Climate change impacts forest ecosystems, creating complex management challenges across the region.
The Forest Climate Indicators project engages forest land managers, planners, and scientists in the development of online tools to aid in decision-making. The tools will feature up to four climate change indicators that users can explore to make climate-informed decisions. Specifically, the tools seek to help guide forest planning, management, and ecological monitoring.
Indicators – based on historical, real-time, and/or modeled data – warn of change, inform decision-making, and track trends over time.
Examples of indicators of climate change relevant to forests include growing-degree days, soil frost, insect outbreak severity, and shifts in species composition. The Forest Climate Indicators Project will co-produce online tools to address up to four forest indicators across the Northeast and Midwest. Through a series of listening sessions, and opportunities for user feedback, the team will work with end users to ensure the tools are relevant to their needs.
The team will pull together data for each of the indicators into a comprehensive web platform where users can examine trends locally and regionally.
Users will have the ability to summarize data at individual locations to guide forest management and planning decisions. Using the Applied Climate Information System (ACIS) platform to manage the complex flow of climate information, the tools will 1) track changes in indicators through time, 2) monitor day-to-day conditions in a particular season, 3) provide management options to adapt to conditions in the current growing season, and 4) provide longer-term adaptation guidance related to climate stressors. Applications for management could include managing current and future forest growth, carbon sequestration, regeneration rates, temperature and moisture stress, insect pressure, and seasonal forest management access. The project will conclude with a series of workshops and trainings with end users and other Hubs and USDA Forest Service Regions to demonstrate the use and applicability of the tools.
We are actively seeking input on data-needs.
What would you like to see for tools? What indicators would be useful to incorporate? Please email Alyssa Soucy to share your ideas with the team!