Climate Change and the Rocky Mountains - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 456

lack the spatial resolution (e.g., population-level) and predictive accuracy
that managers need to make informed decisions on where and when
to implement management actions (e.g., stream restoration and habitat
protection). More recently, advances in geostatistical modeling of stream
systems have greatly improved temperature predictability by using spatial
data to explain variation across heterogeneous river networks in the Rockies
(Isaak et al. 2010, Jones et al. 2013). These types of fi sh population and habitat
models are currently being used to help direct conservation strategies at
local (i.e., stream reach) scales aimed to improve population resilience and
resistance against future changes through adaptive management.
Adaptation planning has emerged as a powerful management tool
to help people and natural systems prepare for and cope with the current
and projected impacts of climate change and other important cumulative
stressors, such as habitat loss and invasive species. Climate change requires
altering traditional approaches to conservation and natural resource
management, which are focused on short term response variables, to
conservation and restoration goals focused toward longer time periods (e.g.,
several decades) and larger scales (e.g., landscapes and biogeographical
areas). This includes adaptation analyses that account for an increasingly
unknown future. Adaption planning may include conservation measures
to reduce deleterious effects or to take preventative measures to slow the
impact and rate of climate change. As such, climate change adaptation
planning is rapidly becoming the primary lens for conservation and natural
resource planning and management to develop approaches that minimize
risk for increasingly different and uncertain future changes.
Climate adaptation planning requires assessing the vulnerability of
aquatic species, habitats and ecosystems to future climate change scenarios.
Accordingly, management options are identifi ed and implemented to
reduce sensitivity and exposure to existing and future stressors, increasing
resiliency and adaptive capacity across large spatial scales. In some cases,
climate change may result in the expansion of suitable habitats, but for
many coldwater dependent species, these changes are likely to restrict and
further reduce suitable habitats to headwaters streams, resulting in highly
fragmented habitat networks. For migratory salmonids, conserving the
connectivity, size and extent of existing high quality habitats will be an
important conservation strategy, as well as helping to identify where to
undertake habitat restoration within a river network and which methods
would best improve population resilience against future changes.
Conclusion
Global climate change is one of the greatest problems facing humanity now
and that problem will continue to confront us throughout this century.