Technical Report on Assembling Indicators to Monitor Climate-Driven Change in Northeastern Forests

Forest ecosystems are experiencing the impacts of climate change in many forms, however, comprehensive monitoring efforts are not always available to identify changing baselines. In order to improve our understanding of the impacts of climate change on ecosystem processes, the FEMC developed the Forest Impacts of Climate Change: Monitoring Indicators tool (Version 1.0). The Forest Impacts of Climate Change: Monitoring Indicators tool was developed for use by researchers and professionals to be able to easily access protocols used to monitor high priority indicators of the impacts of climate change in New England and New York. The monitoring protocols provide information for landowners and managers to implement their own monitoring programs that will be comparable to other studies being conducted across the region. By centralizing information about this network of monitoring sites, more data will become available to the community to help discern how forest ecosystems are changing. This report describes the methods and implementation used to build this tool. To develop the Forest Impacts of Climate Change: Monitoring Indicators tool, FEMC formed a committee of partners to select indicators and provide guidance about the literature review and eventual tool. The committee identified four ecological categories as important for monitoring climate change in the Northeast: Wildlife, Forest Systems, Trees, and Aquatic Systems. FEMC identified who is currently conducting monitoring efforts, what monitoring protocols are available for replication, gaps in monitoring data, and how we can make data and monitoring information easily available so that land managers can have the most up-to -date information possible. The developed tool compiles over 350 studies across 24 different indicators of the impacts of climate change. Through a filterable webtool users can find these studies, as well as 168 replicable protocols to direct implementation. The tool helps to identify gaps in monitoring efforts and provides a platform for users to contribute to regionally cohesive datasets. Monitoring of indicators across systems is critical for tracking and understanding climate change impacts. The Forest Impacts of Climate Change: Monitoring Indicators tool, developed for use by researchers, professionals, and land managers across the region, lets users find methods and protocols for monitoring climate change impacts and see where these monitoring efforts are already being conducted in our region. In addition, you can quickly visualize where there are gaps in our monitoring. As contributors in the Cooperative region share more information about their own monitoring efforts, this will become available to the community through this tool, increasing our ability to track and identify change in our forested ecosystems.