U. S. 

Southeast (Manual for producers developed by 

the SE Hub, NRCS detailees were co-authors)

` Irrigation Pays in Protecting Crop Revenues 

(NE Climate Hub case study)

` Southern Plains Podcast providing timely 

information to landowners and other interested 

groups and individuals (https://www.climatehubs.

usda.gov/hubs/topic/southern-plains-podcast)

NRCS will continue to seek ways to leverage and 

contribute to the Hubs to advance its climate change 

work, including several actions outlined in this plan such 

as providing additional resources for climate literacy, 

providing updates to certifications and curriculum, 

identifying and communicating appropriate science, 

and supporting expansions of partnerships. 
23

TABLE 1: NRCS ADAPTATION ACTIONS TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE

VULNERABILITY ACTION TITLE/

DESCRIPTION

TYPE OF 

ACTIVITY

LEAD OFFICE TIMEFRAME COORDINATION PROGRESS METRICS ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

TO DATE

Vulnerability 1: 

Climate change 

preparedness 

depends on a climate 

literate and capable 

workforce

Establish a 

comprehensive 

Communications Strategy 

that evaluates audiences, 

prioritizes actions, and 

assesses performance.

Proposed 

and 

ongoing

Agency Climate 

Lead, All 

Deputy Areas, 

FPAC-BC 

Communications

2022 and 

continuous

All agency wide, 

with partnerships, 

cross walked 

with other USDA 

agencies,

Plan Developed, 

Action Items to be 

tracked

Strategy has been 

developed and will be 

continuously reviewed 

and improved

Communicate with 

external clients to 

increase awareness of 

NRCS programs and 

services that support 

voluntary conservation 

efforts furthering climatesmart agriculture and 

forestry, and specifically 

those that build climate 

resilience, including 

through targeted 

outreach

Proposed 

and 

ongoing

Agency Climate 

Lead, All Deputy 

Areas and RC's, 

FPAC-BC 

Communications

2022 and 

continuous

All agency wide, 

with partnerships, 

cross walked 

with other USDA 

agencies

Communications 

toolkit will be 

developed and 

utilized by Sr. Leaders, 

STC and all NRCS 

Employees. 

Farmers.Gov will 

include climate 

adaptation and 

resilience information 

Toolkit in progress

Develop training 

curriculum to ensure 

NRCS staff continue to 

enhance their expertise 

and incorporate 

connections to climate 

within their area of 

responsibility; and to 

increase all NRCS staff 

ability to articulate the 

nexus of all conservation 

activities and practices 

with climate change.

Proposed 

and 

ongoing

Agency Climate 

Lead, All 

Deputy Areas, 

RC's

2022 with 

expansion in 

2023-2025

USDA-NRCS 

Deputy areas, 

SSRA, S&T and 

RC’s office; All 

agency wide, with 

partnerships, cross 

walked with other 

USDA agencies

Training plan will 

be developed, and 

training reviewed 

and updated. NRCS 

will collaborate 

with Climate Hubs 

on existing Climate 

information

Climate Hubs have 

already developed 

Climate Conversations. 

NRCS has delivered to 

multiple states
24

VULNERABILITY ACTION TITLE/

DESCRIPTION

TYPE OF 

ACTIVITY

LEAD OFFICE TIMEFRAME COORDINATION PROGRESS METRICS ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

TO DATE

Vulnerability 1: 

Climate change 

preparedness 

depends on a climate 

literate and capable 

workforce

Develop a staffing plan to 

support climate change 

needs, including identifying 

future capacity and 

workload; recruitment, 

training and retention 

of diverse new staff; and 

internal and external 

staffing support options.

Proposed Agency Climate 

Lead, All 

Deputy Areas, 

FPAC-BC 

Communications

2023 with 

action in 

2023-2025

USDA-NRCS Deputy 

areas, SSRA, S&T 

and RC’s office; All 

agency wide, with 

partnerships, cross 

walked with other 

USDA agencies

Staffing plan to be

Developed September 

1, 2023

Existing staffing plan 

team may be leveraged 

for this action

Vulnerability 2: The 

pace and intensity 

of climate change 

impacts may exceed 

existing conservation 

science, knowledge, 

and data systems

Improve climate 

information management, 

including capturing, 

organizing, and integrating 

climate information and 

relevant research at 

appropriate scales

Ongoing 

and 

proposed

SSRA, S&T (NDLs 

in particular), 

CPPD (Programs 

and Planning in 

particular)

Begin in 

FY22/23 and 

then ongoing

Climate Hubs, REE 

(especially ARS); 

DOI (USGS, BLM, 

FWS), NOAA, DOE, 

EPA

Various, including 

emerging issues 

identified; literature 

reviews conducted, 

datasets and practices 

reviewed, geographic 

coverage evaluated

Initial work has begun 

through Climate 

Stressors and Climate 

Resilience Quick 

Reference projects, as 

well as existing Edge 

of field monitoring 

activities and revised 

Conservation Evaluation 

and Monitoring 

Activities

Better understand and 

address novel ecosystems, 

including by integrating 

new technology, evaluating 

and targeting plant 

materials, and developing 

regional priorities for new 

conservation systems, with 

a concerted effort on atrisk ecosystems

Ongoing 

and 

proposed

SSRA, S&T 

(including PMC in 

particular), CPPD

Some actions 

have already 

begun but will 

be accelerate 

and updated 

in FY22/23; 

Others begin 

FY22/FY23, 

and then 

ongoing

Climate Hubs, REE 

(especially ARS), 

USFS; DOI (USGS, 

BLM, FWS), NOAA

Reginal threats and 

priorities identified, 

new conservation 

plants released, and 

state needs completed 

via PMC needs 

assessment process

PMCs have long history 

of selecting conservation 

plants for unique 

environments, including 

those that may support 

adaptation

Establish multi-disciplinary 

climate change technical 

expertise team and 

strategies to evaluate 

and determine climate 

requirements and 

guidance for conservation 

planning, implementation, 

assessment, research/

demonstration, and 

investments

Proposed SSRA, S&T, 

CPPD (including 

Projects branch in 

particular)

FY22-23 REE Establishment of 

technical team and 

strategic plans; 

partnerships and 

projects supported 

with CSAF focus and 

outcomes and dollars 

invested

Cross-agency 

consultation for CIG 

climate priorities has 

begun.
25

VULNERABILITY ACTION TITLE/

DESCRIPTION

TYPE OF 

ACTIVITY

LEAD OFFICE TIMEFRAME COORDINATION PROGRESS METRICS ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

TO DATE

Vulnerability 2: The 

pace and intensity 

of climate change 

impacts may exceed 

existing conservation 

science, knowledge, 

and data systems

Maintain, strengthen, and 

enhance climate-related 

SWAPA+HE-associated 

databases, information 

platforms, and datasets 

(including soil and 

vegetative information), 

as well as ongoing data 

collection, measurement, 

and modeling efforts

Ongoing 

and 

proposed

SSRA, S&T, CPPD Begin in 

FY22-24 then 

ongoing

OEEP and REE 

(especially ERS) for 

some actions

Periodic review 

of programs and 

databases; adaptation 

benefit method 

developed, and benefits 

captured

Ongoing effort

Vulnerability 3: 

Shifting climate 

trends and 

increasing variability 

require nimble and 

comprehensive 

business 

processes that 

support adaptive 

conservation

Identify and prioritize 

climate change-related 

resource concerns and 

provide climate-smart 

opportunities based on 

producer needs/desires/

goals

Ongoing 

and 

Proposed 

(with 

additional 

resources)

CPTAD, SSRA, 

S&T

2022-2024, 

then ongoing 

with certain 

steps tied to 

NCA releases

Climate Hubs, 

ARS; NOAA, 

NWS, and other 

Federal agencies 

contributing 

to NCA, NRCS 

Partners including 

Local Work Groups 

and State Technical 

Guide Committee

Climate stressors 

identified and 

correlated with NRCS 

resource concerns; 

Number of engagement 

opportunities 

completed; 

Updates to planning 

implementation and 

processes have been 

made

Initial review of 4th NCA 

was done to correlate 

stressors to NRCS 

resource concerns.

Address existing gaps in 

NRCS assessments for 

evaluating climate change 

impacts, including through 

integration of climate 

trends information into 

planning process and 

IT applications such as 

business tools.

Some 

initial 

activities 

ongoing, 

but mostly 

proposed

CPTAD, 

S&T (NDLs, 

Economists), 

SSRA (RIAD)

2022-2024, 

then ongoing

Climate Hubs, 

USFS, ERS, RMA, 

NASS; Land Grant 

Universities, NOAA, 

NWS, DOI, FWS, 

Army Corps, and 

other agencies 

involved with 

environmental 

compliance, 

National 

Laboratories/

DOE, Tribes, Urban 

Centers

Assessment 

methodologies have 

been developed, 

evaluated and adapted; 

Number of trainings 

delivered; Planning 

process and related 

tools have been 

updated to incorporate 

identified data

Initial improvements 

have been made to the 

Conservation Practices 

Date Entry System to 

enable future CSAF 

modifications; Software 

development has begun 

to incorporate COMET 

into Conservation 

Assessment and Ranking 

Tool and Conservation 

Desktop
26

VULNERABILITY ACTION TITLE/

DESCRIPTION

TYPE OF 

ACTIVITY

LEAD OFFICE TIMEFRAME COORDINATION PROGRESS METRICS ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

TO DATE

Vulnerability 3: 

Shifting climate 

trends and 

increasing variability 

require nimble and 

comprehensive 

business 

processes that 

support adaptive 

conservation

Provide support to make 

climate-smart practices 

economically feasible 

for the producer in order 

to make their operation 

adaptable and resilient to 

climate change.

Ongoing 

and 

Proposed

CPTAD (inc. Local 

Conservation 

Planners and 

Trainers), S&T 

(inc. NDLs, 

Economists), 

M&S, 

Environmental 

Markets

2023-2024, 

then ongoing

Climate Hubs, USFS, 

ARS, ERS; Land 

Grant Universities, 

NOAA, NWS, 

DOI, FWS, Army 

Corps, and other 

agencies involved 

with environmental 

compliance, 

National 

Laboratories/

DOE, Tribes, Urban 

Centers

Processes or 

assessment 

methodologies have 

been developed; 

Number of trainings 

delivered at the field 

level

Initial long-term 

conservation practice 

effects have been 

evaluated in relation 

to Available Water 

Capacity, Carbon 

Storage, and Soil Organic 

Matter, which can inform 

economic analyses

Vulnerability 4: 

Climate change 

impacts threaten 

the viability and 

longevity of current 

and future applied 

conservation 

investments

Increase the presence 

of climate change 

information in professional 

certifications and provide 

examples of applying 

climate change information 

to conservation planning 

on agricultural lands under 

a variety of scenarios.

Proposed All Deputy Areas, 

with CPPD, S&T, 

SSRA in the lead 

for certain actions

1-5 years Climate Hubs, ARS 

and Forest Service; 

technical federal 

agencies including 

NOAA, NASA, 

USGS, EPA

Number of 

certifications/trainings/

planning scenarios 

developed or reviewed 

with current climate 

information and 

resources, percent 

completion of multiplebenefit (whole system) 

plans with long term 

scenarios that include 

environmental benefits 

for climate adaptation

Proposed action not yet 

initiated

Integrate the science 

and understandings of 

climate change impacts 

to agriculture into the 

discussions and framework 

of NRCS's State Technical 

Committees.

Proposed Regional 

Conservationists

1-2 years FSA, federal agency 

State Technical 

Committee 

members

Engagement with 

all states and needs 

assessed

Proposed action not yet 

initiated
27

VULNERABILITY ACTION TITLE/

DESCRIPTION

TYPE OF 

ACTIVITY

LEAD OFFICE TIMEFRAME COORDINATION PROGRESS METRICS ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

TO DATE

Vulnerability 4: 

Climate change 

impacts threaten 

the viability and 

longevity of current 

and future applied 

conservation 

investments

Clarify policies that serve 

to evaluate the benefits of 

a long-term investment to 

be sure that climate change 

impacts and opportunities 

are addressed in addition 

to traditional ecological 

benefits.

Proposed All Deputy Areas, 

with CPPD, S&T 

in the lead for 

certain actions

FY 22-FY23 ARS, FS as needed; 

coordination 

w/ federal land 

management 

agencies 

approach for local 

coordination as 

applicable.

Updates to all relevant 

policy will be completed

Proposed action not yet 

initiated

Maximize the impact of 

NRCS funding investments 

by identifying areas of 

need that overlap for the 

priorities of environmental 

justice, climate adaptation 

needs, and vulnerable 

populations.

Proposed CPPD, M&S, S&T, 

SSRA

FY23 for initial 

metrics and 

incorporation 

into EQIP/

WRE 

allocations; 

ongoing work 

for multiple 

years

Climate Hubs, USFS, 

ARS; technical 

expertise and 

data from federal 

agencies including 

NOAA, NASA, 

USGS, EPA

Number of metrics 

incorporated into 

allocations

Allocation conversations 

and integration into 

EQIP allocation 

recommendations 

have already begun 

for climate mitigation, 

which can be leveraged 

for climate adaptation/

resilience

Maximize local flexibility 

for using Conservation 

Practices to address 

natural resource 

issues by sharing 

examples, integrating 

new technologies, and 

prioritizing national review 

of practices that will have 

the most impact helping 

producers adapt to climate 

changes.

Planned 

and 

Proposed

CPPD, S&T 

including NDLs/

SDLs, M&S, Hub 

liaisons

Fy22-FY26, 

with certain 

actions 

completed by 

FY23

FSA, OCE, ARS, 

RMA; External 

coordination 

through existing 

venues (State 

Technical 

Committee, 

State and local 

governments, 

universities)

Percentage of practices 

reviewed and revised 

to include climate 

adaptation and 

resiliency information.

An initial GIS extension 

has been developed 

which overlays planned 

practices with the 

current Drought 

Monitor Map.

Develop criteria and 

data that can be used to 

describe and evaluate 

the success of NRCS 

investments to the general 

public.

Ongoing 

and 

proposed

SSRA, S&T, CPPD 2-4 years, FY 

22-23

Climate Hubs, USFS, 

ARS; coordination 

w/ federal land 

management 

agencies 

approach for local 

coordination as 

applicable.

Investment successes 

defined at both farm 

and landscape scales; 

completion of easement 

benefits annual report.

Investment successes 

defined at both farm 

and landscape scales; 

completion of easement 

benefits annual report.
28

VULNERABILITY ACTION TITLE/

DESCRIPTION

TYPE OF 

ACTIVITY

LEAD OFFICE TIMEFRAME COORDINATION PROGRESS METRICS ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

TO DATE

Vulnerability 5: 

Climate change 

disproportionately 

impacts vulnerable 

communities

Understand, strengthen, 

measure, and evaluate 

ecosystem services specific 

to vulnerable communities 

to protect livelihoods

Ongoing, 

Proposed, 

and 

Planned

SSRA, FPACBC, S&T, PMC, 

NWCC, Programs, 

and RCs.

Starting 

immediately 

through 2025

FPAC-BC, ARS, 

NASS, FS, FSA, ERS, 

FAS, RMA, NIFA, 

Office of Tribal 

Relations, HUD, 

EPA, SBA, USGS/

BLM, local NGO 

groups, universities, 

community colleges

Progress metrics 

include establishment 

and tracking of goals 

contracts, agreements, 

obligations, urban 

Ecological Site 

Descriptions (ESDs) 

created, acres treated, 

urban soil surveys 

completed, and other 

data as necessary 

according to annual 

goals/KPMs

NRCS has provided proof 

of concept by creating 

several urban ESDs. 

Detailed soil survey data 

is available for urban 

areas, including the cities 

of Baltimore, Chicago, 

Cincinnati, Detroit, Los 

Angeles, New York, San 

Diego, San Jose, St. Louis, 

Washington, D.C., and 

surrounding suburban 

areas.

Support food production 

and associated 

conservation activities in 

vulnerable communities

Ongoing 

and 

Proposed

Chief's Office, RC, 

States, S&T, SSRA, 

and Programs.

Starting 

immediately 

through 2025

FPAC-BC, ARS, 

NASS, FS, FSA, ERS, 

FAS, RMA, NIFA, 

Office of Tribal 

Relations, NOAA

Progress can 

be measured by 

partnerships developed 

to promote protection 

of natural resources 

and importance of 

conservation practices 

to human health

NRCS has purchased 

multiple portable X-ray 

Fluorescence devices to 

conduct technical soil 

services in urban areas 

for food production 

and conservation 

considerations.

Assess and tailor responses 

to extreme weather events 

specific to vulnerable 

communities

Ongoing 

and 

Proposed

Chief's Office, RC, 

States, S&T, SSRA, 

and Programs.

Starting 

immediately 

through 2025

FS, RD, FEMA, 

BIA, BOR, ACOE, 

State Forestry 

departments 

and Tribes –

Tribal Historic 

Preservation 

Office (THPO) 

and State Historic 

Preservation Offices 

(SHPO).

Progress metrics 

include number of 

watershed projects 

contracted and 

implemented, 

measurements from 

the BAER report such 

as soil burn severity, 

engineering assessment 

for flood potential / 

landslides, cultural 

resources affected, 

forestry / tree damage 

report, other report 

metrics as needed.

NRCS invested $10 

million to Support 

Climate-Smart 

Agriculture and Forestry 

through Voluntary 

Conservation including 

resources targeted 

to ensure equity and 

historically underserved 

producers. NRCS 

invested $50 million 

in 118 partnerships 

to expand access to 

conservation assistance 

for climate-smart 

agriculture and forestry.
29

VULNERABILITY ACTION TITLE/

DESCRIPTION

TYPE OF 

ACTIVITY

LEAD OFFICE TIMEFRAME COORDINATION PROGRESS METRICS ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

TO DATE

Vulnerability 5: 

Climate change 

disproportionately 

impacts vulnerable 

communities

Increase awareness, skills, 

and abilities of NRCS staff 

and clients on equity and 

environmental justice 

issues.

Ongoing 

and 

Proposed

Chiefs Office, 

FBC, States, M&S, 

and S&T

Starting 

immediately 

through 2023

FSA, ARS, NIFA, 

DOI, EPA, WHEJAC

Possible metrics include 

tracking number of 

employees taking 

training, number of 

producers signed 

up for soil testing, 

and percentage of 

states with urban ag 

or vulnerable subcommittees.

NRCS has made 

the USDA Climate, 

Agriculture, and Forestry 

Seminar Series available 

to key staff. Topics 

include Climate Justice, 

Food Systems, Food 

Security, and Global 

Linkages, and Complex 

Socio-EcologicalEconomic System.

Ensure outreach and 

meaningful engagement 

with vulnerable 

communities and that 

recommendations they 

provide are used to update 

and revise policy where 

possible.

Ongoing 

and 

Proposed

Chief's Office, 

M&S, and S&T

Starting 

immediately 

through 2023

FSA, RMA Progress metrics 

include number of 

additional outreach 

coordinators, number 

of consultations 

with vulnerable 

communities, outreach 

campaign roll outs, 

and documented 

recommendations from 

targeted communities 

incorporated into policy.

NRCS, through the 

Office of Urban 

Agriculture and 

Innovative Production 

has updated the 

evaluation criteria on 

its Notice of Funding 

Opportunities to include 

climate, equity, and 

environmental justice 

considerations. An 

Outreach Coordinator 

has been designated 

for all States and the 

2 Territorial Areas. 

Environmental Justice 

- GIS Map Layers have 

been added for States 

to target underserved 

or disadvantaged 

communities.
30

VULNERABILITY ACTION TITLE/

DESCRIPTION

TYPE OF 

ACTIVITY

LEAD OFFICE TIMEFRAME COORDINATION PROGRESS METRICS ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

TO DATE

Vulnerability 5: 

Climate change 

disproportionately 

impacts vulnerable 

communities

Increase technical and 

financial assistance for 

vulnerable communities

Ongoing 

and 

Proposed

Chief's Office, 

SSRA, S&T

Starting 

immediately 

through 2024

Primarily internal to 

NRCS

Progress metrics 

include number of 

additional outreach 

coordinators, number 

of consultations 

with vulnerable 

communities, outreach 

campaign roll outs, 

and documented 

recommendations from 

targeted communities 

incorporated into policy.

NRCS has created 

national risk and gap 

maps for historically 

underserved, urban, 

and climate analysis to 

inform the allocation 

process. SRA strategic 

budgeting tool will allow 

states to align resource 

concerns and target 

LRA or HU communities 

using a locally led 

component key tool to 

link targeted work with 

funding needs. STCs will 

be provided direction to 

consider underserved 

communities when 

deciding how to 

distribute their state 

allocation of funds as 

request for underserved 

communities will be a 

priority for funding

Vulnerability 6: The 

scale and complexity 

of climate change 

demands broad and 

diverse partnerships

Increase familiarity with 

the state/local climate 

change "landscape" 

in order to design and 

implement more effective 

and efficient programs 

and facilitate improved, 

targeted, communication.

Ongoing/

proposed 

(depending 

on the 

state)

State 

Conservationist / 

Area Director

Within first 90 

days

Information could 

be collected in 

collaboration 

with other USDA 

agencies and shared

Number of state-level 

reports submitted

Ongoing effort

Expand existing 

partnerships and build new 

and essential partnerships 

to integrate all aspects of 

socio-economic and natural 

resource considerations 

into the agencies approach 

to addressing climate 

change.

Ongoing/

planned/

proposed

Climate office, 

STCs, PAS, 

National Priority 

Leads, allowance 

holders

Ongoing 

- can start 

immediately

Ongoing - can start 

immediately

Examples of actions 

taken to expand and 

build partnerships

Ongoing effort
31

VULNERABILITY ACTION TITLE/

DESCRIPTION

TYPE OF 

ACTIVITY

LEAD OFFICE TIMEFRAME COORDINATION PROGRESS METRICS ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

TO DATE

Vulnerability 7: 

Increasing frequency, 

severity, and extent 

of disturbances 

pose risks to 

current agency 

infrastructure

Explore alternative 

communication systems 

to have multiple forms 

available.

Proposed 

and 

ongoing

M&S, FPAC 2022/23 FPAC; DoD, FCC Once current forms 

of communication 

are inventoried by 

location, identify gaps 

in redundant systems, 

consult with other 

agencies on possible 

alternatives, purchase 

and train staff.

Ongoing effort

Ensure national and 

regional datasets used 

in identification and 

assessment of climate 

change impacts are 

protected from loss.

Proposed 

and 

ongoing

M&S, FPAC 2022/23, 

ongoing

FPAC, OCIO Consult with FPAC Ongoing effort

Work with HSD and 

FPAC-BC to ensure one 

FPAC resilience portfolio 

to provide a unified 

mission area framework 

for tracking, evaluating, 

and managing risks to 

facilities and accessibility, 

including via COOP 

plans.

Proposed 

and 

ongoing

M&S, NCGC, 

FPAC, Chief, 

RC's, STC's

2022-2024, 

then ongoing 

for many 

actions; 

Some action 

timelines 

contingent on 

FPAC

FPAC Consult with FPAC Ongoing effort

Increase resilience of 

data collection and 

monitoring sites through 

additional sites and 

various measurement 

sensors, enhanced 

equipment, and 

functional redundancy in 

physical IT infrastructure

Ongoing, 

planned, 

proposed

NWMC, SSWSF, 

SCAN

2023 N/A Identify locations of 

greatest need, secure 

additional funds and 

implement.

Ongoing effort
32

VULNERABILITY ACTION TITLE/

DESCRIPTION

TYPE OF 

ACTIVITY

LEAD OFFICE TIMEFRAME COORDINATION PROGRESS METRICS ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

TO DATE

Vulnerability 7: 

Increasing frequency, 

severity, and extent 

of disturbances 

pose risks to 

current agency 

infrastructure

Continually update Dam 

Watch dam monitoring 

tool as new climate data 

becomes available and 

enable watershed project 

sponsors to monitor their 

small watershed dams

Ongoing CPPD 

(Watershed 

Planning)

2023 N/A Secure additional 

funds and implement

Ongoing effort

Support fleet resilience 

through improved 

tracking of utilization 

standards, service center 

enhancements, use of 

mobile workstations, and 

improved fuel efficiency 

and procurement.

Ongoing, 

planned, 

proposed

M&S, FPAC 2022/23, 

ongoing

FPAC FPAC Vehicles 

Dashboard data and 

related policy

Ongoing effort
33

ACRONYM DEFINITIONS

ACRONYM DEFENITION

ACOE Army Corps of Engineers

ARS Agricultural Research Service

BAER Burned Area Emergency Response

BIA Bureau of Indian Affairs

BOR Bureau of Reclamation

CIG Conservation Innovation Grants

COOP Continuity of Operations Plan

CPPD Conservation Planning and Program 

Delivery (Programs) Deputy Area

CPTAD Conservation Planning and 

Technical Assistance Division

CSAF Climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry

DOD Department of Defense

DOE Department of Energy

DOI Department of Interior

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

EQIP Environmental Quality Incentive Program

ERS Economic Research Service

ESD Ecological Site Description

FCC Federal Communications Commission

FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency

FPAC Farm Production and 

Conservation Mission Area

FPAC-BC Farm Production and Conservation 

Business Center

FS/USFS United States Forest Service

ACRONYM DEFENITION

FSA Farm Service Agency

FWS US Fish and Wildlife Service

HSD Homeland Security Division

HU Historically Underserved

HUD Housing and Urban Development

M&S Management and Strategy Deputy Area

NASA National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration

NASS National Agricultural Statistics Service

NCA National Climate Assessment

NDL National Discipline Lead

NGCE National Geospatial Center of Excellence

NIFA National Institute of Food and Agriculture

NOAA National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration

NWCC National Water and Climate Center

NWMC National Water Management Center

NWS National Weather Service

OCE Office of the Chief Economist

OEEP Office of Energy and 

Environmental Policy 

OCIO Office of the Chief Information Officer

OUAIP Office of Urban Agriculture 

and Innovative Production

PMC Plant Materials Centers

RC Regional Conservationists

ACRONYM DEFENITION

RD Rural Development

REE Research, Education and 

Economics Mission Area

RIAD Resource Inventory and 

Assessment Division

RMA Risk Management Agency

S&T Science and Technology Deputy Area

SBA Small Business Administration

SCAN Soil Climate Analysis Network

SDL State Discipline Lead

SHPO State Historic Preservation Offices

SPSD Soil and Plant Science Division

SRA State Resource Assessment

SSRA Soil Science and Resource 

Assessment Deputy Area

SSWSF Snow Survey and Water 

Supply Forecasting

STC State Conservationists

SWAPA+

HE

Soil Water Air Plants Animals + 

Humans Energy resources 

THPO Tribal Historic Preservation Office

USGS United States Geological Survey

WHEJAC White House Environmental 

Justice Advisory Committee

WRE Wetland Reserve Easements
USDA is an equal opportunity 

provider, employer, and lender.

[July 2022]