Approach
Potential increases in the frequency, intensity, and extent of large and severe disturbances have the potential to damage infrastructure and disrupt the availability of recreational opportunities, especially in vulnerable locations. Disturbance events projected to increase in occurrence as a result of climate change include flooding events, extreme wind, and wildfire. Installing protective armoring or upstream diversion structures can help protect key recreation sites from flooding. To help protect against wind, tie downs can be used for structures and hazard trees can removed around recreation sites. To protect against wildfire, removal of fuels within 200 feet (the ignition zone) of a site or facility creates defensible space that fire-fighting resources can then use to more safely and effectively protect a targeted area. Prompt protection before or during disturbance events and revegetation of sites following disturbance events helps to protect infrastructure, reduce soil loss and erosion, maintain water quality, and discourage invasive species in the newly exposed areas.
Tactics
- Install protective armoring, such as jersey barriers, sand bags, berms, water-repellant polyethylene plastic, or retaining walls, in the vicinity of key recreational sites and facilities at risk of flooding or debris flows.
- Install diversion structures upstream or upslope from site and facilities at risk of damage from post-disturbance erosion.
- Use tie-downs for facilities at risk of extreme wind events.
- Construct and maintain defensible space in the direct vicinity of at-risk recreational infrastructure, via removal of dead and dying vegetation, removal of ladder fuels, and favoring of less flammable deciduous vegetation.
- Construct fuel breaks around vulnerable recreational areas or infrastructure.
- Use fire lines, blacklines, or wet lines around sites and facilities at risk of damage from wildfire.
- Directionally fall snag trees and other vegetation away from sites and facilities at risk of damage from wildfire.
- Revegetate exposed soils with native plants or other climate-adapted plants as soon as is practicable.
Strategy
Strategy Text
The impacts of climate change will stress the existing recreational infrastructure that is located in vulnerable locations, such as along coastlines and shorelines with fluctuating water levels, within floodplains, in drought-prone areas, or in areas that are projected to experience dramatic increases in precipitation [20]. There are a number of instances in which recreation managers might wish to retain infrastructure in place despite site-specific vulnerabilities. Examples include cultural, historic, or interpretive sites that are dependent on their location to provide contextual integrity, or other sites whose proximity to water or snow is essential to their recreational character. Additional considerations could include the sheer force of prior investment in a site, or the political or social infeasibility of taking alternate actions. This strategy actively works to maintain key infrastructure in place by increasing its resistance to current and future environmental conditions. Application of this strategy does not remove the risks that affect vulnerable infrastructure, and in some instances, an increasing risk of failure may be experienced over time, which could necessitate a reevaluation of adaptation options over the long term.
O’Toole, D.; Brandt, L.A.; Janowiak, M.K.; Schmitt, K.M.; Shannon, P.D.; Leopold, P.R.; Handler, S.D.; Ontl, T.A.; Swanston, C.W. Climate Change Adaptation Strategies and Approaches for Outdoor Recreation. Sustainability 2019, 11, 7030.