Monitoring in the Context of Climate Change
Inventory & Monitoring Division. 2010. Monitoring in the Context of Climate Change. National Park Service
The Mid-Atlantic Network is composed of nine small cultural resource parks in the Piedmont and Coastal Plain, and one large natural resource park, Shenandoah National Park, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Shenandoah NP was designated as a prototype monitoring park in the early 1990s, and has been tracking the status and long-term trends of a variety of natural resources for close to 30 years. These long-term monitoring programs have not only provided a valuable foundation for their expansion to other network parks, but have recorded trends in park resources that provide invaluable information related to the onset of regional climatic changes. More recently, monitoring has begun in the other Mid-Atlantic Network parks. Under all climate change scenarios, we expect to see a variety of changes across all parks in the Mid-Atlantic Network. Though not established specifically to monitor climate change, the vital signs monitoring will detect changes in park ecosystems, including alterations in weather and climate patterns, changes in water quality and quantity, and the long-term effects on a variety of aquatic and terrestrial plant and animal communities.
- Type
- Resource Brief
- Authors
- Inventory & Monitoring Division
- Date of Issue
- 2010-01
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- APCO , BOWA , EISE , FRSP , GETT , HOFU , MIDN , NER , PETE , RICH , SHEN , VAFO