Identification

Title

Climate change adaptation zones for terrestrial ecosystems-A demonstration with pinyon-juniper woodlands in the USA

Abstract

Decision support tools are needed to ensure that appropriately timed and place-based adaptation is deployed in natural resource policy, planning, and management. Driven by accelerating climate change, analytical frameworks for adaptation are emerging to assist with these decisions. There is a natural relationship between climate change vulnerability assessments and adaptation responses, where low to high relative climate change vulnerability suggests "resistance" to "transformation" strategies for adaptation. The NatureServe Habitat Climate Change Vulnerability Index (HCCVI) embodies a process for ecosystem assessment that integrates both climate and non-climate data and knowledge to document the relative vulnerability of a given habitat or ecosystem type. The framework addresses climate exposure and ecosystem resilience. Since most measures of exposure and resilience are mapped, they can be utilized to create map zones that suggest climate-smart adaptation. We applied the HCCVI to a cross-section of 10 pinyon pine and juniper woodland ecosystem types in western North America. We then demonstrate the application of these outputs to adaptation zonation. Climate exposure defines relative adaptation strategies, while measures of resilience suggest specific priorities for habitat restoration and maintenance. By the mid-21st century, 3% and 23% of the combined area of these types in the United States was categorized as Directed Transformation or Autonomous Transformation, respectively. In just 10% of the combined areas for these types, Passive Resistance strategies are suggested.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7251p6t

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

2023-07-27T00:00:00Z

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

Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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

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 date

2025-07-11T15:16:04.216543

Metadata language

eng; USA