Climate Change: Various Adaptation Efforts Are Under Way at Key Natural Resource Management Agencies
Released: 2013-06-20T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Climate change is having a variety of impacts on natural resources in the United States, including more severe drought and increased wildfires. The five key federal natural resource management agencies included in this review—the Forest Service, NOAA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management—have unique roles and are facing a variety of management challenges related to climate change. Climate change is also altering assumptions that have been central to natural resource planning and management in the past and recent reports have highlighted the importance of establishing climate change planning in the federal government to help ensure it can continue to provide important services in a changing environment.

Climate Change Impacts in the United States

According to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, changes in the climate have been observed in the United States and its coastal waters and will adversely affect aspects of the nation’s natural environment. As table 1 shows, changes in the climate—including warmer temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, rising sea levels, and more intense storms—affect the natural environment in a number of ways including more severe drought, increased frequency of large wildfires, insect infestations, changed habitats, and possible loss of species that cannot survive in the changed conditions.

According to a 2009 study by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, in areas where weather events become more intense and frequent with climate change, economic and social costs will increase. For example, insect pests are economically important stressors on forest ecosystems in the United States. Coupled with pathogens, they account for $1.5 billion in damage every year, according to the study. Changes in climate have contributed to major insect pest outbreaks in the United States over the past several decades because rising temperatures increase insect outbreaks in a number of ways, according to the study. For example, longer and warmer seasons allow some insects to develop faster, sometimes completing two life cycles instead of one in a single growing season, and warmer conditions also help expand the ranges of some insects. In addition, recreation and tourism are important to the economy and the quality of life for many people. In many communities, according to the study, recreation and tourism generate billions of dollars for regional economies through activities such as fishing, hunting, skiing, hiking, and diving and some of these economic benefits could be reduced or lost as a result of the impacts from climate change.

Precisely how and to what extent changes in the climate will affect particular federal lands and waters in the future is uncertain, but climate- related changes have already been observed on federally managed lands and waters. Moreover, some of these changes are expected to continue and increase in intensity, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Roles of the Five Key Federal Natural Resource Management Agencies and Climate Change Impacts to the Natural Resources They Manage

The Forest Service. The Forest Service’s mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of national forest and national grasslands. The nation’s 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands contain much of the nation’s terrestrial biodiversity and provide a range of ecosystem services. For example, national forests provide important habitat for many rare, threatened, and endangered species as well as timber and fresh water. The agency manages national forests for a variety of uses including recreation, timber harvesting, livestock grazing, mining, and wilderness protection. Wildfires, invasive species, and extreme weather events are among the critical stressors currently affecting national forests, and they are all expected to be exacerbated by climate change. According to a 2011 report by the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, these impacts put at risk the many benefits Americans receive from forests. See figure 1 for a map of the National Forest System.

Four of the Five Agencies Have Developed Climate Change Adaptation Strategies and Four of the Five Sites We Visited Have Taken Steps to Address Adaptation

The Forest Service, NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service have all developed a strategic direction for addressing climate change adaptation through a variety of planning documents. The agencies have also developed guidance, training, and other tools for managers to use in adapting to climate change. The one field location we visited for each agency has taken various steps to address climate change adaptation, such as conducting vulnerability assessments. The Bureau of Land Management has not developed a strategic direction for addressing climate change impacts, but it has taken some adaptation-related steps. Managers at the bureau field location we visited, absent direction from headquarters, have not taken steps to address climate change adaptation.

The Forest Service Has Set a Strategic Direction, Established a Performance Goal, and Provided Tools for National Forests to Address Climate Change Adaptation

In October 2008, the Forest Service developed a strategic framework for According to the framework, addressing responding to climate change.climate change adaptation must be a central priority for the agency because many ecosystem services provided by national forests—which include water for drinking and agriculture, as well as lumber and fiber for paper—may be lost or significantly altered if national forest ecosystems are left to adapt on their own. The framework also stated that management strategies based on historical or current conditions will need to be adjusted or replaced with approaches that support adaptation to changing conditions brought about by climate change. According to the framework, Forest Service natural resource managers will use current science to better understand and predict the impacts of climate change on natural resources, including plant and animal species. The agency will also use an iterative approach, according to the framework, meaning that natural resource managers are to modify their management actions, if needed, as new scientific information emerges. They also are to collaborate with partners—including private landowners and tribal entities—to share technical expertise and coordinate management actions across land ownership boundaries to more effectively address adaptation.

In February 2011, the Forest Service published a document, known as “the roadmap,” which identified actions that natural resource managers in national forests were already taking or could take to implement the strategic direction outlined in the agency’s strategic framework. According to the roadmap, ongoing actions that agency natural resource managers were already taking include collaborating with scientists to assess the vulnerability of key species to climate change and re- vegetating ecosystems that had been affected by fire or other major disturbances with plant species that are better adapted to current and future climates. Actions that natural resource managers could begin taking in the short term, according to the roadmap, include collaborating with partners to develop strategies for creating and protecting connected habitat by, for example, establishing corridors across private lands to allow species affected by climate change to migrate to landscapes to which they are better adapted. Longer-term actions include developing comprehensive strategies for maintaining and restoring the connectivity of habitats.

The Forest Service has also established a performance goal for national forests. In 2011, the Forest Service informed national forest managers that by 2015 they are expected to address at least one of the following three areas related to climate change adaptation: (1) assessing the vulnerability of key resources—such as the availability of clean and abundant drinking water from national forest watersheds—to the impacts of climate change, (2) reducing the vulnerability of key resources to climate change, and (3) monitoring and evaluating climate change impacts and the effectiveness of adaptation activities. To help track progress in achieving the goal, the Forest Service also directed each national forest to report annually on its status, plans, and actions for assessing vulnerabilities, reducing vulnerabilities, and monitoring and evaluating effectiveness. The agency also published guidance in 2011 to assist the national forests in preparing their annual reports, which are referred to as climate change performance scorecard reports. For example, regarding monitoring, the guidance provided examples of current national monitoring programs that could be used to track climate change impacts, as well as instructions on where to find additional information about such programs.

In addition, the agency has taken other steps to help national forests address adaptation. Specifically, in April 2012, the Forest Service finalized a new planning rule that includes climate change adaptation requirements. Also, in February 2013, the agency issued draft guidance outlining specific steps that forests can take to implement these requirements. Each national forest is governed by a land management plan—referred to as a forest plan—which must be revised at least every 15 years to guide its long-term natural resource management actions. The planning rule is intended to ensure, among other things, that forest plans will be responsive and can adapt to issues such as the challenges of climate change. The rule also requires that each national forest have a monitoring program that addresses climate change impacts. To help the forests translate the monitoring requirement into action, the draft agency guidance we reviewed stated, for example, that in developing their monitoring programs, the forests could consider monitoring types of vegetation that are likely to be among the first affected by climate change. According to the draft guidance, doing so could help natural resource managers in the forests to identify opportunities to assist those natural resources in adapting to climate change. Agency officials told us they plan to finalize the guidance by the end of 2013.

The Forest Service has also begun developing decision support tools to help its natural resource managers address climate change adaptation. For example, in 2012, the Forest Service issued the Climate Project Screening Tool, which was developed by agency scientists to help natural resource managers determine how, if at all, climate change considerations could impact decisions to proceed with, modify, or cancel proposed projects. The tool includes, for a variety of project types, examples of key questions natural resource managers might consider to address climate change adaptation. For example, on a proposed project to restore an aquatic species, managers might consider whether the species is likely to survive in the landscape if the waters continue to grow warmer as a result of climate change. The tool provides a template that natural resource managers can use to record climate change considerations in their decision-making process. Specifically, the template allows managers to document information about the proposed project, climate change trends and local impacts, their responses to key questions, and their decisions about whether or how to proceed with the project.

The Forest Service is also providing information and training to help natural resource managers address climate change adaptation. For example, the agency continues to update its Climate Change Resource Center—a publicly accessible web portal it developed as a reference for natural resource managers and decision makers who need information and decision support tools to address climate change adaptation in the national forests, among other purposes. The website includes peer- reviewed resources such as lectures on addressing climate change adaptation in natural resource management. In one of these lectures, for example, a Forest Service scientist discusses how agency scientists partnered with natural resource managers at the Olympic National Forest and Tahoe National Forest to address climate change adaptation at those forests, and what managers in other forests might learn from this effort.

The Chugach National Forest Has Begun to Conduct a Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment

In 2011, Forest Service officials at the Chugach National Forest began conducting a vulnerability assessment to determine how key natural resources, communities, and economies in and around the national forest may be affected by climate change. The officials we spoke with at the forest said that the vulnerability assessment will help them determine which resources may have a natural capacity to adapt successfully to climate change and which resources may not. This is a change from August 2007, when we reported that, while officials at the Chugach National Forest recognized that climate change was harming some natural resources in the forest, they had not taken steps to incorporate climate change adaptation into planning and management in part because it was not an agency priority.Forest attributed the change to a number of factors, including the strategic direction provided by the Forest Service to address climate change adaptation. Figure 6 shows a map of the Chugach National Forest.

The Agencies Have Begun Using Several Mechanisms to Collaborate and Have Prepared National Adaptation Strategies and Climate Assessments

The federal natural resource management agencies we reviewed recognize that there are limits to what they can accomplish on their own and therefore are also collaborating on climate change adaptation with, among others, each other, state and local government agencies, tribes, nongovernmental organizations, and other federal agencies. In addition, agencies have collaborated in developing reports that provide cross- cutting, national strategies for addressing climate change adaptation in the federal government and national climate assessments.

Federal Natural Resource Management Agencies Have Identified a Need to Collaborate on Climate Change Adaptation and Are Using Several Mechanisms to Do So

Since 2007, key federal natural resource management agencies have identified a need to collaborate on climate change adaptation to leverage funding, staff, and resources; develop common goals; develop tools and strategies to inform landscape-scale planning and management decisions; facilitate information exchange among stakeholders; and avoid duplication. For example, the Forest Service included a collaboration goal in its October 2008 strategic framework for responding to climate change because the agency believes that collaborating with partners will be essential to address climate change across land ownership boundaries. According to the framework, the Forest Service manages 8 percent of all lands in the United States, but climate change impacts will extend across land ownership boundaries, and the Forest Service has a responsibility to work with others to address those impacts. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also included a collaboration goal in its September 2010 climate change strategic plan because the agency believes collaboration is necessary to build shared scientific and technical capabilities, among other reasons.

Landscape conservation cooperatives are one mechanism established since 2007 that enable federal agencies to collaborate in addressing climate change adaptation. At the direction of the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began establishing the network of 22 cooperatives in fiscal year 2009. They provide a forum for federal agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and NOAA, to work collaboratively with state and local government agencies, tribes, and nongovernmental organizations to address at a landscape level climate change impacts on wildlife, water, land, and cultural resources. As of February 2013, all 22 cooperatives have been established, but because some were established more recently, they are at different stages of development. The cooperatives are located throughout the United States and extend into Canada and Mexico. Figure 13 shows the locations of the cooperatives.

Some landscape conservation cooperatives have begun taking actions to address climate change adaptation at the landscape level. For example, in August 2012, one cooperative, working with the nonprofit organization Nature Serve, hosted a 2-day workshop to develop climate change adaptation strategies for managed lands including the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts in the southwestern United States. Workshop participants included representatives from nonprofit organizations, universities, state agencies, and federal agencies including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service. For major ecosystem types within the region, the participants identified “no-regrets” climate change adaptation management strategies they could take within 5 years, longer-term management strategies they could take further in the future, and priorities for research and monitoring to lower uncertainty around identified strategies. In addition, a cooperative has funded several projects to identify climate change impacts on a variety of species and their habitat. For example, in 2010, the cooperative funded a nonprofit organization to collaborate with partners, including federal agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey, to develop a plan and establish programs for long- term monitoring of wintering shorebirds in coastal California and northern Baja California, Mexico. This project was expected to, among other things, provide baseline information about these shorebirds to allow federal natural resource management agencies and others to identify changes as a result of climate change, according to the project proposal.

According to Interior, the eight regional Climate Science Centers deliver basic climate change impact science to Landscape Conservation Cooperatives within their respective regions, including physical and biological research, ecological forecasting, and multi-scale modeling. Science centers will prioritize their delivery of fundamental science, data, and decision support activities to meet the needs of the cooperatives. This includes working with the cooperatives to provide climate change impact information on natural and cultural resources and to develop decision support tools for managers. adaptation at the department.providing scientific information, tools, and techniques that land, water, wildlife and cultural resource managers and other interested parties can apply to anticipate, monitor, and adapt to climate change and other stressors at regional and local scales. In June 2012, the science center for the Southwest collaborated with four cooperatives and other partners to host a climate summit to identify the climate-related science needs of tribes and other stakeholders. For example, participating tribal members identified a need to develop climate change vulnerability assessments for species and locations that are culturally significant to tribes, among other needs.

The science centers are responsible for The Interagency Land Management Adaptation Group is another collaborative mechanism established since 2007 by natural resource management agencies to address climate change adaptation in federal land management activities. The group was established in January 2012 and meets monthly as an informal network of high-level officials from federal land management and science agencies including the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service, and the National Park Service. Key non-land management members include the Council on Environmental Quality, NOAA, and the U.S. Geological Survey. According to group documents, members have shared information on federal climate change adaptation-related programs and activities; identified gaps that need to be addressed in federal agency climate change adaptation planning and management; identified challenges that federal land management agencies encounter when attempting to address climate change adaptation; discussed potential policy changes; and explored opportunities for further collaboration. One of the challenges they identified was the difficulty in identifying past or ongoing climate change vulnerability assessments, which creates a potential for duplication of effort, according to documents developed by group members. To address this challenge, in January 2013, the group agreed to develop a web-based searchable database, which will contain climate change vulnerability assessments prepared by federal agencies. The U.S. Geological Survey has agreed to compile the assessments and make the information available to all resource managers working to develop climate change adaptation plans. The interagency adaptation group has also formed work groups to develop and guide national-level collaborative actions in key areas of interest, including options and best practices for conducting vulnerability assessments, as well as adaptation planning, monitoring, and training.

Federal natural resource management agencies have also collaborated to support NOAA’s long-standing Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program, according to a program official. The program consists of 11 research teams that emphasize regional and local climate research and work with regional partners, such as NOAA’s Regional Climate Centers, to help inform climate change adaptation planning and management. For example, research team scientists provide information that decision makers can use to help understand the impacts of drought, understand climatic influences on wildfires, and assess climate impacts on air quality. Another function of the research teams is to develop tools that enable decision makers to take into consideration the potential impacts of climate change. For example, the Carolinas’ research team developed a climate change planning tool referred to as the Vulnerability and Consequence Adaptation Planning Scenarios that can be used by decision makers in coastal regions to determine potential climate change impacts and identify climate change adaptation actions.

Participating federal agencies include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Forest Service. Participating offices within NOAA include, among others, the National Marine Fisheries Service; the National Ocean Service; the Earth Systems Research Laboratory; the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center; and the Climate Program Office’s Modeling, Analysis Predictions and Projections program and Climate and Societal Interactions program. The U.S. Geological Survey and the Forest Service were among the agencies that contributed funds to projects in the grants competition. interactions between climate and nonclimate stressors in marine environments; (2) evaluating the use of climate information by coastal managers and the effectiveness of adaptation actions; (3) advancing the development and application of approaches for assessing the vulnerability of public lands; and (4) improving ways of communicating climate information to water managers across multiple regions of the United States. NOAA developed the funding priorities collaboratively with the Department of the Interior’s Climate Science Centers and federal agencies, including the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Forest Service, and National Park Service. According to a Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program official, by setting priorities collaboratively, federal agencies can direct and leverage their resources and avoid potential duplicative or overlapping research projects.

Federal natural resource management departments and agencies have also collaborated through the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, which the President established in 2009. The task force is co-chaired by the Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and NOAA, and includes representatives from more than 20 federal departments and agencies. In a 2010 report, the task force recommended a set of climate change adaptation policy goals and actions. For example, the task force recommended that federal agencies establish and implement adaptation action plans that address the challenges that climate change poses to their missions, operations, and programs. The task force also recommended that agencies address cross-cutting issues by developing, among other things, (1) a national action plan to strengthen climate change adaptation for freshwater resources; (2) a strategy for reducing the impacts of climate change on the nation’s fish, wildlife, and plant resources and their habitats; and (3) a strategic action plan for strengthening the resilience of coastal, ocean, and Great Lakes communities and ecosystems to climate change. In October 2011, the task force reported that federal agencies had made significant progress in addressing the goals outlined by the task force in 2010.

Federal Natural Resource Agencies Have Collaborated on National Strategies to Address Climate Change Adaptation and Climate Assessments

National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Partnership. National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy: Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Council on Environmental Quality, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, (Washington, D.C.: 2012). committee, was released in March 2013. It was developed with input from a steering committee led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA, and the New York Division of Fish, Wildlife, and Marine Resources with officials from 11 additional federal agencies, 4 additional state fish and wildlife agencies, 2 intertribal commissions, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The strategy stated that fish, wildlife, and plant resources are already being affected by climate change and described projected future impacts. The strategy also outlined goals for addressing climate change adaptation for fish, wildlife, and plants as well as strategies for addressing these goals. For example, one goal is to conserve habitat to support healthy fish, wildlife, and plant populations and ecosystem functions in a changing climate. Strategies for addressing the goal include identifying areas that are likely to be resilient to climate change and taking steps to ensure that those areas are protected.

National Ocean Policy Implementation Plan. Federal natural resource management departments contributed to preparing this plan, which identifies actions federal agencies will take to bolster the ocean economy, improve ocean health, and provide better science, among other things. In July 2010, the President issued an Executive Order regarding stewardship of our oceans, coasts, and the Great Lakes.” The national ocean policy calls for management practices that will enhance the understanding of and capacity to respond to climate change and ocean acidification, among other things. The National Ocean Council, which includes the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, the Interior, and the NOAA Administrator, published the implementation plan for the national ocean policy in April 2013. Among other things, the plan stated that federal agencies will enable and support efforts to understand, minimize, and adapt to the impacts of climate change, ocean acidification, sea-level rise, and extreme weather events, strengthening the resilience of coastal communities. For example, according to the implementation plan, federal agencies will offer tools and training courses on how to design and implement vulnerability assessments and develop assessments of coastal and ocean climate impacts in support of the National Climate Assessment.

Federal agencies have also collaborated on national climate assessments, which analyze current trends in global change, both human-induced and natural, and project major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years. The Global Change Research Act of 1990 requires publication of a national climate assessment not less frequently than every 4 years—the first and second assessments were first published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program in 2000 and 2009, respectively. Thirteen federal agencies, including the Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and NOAA, contributed to the third assessment that was released as a draft for public comment in January 2013. The draft assessment provides information on climate change impacts and the status of climate change science, and it highlights ongoing climate change adaptation efforts, among other things. For example, the draft assessment states that, although substantial climate change adaptation planning is occurring at all levels of government, adaptation actions have been limited. According to the draft assessment, challenges to implementing adaptation actions include lack of resources and leadership, and difficulties in using climate change projections, which can be complex and difficult to apply to management decisions. To help ensure that natural resource managers and other decision makers have timely and relevant information, the draft assessment includes information on creating a sustained climate assessment process to more efficiently collect and synthesize climate change science. The draft assessment also states that climate change adaptation actions have rarely been evaluated for effectiveness because such actions have only recently begun to be initiated and comprehensive metrics for evaluating these actions have not been developed. The assessment is expected to be finalized by the end of 2013.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report for review and comment to the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior. In its written comments, which are included in appendix I, the Department of Agriculture stated that the Forest Service agreed with our findings and will continue to engage in the collaborative efforts we identified to more efficiently and effectively address climate change adaptation.

We received general comments from the Departments of Commerce and the Interior. The Department of Commerce stated that it appreciated our efforts to identify the progress made by key natural resource management agencies to address climate change. It also said that climate change adaptation efforts will improve over time through review and evaluation processes, and our report contributes to that effort. The Departments of Commerce and the Interior also said they have other programs, field locations, and climate change adaptation-related activities that were not discussed in the report. By design, our report focused on specific programs, and we visited only one field location in each of the five agencies we examined. We acknowledge in the report that, while federal agencies have taken many different climate change adaptation actions, we focused on those actions that we determined were most relevant to the field location we visited at each agency. We also received technical comments from the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior, which we incorporated as appropriate.

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the report date. At that time, we will send copies of the report to the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior; the appropriate congressional committees; and other interested parties. In addition, this report will be available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff members have questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or fennella@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report are listed in appendix II.

Appendix I: Comments from the Department of Agriculture

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the individual named above, Stephen Secrist, Assistant Director; Leo G. Acosta; Mark Braza; Frederick K. Childers; Elizabeth Curda; Keesha Egebrecht; Emily Hanawalt; Richard Johnson; Alison O’Neill; Jeanette Soares; and Kiki Theodoropoulos made key contributions to this report. Candace Carpenter; Brad Dobbins; Armetha Liles; and Janice Poling provided additional technical assistance.