scholarly journals Assessing Pathways of Climate Change Effects in SpaDES: An Application to Boreal Landbirds of Northwest Territories Canada

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiane Micheletti ◽  
Frances E. C. Stewart ◽  
Steven G. Cumming ◽  
Samuel Haché ◽  
Diana Stralberg ◽  
...  

Distributions of landbirds in Canadian northern forests are expected to be affected by climate change, but it remains unclear which pathways are responsible for projected climate effects. Determining whether climate change acts indirectly through changing fire regimes and/or vegetation dynamics, or directly through changes in climatic suitability may allow land managers to address negative trajectories via forest management. We used SpaDES, a novel toolkit built in R that facilitates the implementation of simulation models from different areas of knowledge to develop a simulation experiment for a study area comprising 50 million ha in the Northwest Territories, Canada. Our factorial experiment was designed to contrast climate effects pathways on 64 landbird species using climate-sensitive and non-climate sensitive models for tree growth and mortality, wildfire, and landbirds. Climate-change effects were predicted to increase suitable habitat for 73% of species, resulting in average net gain of 7.49 million ha across species. We observed higher species turnover in the northeastern, south-central (species loss), and western regions (species gain). Importantly, we found that most of the predicted differences in net area of occupancy across models were attributed to direct climate effects rather than simulated vegetation change, despite a similar relative importance of vegetation and climate variables in landbird models. Even with close to a doubling of annual area burned by 2100, and a 600 kg/ha increase in aboveground tree biomass predicted in this region, differences in landbird net occupancy across models attributed to climate-driven forest growth were very small, likely resulting from differences in the pace of vegetation and climate changes, or vegetation lags. The effect of vegetation lags (i.e., differences from climatic equilibrium) varied across species, resulting in a wide range of changes in landbird distribution, and consequently predicted occupancy, due to climate effects. These findings suggest that hybrid approaches using statistical models and landscape simulation tools could improve wildlife forecasts when future uncoupling of vegetation and climate is anticipated. This study lays some of the methodological groundwork for ecological adaptive management using the new platform SpaDES, which allows for iterative forecasting, mixing of modeling paradigms, and tightening connections between data, parameterization, and simulation.

Author(s):  
Giti Bahrami ◽  
Hassan Rafiey ◽  
Alireza Shakiba ◽  
Mehdi Noroozi ◽  
Homeira Sajjadi

Introduction: Many studies have illustrated climate change effects on social variables and health. This study aimed to identify the SDH associated with climate change. Methods: The present study is a review study with a systematic search. The keywords related to climate change and social variables were searched in the Web of Science and PubMed databases until June 2018. In the initial search 12097 articles were obtained and after the elimination of duplicate and non-related articles, 5932 articles remained After studying the abstracts, 342 articles were excluded based on entry and exit criteria (studies that were not related to climate change and SDH) and 43 articles remained. In the next phase, the full text of the articles was evaluated by two evaluators individually and the consensus method was used. 23 papers were finally included in the study. Results: According to the review, social variables related to climate change were divided into 5 different categories of variables, including structural variables related to climate change (socioeconomic status), variables related to social status and work conditions (access to health services, unemployment, immigration, inequality, education, work condition, food security), variables related to social relationships and social networks (social movements, urban warfare, riot, group protests, interpersonal violence), individual variables related to lifestyle (place of living; city/village), and individual variables (age, race, gender) based on social determinants of health. Conclusions: Climate change has a wide range of social outcomes.. Various groups that are vulnerable to climate change include women, elderlies, children, villagers, and workers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Guo ◽  
Yue Lu ◽  
Yousry A. El-Kassaby ◽  
Lei Feng ◽  
Guibing Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Key message We developed a climatic response function using 20-year tree height observed from 45Ginkgo bilobaplantations in China and used it to predict the growth and habitat responses to anticipated climate change. We projected northward and upward shifts in the species habitat and productive areas, but a dramatic contraction of the species distribution is unlikely to occur at least during the present century. Context Ginkgo biloba is the only living species in the division Ginkgophyta. The species exists in small natural populations in southeastern China but is cultivated across China and the world. The species’ future under climate change is of concern. Aims This study was initiated to model the species’ growth response to climate change and to predict its range of suitable habitat under future climates. Methods Using height data from 45 20 years old plantations growing under a wide range of climatic conditions across China, we developed univariate and bivariate climatic response functions to identify the climate requirements of the species. Results According to the amount of variance explained (> 70%) and the high level of agreement (> 99%) with independent species occurrence coordinates, the developed climate response function was highly accurate and credible. Projections for future periods (2011–2040, 2041–2070, and 2071–2100) under the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 (RCP4.5) scenario indicated that the areas of potential suitable habitat would increase (25–67 million hectares). It would also be associated with northward (0.21–0.62° in latitude) and elevational (24–75 m) shifts. Conclusion Global climate change is projected to increase the area of potential suitable habitats for Ginkgo and shift its spatial distributions northward and upward.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgeta Mihai ◽  
Alin-Madalin Alexandru ◽  
Marius-Victor Birsan ◽  
Ionel Mirancea ◽  
Paula Garbacea ◽  
...  

<p>European silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) is among the most important forestry species in Europe. In Romanian Carpathians, it covers about 5% of the forests area and almost two-thirds of its distribution is located in Eastern Carpathians, which is the southeastern edge of its distribution in Europe.<br>The most recent climate change scenarios for Europe suggest increases in mean annual temperature of 1-4 °C by the end of this century (Meinshausen et al. 2011). In the context of global warming, the populations living at the edge of the species distribution will be the first facing the climate change effects. In these regions, as the southeastern Europe, the main constrains are increasing the temperature, extended drought events and water availability. Forest species are particularly sensitive to climate change because the long life-span of trees does not allow for rapid adaptation to environmental changes (Lindner et al. 2010). <br>In this context, the aim of this study was to analyze the drought response of 51 European silver fir populations from: Romanian Carpathians (26), Austria (4), Germany (3), France (3), Italy (4), Slovakia (3), Czech Republic (3), Poland (1) and Bulgaria (4)  to strong drought events which have occurred in this region, in the last 30 years. The populations are tested in three provenances trials established in Romania, in 1980; two of them being located outside and one within the optimum climatic of species. The most drought years, with severe or extreme drought periods, have been identified based on the standardized precipitation index (McKee et al. 1993). The growth response of the silver fir populations to the drought events was evaluated by calculating four parameters, namely: resistance, recovery, resilience, relative resilience (Lloret et al. 2011). Results reveled that the general trend was towards decrease the stem radial growth of silver fir during the last 30 years. The provenance x year interaction was not significant which means high provenances stability over time. Significant differences were found among silver fir provenances in terms of ring width, latewood proportion, resistance, recovery and resilience in drought years. There are provenances which have highlighted high productivity and high tolerance to drought, which could be used in reforestation work, breeding and conservation programs. The radial growth of silver fir provenances was negative affected by the temperature increase during vegetation period and positive by previous autumn-spring precipitations. Therefore, the forest management strategy to mitigate negative impacts of climate change should be based on the knowledge of the intraspecific genetic variation and selection of the best performing and adapted planting stock for each region.</p>


1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhawn F. Denniston ◽  
Luis A. Gonzalez ◽  
Holmes A. Semken ◽  
Yemane Asmerom ◽  
Richard G. Baker ◽  
...  

Speleothem carbon and oxygen isotopic records from Onondaga Cave, south-central Missouri, and Beckham Creek Cave, north-central Arkansas, are compared with the Cupola Pond and Oldfield Swamp pollen series from southeastern Missouri and the Rodgers Shelter and Modoc Shelter vertebrate biostratigraphic sequences from central Missouri and southwestern Illinois. Similar, and roughly contemporaneous, shifts between deciduous forest and steppe indicators throughout the Holocene are revealed in each database. These independent proxies record steppe conditions between approximately 9000 and 1500 cal yr B.P. A shift toward lighter speleothem carbon may reflect a change from warm and dry to cool and dry conditions between 4500 and 3000 yr B.P. The sensitive response of speleothem δ13C to changes in vegetation emphasizes their importance as paleoclimate records in an area containing few other millenial-scale climate proxies.


2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 915 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. L. Shive ◽  
P. Z. Fulé ◽  
C. H. Sieg ◽  
B. A. Strom ◽  
M. E. Hunter

Climate change effects on forested ecosystems worldwide include increases in drought-related mortality, changes to disturbance regimes and shifts in species distributions. Such climate-induced changes will alter the outcomes of current management strategies, complicating the selection of appropriate strategies to promote forest resilience. We modelled forest growth in ponderosa pine forests that burned in Arizona’s 2002 Rodeo–Chediski Fire using the Forest Vegetation Simulator Climate Extension, where initial stand structures were defined by pre-fire treatment and fire severity. Under extreme climate change, existing forests persisted for several decades, but shifted towards pinyon–juniper woodlands by 2104. Under milder scenarios, pine persisted with reduced growth. Prescribed burning at 10- and 20-year intervals resulted in basal areas within the historical range of variability (HRV) in low-severity sites that were initially dominated by smaller diameter trees; but in sites initially dominated by larger trees, the range was consistently exceeded. For high-severity sites, prescribed fire was too frequent to reach the HRV’s minimum basal area. Alternatively, for all stands under milder scenarios, uneven-aged management resulted in basal areas within the HRV because of its inherent flexibility to manipulate forest structures. These results emphasise the importance of flexible approaches to management in a changing climate.


Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gintautas Mozgeris ◽  
Vilis Brukas ◽  
Nerijus Pivoriūnas ◽  
Gintautas Činga ◽  
Ekaterina Makrickienė ◽  
...  

Research Highlights: Validating modelling approach which combines global framework conditions in the form of climate and policy scenarios with the use of forest decision support system to assess climate change impacts on the sustainability of forest management. Background and Objectives: Forests and forestry have been confirmed to be sensitive to climate. On the other hand, human efforts to mitigate climate change influence forests and forest management. To facilitate the evaluation of future sustainability of forest management, decision support systems are applied. Our aims are to: (1) Adopt and validate decision support tool to incorporate climate change and its mitigation impacts on forest growth, global timber demands and prices for simulating future trends of forest ecosystem services in Lithuania, (2) determine the magnitude and spatial patterns of climate change effects on Lithuanian forests and forest management in the future, supposing that current forestry practices are continued. Materials and Methods: Upgraded version of Lithuanian forestry simulator Kupolis was used to model the development of all forests in the country until 2120 under management conditions of three climate change scenarios. Selected stand-level forest and forest management characteristics were aggregated to the level of regional branches of the State Forest Enterprise and analyzed for the spatial and temporal patterns of climate change effects. Results: Increased forest growth under a warmer future climate resulted in larger tree dimensions, volumes of growing stock, naturally dying trees, harvested assortments, and also higher profits from forestry activities. Negative impacts were detected for the share of broadleaved tree species in the standing volume and the tree species diversity. Climate change effects resulted in spatially clustered patterns—increasing stand productivity, and amounts of harvested timber were concentrated in the regions with dominating coniferous species, while the same areas were exposed to negative dynamics of biodiversity-related forest attributes. Current forest characteristics explained 70% or more of the variance of climate change effects on key forest and forest management attributes. Conclusions: Using forest decision support systems, climate change scenarios and considering the balance of delivered ecosystem services is suggested as a methodological framework for validating forest management alternatives aiming for more adaptiveness in Lithuanian forestry.


2012 ◽  
Vol 69 (8) ◽  
pp. 1389-1404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel L. Roelke ◽  
Bryan W. Brooks ◽  
James P. Grover ◽  
George M. Gable ◽  
Leslie Schwierzke-Wade ◽  
...  

Effects of inflow on phytoplankton dynamics and assemblage structure have long been an interest of ecologists and resource managers, especially when they are linked to the incidence of harmful algal blooms. The frequency and magnitude of Prymnesium parvum bloom-preventing inflows likely in a drier landscape of south-central USA was explored, along with the relative importance of various factors important to blooms. We show that the number of large inflow events necessary to prevent blooms might decrease between 25% and 65% under drier conditions likely for this region. Long duration inflow events that are critical to lake flushing could nearly disappear, with inflow events lasting longer than 20 days decreasing 40-fold. These findings suggest that the frequency of P. parvum blooms and fish-kill events might increase in this region with human population and climate change. Multivariate analyses of monitoring data from multiple lakes indicate that other factors may be equally important to bloom occurrences. Inverse trends between toxic bloom events and nutrient concentrations, cyanobacteria, and lower pH are apparent. During periods when P. parvum populations were not toxic, an inverse relationship with zooplankton was observed. These other factors might be harnessed to mitigate P. parvum blooms in the future when inflows are reduced.


Author(s):  
Md Jahangir Alam ◽  
Reaz Akter Mullick

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects on urban flood from rapidly growing land and housing development projects in flood zones and water bodies in and around Dhaka. The paper further extends the analysis to generate an insight into Dhaka’s urban flood due to possible climate change effects on top of land and housing development projects effects. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed method was applied for this research comprising qualitative techniques for analyzing the date gathered from reviewing the policies including the Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan reports, interviews, discussions and maps, whereas quantitative analysis was used to interpret the data gathered from the global positioning system (GPS) survey and questionnaire survey among the resident of the selected housing projects. Findings – Findings show that a large number of the projects have encroached flood-flow zones and ditches and drainage channels through massive land filling, which resulted in quick changes of land use with wide range of impacts on environment and habitat quality. This study highlighted that the potential climate change impact involves increasing rainfall and subsequent increase flooding. Besides, vast area will be submerged under water and increased warming in the city from high speed built-up area by unauthorized land development. Originality/value – The results of the research can be taken into consideration when making political decisions concerning adaptation to climate change.


2007 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 557-569 ◽  
Author(s):  
A E Ogden ◽  
J L Innes

Forestry practitioners in the Yukon and Northwest Territories of Canada were asked to complete a questionnaire examining the likely impacts of climate change on forest sector sustainability and adaptation options to climate change. Practitioners were asked to self-assess their knowledge on various aspects of climate change and ranked their level of knowledge as generally only poor to fair, despite past educational efforts in this area. Changes in the intensity, severity or magnitude of forest insect outbreaks, changes in extreme weather events, and changes in the intensity, severity or magnitude of forest fires were the three impacts most frequently identified as having had an impact on sustainability. More than half of the respondents indicated that commodity prices, availability of timber, trade policies, environmental regulations, and the ability to secure needed capital as presently having more of a negative impact on sustainability than climate change. The assessment of 65 potential adaptation options was structured according to the criteria of the Montreal Process. The majority of respondents considered the goals of adaptation to be synonymous with the criteria of sustainable forest management, indicating the Montreal Process criteria provide a suitable framework for assessing adaptation options in the forest sector. The intensity, severity and magnitude of forest insect outbreaks under future climate conditions, forest growth and productivity, precipitation, climate variability and the intensity, severity and magnitude of forest fires were ranked as the most important areas where further information would be of assistance to decision-making. Key words: climate change, adaptation, boreal forest, forestry, Yukon, Northwest Territories


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 478-518
Author(s):  
Joyce S. Clemente ◽  
Philippa Huntsman

Increased temperatures and changing amounts of precipitation may alter environments, increasing the challenges faced by mines. This is a paper on topics relevant to metal mine biogeochemical environments, related waste management, element transport, and environment health south of 60° latitude. Mine waste can contain elements of interest (EOI) that may have adverse environmental and biological effects at concentrations that are higher than in undisturbed sites. Elevated concentrations of EOIs are transported by water as solutes and particles. Wind erosion also transports particles, and establishing its contribution and effects is challenging. Dispersal of EOI can be controlled at the source using water covers, geomembranes, geosynthetic clay liners, and covers with capillary barrier effects. Drainage that can be produced over a wide range of pH must be treated to meet environmental requirements. Water treatment can produce sludge that must be stored or processed. The success of these mitigation measures can be observed in the biological health of organisms at the site and vicinity. Processes responsible for EOI dissolution and transport, waste control and water management systems, and the stress experienced by biota near mines are all subject to climate change effects. Understanding and adapting to challenges from a rapidly changing environment will require cooperation between industry, government, mining communities, and scientists. Ideally, adaptation measures should correspond to temperature and precipitation projections, but this information is not always available at the relevant geographic scale. To anticipate emerging risks, it may be necessary to explore a variety of scenarios at lab and field scales, and to implement robust and flexible management techniques.


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