Exploring Future Flora, Environments, and Climates Through Simulations (EFFECTS)

Implications of Climate Change for Conservation and Natural Resource Managers

A Visualization Approach for Projecting Future Distributions of North American Bioclimates
How will the climates of conservation and natural resource management areas change in the future? This research is designed to allow conservation and natural resource managers to explore the spatial dynamics of future climate change using the concept of climate analogues. USGS and Univ. of Oregon researchers are developing downscaled (10-km and ~1-km) future climate data sets to calculate bioclimatic variables that represent ecologically important thresholds and physiological processes (e.g., growing degree-days) for major taxa and ecosystems in the US. An on-line web-based visualization application will allow managers to map where: 1) a managed area’s potential future climate is located on today’s landscape and 2) the areas to which the current climate of a managed area is projected to move in the future.

Assessing the Vulnerability of Species and Ecosystems to Projected Future Climate Change in the Pacific Northwest
This research uses model simulations of projected climate, vegetation, and species changes to evaluate the potential vulnerabilities of species and ecosystems to future climate change. An important goal of this work is to provide information for conservation and natural resource managers that they can use in developing adaptive management responses to climate change. The project is a collaboration of researchers and managers from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, The Nature Conservancy, University of Idaho, University of Washington, U.S. Geological Survey, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Projected Future Climate and Vegetation Changes for the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) Study Area
The Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative is a science-based program assisting in the management and conservation of species' populations and habitats in southwest Wyoming. Potential future climate, bioclimate, and vegetation data produced by the USGS EFFECTS Project are being used by WLCI to assess the potential effects of climate change across the WLCI study area.