Land Trust Alliance

The State of Marine and Coastal Adaptation in North America: A Synthesis of Emerging Ideas

Erin Derrington — 2012-12-07T01:49:54Z

This report from EcoAdapt summarizes climate change impacts to marine and coastal zones, discusses adaptation approaches, and highlights climate change response trends and opportunities throughout North America. The paper highlights adaptation projects that exemplify how communities have worked to overcome real and perceived barriers to climate adaptation action.

Scanning the Conservation Horizon: A Guide to Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment

Erin Derrington — 2012-12-07T01:23:18Z

Vulnerability assessments are a key tool for informing adaptation planning and enabling resource managers to identify current and future conservation strategies. The National Wildlife Federation’s Scanning the Conservation Horizon: A Guide to Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment is designed to assist fish and wildlife managers and other conservation and resource professionals to better plan, execute, and interpret climate change vulnerability assessments.

Wetland and Stream Mitigation: A Handbook for Land Trusts

Erin Derrington — 2012-12-07T01:15:00Z

Thanks to the support of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Environmental Law Institute and the Land Trust Alliance have released a new resource, Wetland and Stream Mitigation: A Handbook for Land Trusts, which was designed to provide land trusts with a starting point for understanding the opportunities and liabilities associated with taking on a compensatory mitigation project. The handbook provides readers with:

Background on Section 404 of the Clean Water Act,
An overview of the different phases of a compensatory mitigation project,
A discussion of the different roles that a land trust can play in compensatory mitigation,
A framework for land trusts to assess their participation in a compensatory mitigation project, and
Technical guides on site protection instruments, long-term management plans, and long–term financing mechanisms.

Download the Wetland and Stream Mitigation: A Handbook for Land Trusts as well as other resources from the ELI website.

Implications of Climate Change for State Bioassessment Programs and Approaches to Account for Effects

Erin Derrington — 2012-12-07T01:06:19Z

The US EPA’s report, "Implications of Climate Change for State Bioassessment Programs and Approaches to Account for Effects" uses biological data collected in wadeable rivers and streams by four states to examine the components of state and tribal bioassessment and biomonitoring programs that may be vulnerable to climate change. The study investigates the potential to identify biological response signals to climate change within existing bioassessment data sets; analyzes how biological responses can be categorized and interpreted; and assesses how they may influence decision-making processes. The analyses suggest that several biological indicators may be used to detect climate change effects and such indicators can be used by state bioassessment programs to document changes at high-quality reference sites.

National Conservation Easement Database Portal

Erin Derrington — 2012-11-09T02:50:00Z

The National Conservation Easement Database (NCED) is a national database of conservation easement information that compiles records from land trusts and public agencies throughout the United States, and aims to help agencies, land trusts, and other organizations plan more strategically and identify opportunities for collaboration. NCED “quick search” allows users to search easements by state, easement holder, easement type, or easement purpose, while the “advanced search” also allows queries based on geographic parameters including state, county, watershed, and avian conservation regions. Information can be downloaded, after creating a free account, from the NCED Data Download page. To add your land trust’s easements or learn more about NCED, visit their fact sheet here.

The Climate of Conservation in America: 50 Stories in 50 States

Erin Derrington — 2012-11-09T02:35:00Z

This series from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provides state-by-state narratives of how accelerating climate change is impacting or may impact fish and wildlife, as well as collaborative efforts to respond to these impacts across the nation.

EPA National Water Program 2012 Strategy

Erin Derrington — 2012-11-09T02:25:00Z

The National Water Program (NWP) 2012 Strategy addresses climate change impacts in the context of EPA’s water programs, reflecting the recognition that adaptation “requires a collaborative, problem solving approach, especially in a resource-constrained environment.” The NWP 2012 Strategy was designed to build upon other initiatives, such as the recent Coming Together for Clean Water strategy and the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Infrastructure Sustainability Policy. It also details EPA’s commitments deriving from three climate change strategic plans currently under development within the federal government:

for freshwater resources by the ICCATF Freshwater Work Group;
for the ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes by the National Ocean Council (NOC); and
for fish, wildlife, and plants by the National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Workgroup.

Specific goals, which include building collaborative networks to take effective adaptation measures, as well as making hydrological and climate data projections available, and strategic actions are highlighted in the executive summary and explained in the body of the report. The strategy also summarizes climate change impacts to water resources based on recent literature and outlines plans to achieve its mission to protect and restore aquatic ecosystems in the United States.

Coastal Climate Adaptation Website