Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment: Point Reyes National Seashore
Hameed SO, Baty JH, Holzer KA, Doerr AN. 2011. Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment: Point Reyes National Seashore
Climate change and its consequences for natural communities pose major challenges to conservation management. Working with managers at Point Reyes National Seashore, we have taken a step towards addressing this challenge with a site-specific climate change vulnerability assessment. We took a multi-faceted approach: 1) we synthesized expert judgment regarding how climate change threatens 12 communities in the park with empirical literature reviews, 2) quantitatively compared vegetation community distribution predictions of community niche models based on three different global circulation models, 3) we mapped predicted sea level rise and erosion hazard onto vegetation communities at the park and analyzed the potential impacts to the park’s communities, and 4) we assessed the vulnerabilities of some individual species to climate change using NatureServe’s Climate Change Vulnerability Index. This report documents our process and presents the results of the process; we hope that it serves park managers as a resource in scenario planning and prioritizing management decisions, as well as a blueprint for revisiting the implications of climate change for the natural communities in the park as new data become available.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Authors
- Hameed, Sarah; Baty, Jill; Holzer, Katie; Doerr, Angela
- Date of Issue
- 2011
- Units
- PORE , SFAN
- Keywords
- climate change, coastal, plant communities, predictive vegetation mapping
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Air and Climate | Weather and Climate | Weather and Climate , Ecological Framework: Geology and Soils | Geomorphology | Coastal/Oceanographic Features and Processes , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Intertidal Communities , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Estuarine Communities , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Wetland Communities , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Riparian Communities , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Grassland/Herbaceous Communities , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Forest/Woodland Communities