Identification

Title

Demonstrating the applicability of a Robust Decision Making (RDM) to conservation decision-making under uncertain future climate: Pilot study using the Northern Pygmy Salamander (Desmognathus organi)

Abstract

Climate change challenges conservation planners in making decisions about habitat site selection and augmentation. This pilot study explores the use of Robust Decision Making (RDM), a decision analytic approach employed in water and coastal management, for conservation decision-making. It employs the RDM approach to design a theoretical decision experiment that compares the differences in performance between stylized static and adaptive land purchase strategies that notionally aim to protect additional habitat for Desmognathus organi, a salamander in the south central Appalachians, under uncertain future climate conditions. The static strategy purchases a specific parcel of land in the present, whereas the adaptive strategy leases two parcels in the present and purchases the most suitable later. Purchase decisions are based on projected future habitat suitability for D. organi, estimated using species response models trained with an ensemble of climate model projections. Using RDM methods that emphasize scenario-based analysis and statistical discovery of factors that favor one decision versus another in different futures, we find that the adaptive strategy tends to perform slightly better than the static strategy in terms of selecting highly suitable habitat over a wide range of futures. RDM shows promise as an approach to support conservation decision-making. Additional methodological development is needed to apply it to real-world conservation problems.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d77d2zwf

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2017-10-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact