Overview of climate change adaptation needs, opportunities and issues: Northeast Region coastal National Parks

Babson, Ammanda

Many coastal national parks have implemented climate adaptation actions that demonstrate leadership in this important emerging field, motivated by awareness that sea level rise and storm impacts are already affecting resources and operations. Many Northeast Region (NER) parks have begun taking some of the actions needed to reduce current vulnerability and plan for increasing impacts in the future. Based on site visits to nine coastal NER parks in 2012 and conversations with coastal park staff, this report is an assessment of information needs considered necessary to respond and adapt to the impacts associated with climate change. Notable common actions taken and identified needs are summarized by park (Table 1). The visits and this summary were intended to gauge known vulnerabilities, progress and opportunities for implementation in order to inform the development of a regional program that will increase capacity of park and regional staff to implement adaptation actions. It is intended to support development of a research agenda, assist prioritization among objectives of the NER Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, and facilitate projects that will implement those objectives. The high priority coastal climate adaptation issues identified are habitat change, landform migration, erosion, visitor experience and damage or degradation of facilities and cultural resources. The primary drivers of change are accelerated sea level rise (SLR) and storm impacts, with changes in hydrology, including groundwater also of concern. Parks are aware of species impacts such as changes in phenology, species migration patterns and invasive species, and some are concerned, but have little information about ocean acidification. The NER’s near term priorities on climate adaptation should be research that will support selection and implementation of adaptation options and integration of climate change information into planning. Focusing on these strategies will build on previous successes and increase the foundation and capacity to meet the larger suite of climate adaptation needs that we currently do not have the understanding or resources to address fully. A wealth of climate information is available, but the capacity to integrate the relevant information into decisions is limited. The NER should provide support for integrating observations of historic change and projections of future conditions into planning processes and management actions, particularly SLR, storm frequency and intensity, and hydrology. Some parks are looking for consistency across the region, while others prefer the flexibility to use projections consistent with local partners or collaborators. The NER can provide guidance on methods and availability of best available science without being prescriptive. Some of this guidance is being developed at the national scale by the NPS Climate Change Response Program and the NER can assist in applying these tools to NER parks. In addition, the NER needs to manage expectations about limitations of localized climate projections and the high uncertainty about climate information for many variables. Guidance on vulnerability assessments is needed to improve consistency while maintaining flexibility to be responsive to specific park issues. The purpose of a vulnerability assessment is to identify resources that are most likely to be impacted and understand why and how. The NER should review the vulnerability assessments in progress, which have primarily been focused on a single natural resource, and transfer successful methods to other parks and resources and expand to other types of resources. There is strong interest in integrated natural and cultural resource vulnerability assessments.

Overview of climate change adaptation needs, opportunities and issues: Northeast Region coastal National Parks

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