Building Resiliency to Climate Change Through Wetland Management and Restoration

2019 ◽  
pp. 255-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberli J. Ponzio ◽  
Todd Z. Osborne ◽  
Gillian T. Davies ◽  
Ben LePage ◽  
Pallaoor V. Sundareshwar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Wetland Management

scholarly journals Policy considerations for managing wetlands under a changing climate

2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (10) ◽  
pp. 1803 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. M. Finlayson ◽  
S. J. Capon ◽  
D. Rissik ◽  
J. Pittock ◽  
G. Fisk ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Wetland Management ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
Wetland Condition ◽  
Ramsar Convention ◽  
Policy Context ◽  
Vulnerability To Climate Change ◽  
The Face ◽  
Potential Adaptation ◽  
Wetland Policy

Drawing on the experience and lessons of wetland researchers and managers in Australia and New Zealand, we examined the implications of climate change for wetland policy and management, and identified potential adaptation responses and the information needed to support these. First, we considered wetland vulnerability to climate change, focusing on wetland exposure and sensitivity. We then outlined the existing policy context for dealing with climate change, with an emphasis on the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. We then considered how the objectives and targets for wetland management can be set in the face of climate change, how management can be adapted to climate change given the uncertainties involved, and how we can monitor and evaluate wetland condition in the face of climate change. We concluded with a set of principles to guide adaptation of wetland conservation and management policy to climate change.

Assessing wetland climate change vulnerability for wetland management decision support using the hydrogeological landscape framework: application in the Australian Capital Territory

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 225
Author(s):  
A. L. Cowood ◽  
J. Young ◽  
T. I. Dowling ◽  
C. L. Moore ◽  
R. Muller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Hazard Assessment ◽  
Wetland Management ◽  
Management Decision ◽  
Anthropogenic Pressure ◽  
Australian Capital Territory ◽  
Australian Capital ◽  
Climate Change Vulnerability ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Hydrogeological Characteristics

The hydrogeological landscape (HGL) framework provides a landscape characterisation method that identifies areas of similar physical, hydrogeological, hydrological, chemical and biological properties, referred to as HGL units. The underlying principle of the HGL framework is that water distribution and movement is controlled by climate, landform, geology, regolith, soil and vegetation properties. By understanding the patterns of variability in the setting and controls of atmospheric, surface and groundwater systems for a given landscape, the developed HGL units, and associated landscape element-based management areas, can be used for hazard assessment and natural resource management centred on water availability, quality, sustainability and associated ecological systems. Existing wetland frameworks also demonstrate that it is the hydrogeomorphological or hydrogeological characteristics of the landscape that will determine the variability in water inputs and outputs for a wetland water balance, a principle shared with the HGL framework. It is therefore logical that HGL units and management areas can be used as planning units for wetland hazard assessment and management. This paper presents an assessment of climate change vulnerability for 1296 wetlands across the Australian Capital Territory using indicators representing current anthropogenic pressure, future ecological change and future hydrological change. The use of management areas for the hazard assessment allows understanding of the patterns of variability in the chosen indicators and hazard assessment outcomes specifically for the areas to be managed. This approach allows consideration of the landscape setting when identifying suitable locations to undertake on-ground management actions to address the hazards identified.

scholarly journals Wetland management: preparing for climate and coastal change using adaptation pathways

2020 ◽  
Vol 202 ◽  
pp. 01004
Author(s):  
Peter Gell
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Coastal Wetland ◽  
Wetland Management ◽  
Freshwater Ecosystems ◽  
Coastal Development ◽  
Freshwater Wetlands ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
River Flows ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Increased Risk

Freshwater ecosystems are among the most threatened in the world. The list of threatened species in freshwater ecosystems is greater than that in terrestrial or marine systems and freshwater vertebrates are particularly at risk. Freshwater wetlands have evolved in coastal zones protected from tidal influence by barrier dune systems. Similarly, estuaries have supported zones of low salinity diluted by flows from land, but water resource development has limited these flows and driven ecological change in estuarine systems. These historical uses of river flows, and the impacts of catchment development on water quality and yields, have combined to threaten coastal wetland ecosystems. They are now under increasing threat through climate change driven alterations to hydroclimatic conditions, as well an rising sea levels which risk inundation of low lying coastal regions, including wetlands. Coastal freshwater systems offer considerable ecosystem services to human systems and host significant biodiversity assets. These have been subjected to increased risk through catchment and coastal development, but are now acutely threatened through changed river flows and elevated sea levels that result from climate change. Managing these systems requires an adaptation pathways approach that accommodates human needs, and society’s obligations to global biodiversity.

Averting robo-bees: why free-flying robotic bees are a bad idea

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 723-729
Author(s):  
Roslyn Gleadow ◽  
Jim Hanan ◽  
Alan Dorin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Computer Simulation ◽  
Food Security ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Plant Interactions ◽  
Plant Insect Interactions ◽  
Native Habitat ◽  
Insect Pollinators ◽  
Insect Interactions

Food security and the sustainability of native ecosystems depends on plant-insect interactions in countless ways. Recently reported rapid and immense declines in insect numbers due to climate change, the use of pesticides and herbicides, the introduction of agricultural monocultures, and the destruction of insect native habitat, are all potential contributors to this grave situation. Some researchers are working towards a future where natural insect pollinators might be replaced with free-flying robotic bees, an ecologically problematic proposal. We argue instead that creating environments that are friendly to bees and exploring the use of other species for pollination and bio-control, particularly in non-European countries, are more ecologically sound approaches. The computer simulation of insect-plant interactions is a far more measured application of technology that may assist in managing, or averting, ‘Insect Armageddon' from both practical and ethical viewpoints.

Modelling ecosystem adaptation and dangerous rates of global warming

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Millington ◽  
Peter M. Cox ◽  
Jonathan R. Moore ◽  
Gabriel Yvon-Durocher
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Diffusion Rate ◽  
Individual Species ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
Rates Of Change ◽  
Rapid Climate Change ◽  
Warming Climate ◽  
Intraspecies Competition ◽  
High Trait

Abstract We are in a period of relatively rapid climate change. This poses challenges for individual species and threatens the ecosystem services that humanity relies upon. Temperature is a key stressor. In a warming climate, individual organisms may be able to shift their thermal optima through phenotypic plasticity. However, such plasticity is unlikely to be sufficient over the coming centuries. Resilience to warming will also depend on how fast the distribution of traits that define a species can adapt through other methods, in particular through redistribution of the abundance of variants within the population and through genetic evolution. In this paper, we use a simple theoretical ‘trait diffusion’ model to explore how the resilience of a given species to climate change depends on the initial trait diversity (biodiversity), the trait diffusion rate (mutation rate), and the lifetime of the organism. We estimate theoretical dangerous rates of continuous global warming that would exceed the ability of a species to adapt through trait diffusion, and therefore lead to a collapse in the overall productivity of the species. As the rate of adaptation through intraspecies competition and genetic evolution decreases with species lifetime, we find critical rates of change that also depend fundamentally on lifetime. Dangerous rates of warming vary from 1°C per lifetime (at low trait diffusion rate) to 8°C per lifetime (at high trait diffusion rate). We conclude that rapid climate change is liable to favour short-lived organisms (e.g. microbes) rather than longer-lived organisms (e.g. trees).

Climate change and breeding success: decline of the capercaillie in Scotland

2001 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Moss ◽  
James Oswald ◽  
David Baines
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Breeding Success
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