As part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, research funding will provide land and wildlife managers with tools to adapt to climate change
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced today that the Department of the Interior’s regional Climate Science Centers and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center are awarding nearly $6 million to universities and other partners for 50 new research projects to better prepare communities for impacts of climate change.
“These climate studies are designed to help address regional concerns associated with climate change, providing a pathway to enhancing resilience and supporting local community needs,” said Secretary Jewell. “The impacts of climate change are vast and complex, so studies like these are critical to help ensure that our nation’s responses are rooted in sound science.”
As part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, the 50 scientific studies announced today will focus on how climate change is affecting natural and cultural resources and tribal communities, as well as inform management actions that can be taken to help offset those impacts. The research can help guide managers of parks, refuges and other cultural and natural resources to plan how to help species, ecosystems, tribes and other communities adapt to climate change. The studies, most of which will occur over multiple years, will be conducted with fiscal year 2014 funding. A full list of the projects is availablehere.
Each of the Department of the Interior’s eight regional Climate Science Centers (CSCs) worked with states, tribes, federal agencies, Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs), universities supporting the CSCs, and other regional partners to identify the highest priority management challenges in need of scientific input, and to solicit and select research projects.
The studies will be undertaken by teams of scientists—including researchers from the universities that comprise each region’s CSC—from Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and from other partners such as the states, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USDA Forest Service, tribes, and the LCCs in each region.
“These are boots-on-the-ground practical projects to help answer the kinds of questions resource managers are asking about how to respond effectively to, and plan for, climate change,” said Suzette Kimball, Acting Director of USGS. “The selected projects will use the best science to help managers understand changes occurring now and in the future, as well as shed light on what management actions are most sensible to take.”
Useful links:
Full list of funded projects for all eight DOI Climate Science Centers and a map showing the consortiums of universities involved in each CSC.
The eight Interior Climate Science Centers form a national network and are coordinated through theNational Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center (NCCWSC), located at the headquarters of USGS.
Approximately $25 million of funding has been granted for research through the NCCWSC and the CSCs. CSCs and LCCs have been created under Interior’s strategy to address the impacts of climate change on America’s waters, land, and other natural and cultural resources.