Climate Change Adaptation Checklist for Climate Smart Projects: A Tool for Natural Resource Agencies
About the Event:
Climate change is impacting fish, wildlife, and their habitats across all ecosystems in the United States. Natural resource agencies are at the frontline of addressing climate change in fish and wildlife management, but climate change adaptation is just one of many management priorities within an agency. The scale of the problem and urgency needed to address it can feel overwhelming, especially when agency staff tasked with managing projects and assessing hazard risk potentials may not have in-depth knowledge of climate change impacts or the solutions needed to achieve adaptation outcomes in fish and wildlife management. EcoAdapt along with partners at California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife developed a Climate Change Adaptation Checklist for Climate Smart Projects to aid natural resource managers in evaluating potential climate vulnerabilities of a project or management action prior to implementation, and to improve design, optimize siting, and reduce risk to help a project deliver expected benefits under future climate conditions. As a follow-up to their presentation at the 2022 National Adaptation Forum, Lara J. Hansen, Ph.D., Christopher Hoving, Ph.D., and James Hansen, M.S. will discuss this checklist and present use-cases to help webinar attendees understand how this checklist can inform fish and wildlife management in a changing climate.