WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:05.390 --> 00:00:06.390 What is Ecological Drought? 00:00:06.390 --> 00:00:07.390 Exploring its impacts on natural and cultural resources 00:00:07.390 --> 00:00:08.790 John Ossanna:  Welcome, everyone, from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National 00:00:08.790 --> 00:00:12.600 Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. 00:00:12.600 --> 00:00:16.840 My name is John Ossanna and I would like to welcome you to our webinar series held in 00:00:16.840 --> 00:00:21.220 partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Climate Change and Wildlife Science 00:00:21.220 --> 00:00:22.220 Center. 00:00:22.220 --> 00:00:25.230 Today's webinar is titled "What is Ecological Drought?" 00:00:25.230 --> 00:00:29.679 We'll be exploring the impacts on natural and cultural resources. 00:00:29.679 --> 00:00:35.170 We're excited to have Shawn Carter and Laura Thompson with us, who are with the USGS National 00:00:35.170 --> 00:00:40.440 Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center, as well as Shelley Crausbay with us today. 00:00:40.440 --> 00:00:42.140 Let's get started. 00:00:42.140 --> 00:00:49.790 To start things off, please join me in welcoming Emily Fort, who's with the USGS. 00:00:49.790 --> 00:00:51.690 She'll be introducing our speakers today. 00:00:51.690 --> 00:00:52.690 Emily? 00:00:52.690 --> 00:00:53.690 Emily Fort:  Hi, thanks, John. 00:00:53.690 --> 00:00:58.420 It's my pleasure to introduce Shawn Carter and Laura Thompson from the USGS National 00:00:58.420 --> 00:01:01.519 Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center in Reston, Virginia. 00:01:01.519 --> 00:01:09.050 Shawn is the senior scientist for our center and works with the USGS offices and the DOI 00:01:09.050 --> 00:01:10.659 Climate Science Centers. 00:01:10.659 --> 00:01:12.890 Laura is a research ecologist. 00:01:12.890 --> 00:01:18.880 Shelley Crausbay is a postdoc for the National Center for ecological analysis and synthesis 00:01:18.880 --> 00:01:21.060 at the University of California Santa Barbara. 00:01:21.060 --> 00:01:25.590 There, she is part of the Science for Nature and People Partnership working program on 00:01:25.590 --> 00:01:30.579 ecological drought that was initiated by the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science 00:01:30.579 --> 00:01:31.579 Center. 00:01:31.579 --> 00:01:34.700 She sits in Fort Collins, Colorado with the North Central Climate Science Center. 00:01:34.700 --> 00:01:38.460 With that, I'm going to turn it over to Shawn. 00:01:38.460 --> 00:01:40.210 Shawn Carter:  Thanks, Emily. 00:01:40.210 --> 00:01:41.520 Good afternoon, everyone. 00:01:41.520 --> 00:01:46.560 Thanks for joining us today for our kickoff webinar on ecological drought. 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:51.270 This is the first installment of a yearlong series focused on the ecological consequences 00:01:51.270 --> 00:01:57.170 of drought across the country, within the context of climate change and other stressors. 00:01:57.170 --> 00:02:02.869 The purpose of our talk today is to provide some initial context and framing of ecological 00:02:02.869 --> 00:02:06.119 drought, or ecodrought, as we call it. 00:02:06.119 --> 00:02:12.380 Some justification for calling it out as its own research initiative, which we've attempted 00:02:12.380 --> 00:02:18.690 to do, and also introduce some National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center sponsored 00:02:18.690 --> 00:02:19.690 projects. 00:02:19.690 --> 00:02:24.390 If you hear me say “nic-wisk”, I'm talking about NCCWSC. 00:02:24.390 --> 00:02:27.700 It's just the shorthand that we use. 00:02:27.700 --> 00:02:31.220 After my brief comments, I'll pass the baton to Shelley. 00:02:31.220 --> 00:02:35.680 She's one of our two postdoctoral researchers helping us lead in the ecological drought 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:36.680 working group. 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:41.610 As Emily had mentioned, it's part of the Science for Nature and People Partnership, or SNAPP, 00:02:41.610 --> 00:02:44.900 based at NCEAS in Santa Barbara. 00:02:44.900 --> 00:02:49.280 Shelley will outline our proposed conceptual framework for ecodrought, and describe some 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:54.540 pilot work assessing vulnerability being conducted in the upper Missouri Headwaters region in 00:02:54.540 --> 00:02:55.540 Montana. 00:02:55.540 --> 00:03:02.230 Next, Laura will talk about some relevant research projects to further illustrate the 00:03:02.230 --> 00:03:04.330 management implications of ecodrought. 00:03:04.330 --> 00:03:07.569 Some of which will be covered in more detail on future webinars. 00:03:07.569 --> 00:03:13.740 Finally, I'll close out the webinar by covering some of our national synthesis, and science 00:03:13.740 --> 00:03:20.080 communication efforts, and then we'll open things up for questions. 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:26.560 To reiterate just a little bit, we're here today to talk about a subset of drought impacts. 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:31.750 Those related to flora, fauna, and ecosystems, and both managed and unmanaged systems. 00:03:31.750 --> 00:03:37.069 In fact, the genesis of this initiative was based on management need. 00:03:37.069 --> 00:03:41.540 Resource managers were being told that climate change will be increasingly impacting seasonal 00:03:41.540 --> 00:03:47.500 and annual, even decadal water availability, and we're struggling to form adaptation plans 00:03:47.500 --> 00:03:50.330 that could help them plan for the future. 00:03:50.330 --> 00:03:53.770 How and when will ecosystems be transformed? 00:03:53.770 --> 00:03:57.280 Will conversions be temporary, or irreversible? 00:03:57.280 --> 00:04:01.629 How will other anthropogenic stressors interact with drought? 00:04:01.629 --> 00:04:07.799 How prepared are systems currently to adapt to climate change induced drought? 00:04:07.799 --> 00:04:11.680 We started this initiative to begin answering some of these questions. 00:04:11.680 --> 00:04:17.310 As I mentioned, we hope to highlight how we're addressing these questions throughout this 00:04:17.310 --> 00:04:18.310 series, throughout the year. 00:04:18.310 --> 00:04:25.620 To give a little bit more introduction to the concept, is Shelley Crausbay, and I'll 00:04:25.620 --> 00:04:27.010 just hand it over to Shelley. 00:04:27.010 --> 00:04:30.290 Shelley Crausbay:  Thank you, Shawn. 00:04:30.290 --> 00:04:35.600 I wanted to start briefly by telling you all a little bit about SNAPP, the Science for 00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:37.090 Nature and People Partnership. 00:04:37.090 --> 00:04:43.100 SNAPP is the partnership among NCEAS, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the Nature 00:04:43.100 --> 00:04:44.720 Conservancy. 00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:49.140 What SNAPP does, is they host working groups that really bring together scientists, practitioners, 00:04:49.140 --> 00:04:54.940 and policy makers, so that they can focus on questions, mostly questions that are really 00:04:54.940 --> 00:05:01.780 at the nexus of biodiversity conservation, human wellbeing, and economic development. 00:05:01.780 --> 00:05:05.500 All of the work that I'm presenting today is a product of the ecological drought working 00:05:05.500 --> 00:05:06.500 group. 00:05:06.500 --> 00:05:10.690 This is our really diverse group of nearly 20 folks who are focused on this issue. 00:05:10.690 --> 00:05:15.190 In particular, I want to acknowledge, and call out the core group, so the PIs, Shawn, 00:05:15.190 --> 00:05:21.720 who you just heard from, Molly Cross with WCS, Kim Hall with TNC, and also, especially, 00:05:21.720 --> 00:05:26.250 Aaron Ramirez, the other postdoc on this project. 00:05:26.250 --> 00:05:33.520 Our group formed because ecosystems are more vulnerable to 21st century droughts, but risks 00:05:33.520 --> 00:05:38.660 to ecosystems are not always considered in drought planning and management. 00:05:38.660 --> 00:05:43.041 Our charge was to synthesize all the best available science, and come up with a new 00:05:43.041 --> 00:05:48.600 conceptual framework that defines ecological drought, parses out the national and human 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:54.100 drivers, and really helps us identify important tradeoffs, and perhaps some mutually beneficial 00:05:54.100 --> 00:06:02.250 solutions so that we can help mitigate effects, and hopefully improve drought preparedness. 00:06:02.250 --> 00:06:07.600 Our group started simply by trying to define ecological drought what is it? 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:12.640 What I'm showing you here is a word cloud of all the definitions that were put forward 00:06:12.640 --> 00:06:15.340 by our working group members. 00:06:15.340 --> 00:06:22.230 What we settled on was this definition here, which is, an episodic deficit in water availability 00:06:22.230 --> 00:06:28.440 that drives ecosystems beyond thresholds of vulnerability, impacts ecosystem services, 00:06:28.440 --> 00:06:35.120 and triggers feedbacks in natural and human systems. 00:06:35.120 --> 00:06:40.930 To come up with a conceptual framework for ecological drought, we are using a vulnerability 00:06:40.930 --> 00:06:46.470 framework where one dimension really looks at each of those pieces of vulnerability, 00:06:46.470 --> 00:06:52.410 so exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, on through to impacts. 00:06:52.410 --> 00:06:58.380 A really important second dimension really tries to highlight both natural and human 00:06:58.380 --> 00:07:01.720 processes that go into this. 00:07:01.720 --> 00:07:05.720 Here's our framework for ecological drought, our conceptual framework, and you can see 00:07:05.720 --> 00:07:09.670 that we're looking at all the pieces of vulnerability from top to bottom. 00:07:09.670 --> 00:07:15.780 You see a box for exposure, for sensitivity and adaptive capacity, and then a box for 00:07:15.780 --> 00:07:20.130 impacts, then you can see also from left to right we're considering natural processes 00:07:20.130 --> 00:07:23.310 in yellow, and human processes in blue. 00:07:23.310 --> 00:07:26.350 Don't worry about trying to digest this conceptual figure right now. 00:07:26.350 --> 00:07:31.130 I'm going to walk you through each piece of it as we go along. 00:07:31.130 --> 00:07:37.060 First, I want to start with the top piece, exposure. 00:07:37.060 --> 00:07:42.210 Looking on the yellow side, on the natural side, we think about meteorological drought. 00:07:42.210 --> 00:07:47.900 Maybe this is the most easy thing for us to think about when we think about drought, and 00:07:47.900 --> 00:07:53.470 particularly how meteorological drought is propagated across the landscape via soils, 00:07:53.470 --> 00:07:57.560 the physiography, and landscape position, and things like that. 00:07:57.560 --> 00:08:03.080 But the human side of exposure is also really really important. 00:08:03.080 --> 00:08:06.370 For example, it starts with anthropogenic climate change. 00:08:06.370 --> 00:08:14.740 Here, you see a map that's showing the percent change in current versus year 2100 drought 00:08:14.740 --> 00:08:18.640 levels, and this is assessed with a pretty common drought index called the PDSI. 00:08:18.640 --> 00:08:24.440 I just want to point out where, if you can see the black stipples in this map, that's 00:08:24.440 --> 00:08:29.170 showing you where there's really strong model agreement among all the CMIP5 models. 00:08:29.170 --> 00:08:35.409 Climate change is adding heat to the climate system, and we know that heat is going into 00:08:35.409 --> 00:08:36.940 drying. 00:08:36.940 --> 00:08:41.490 While climate change may not necessarily manufacture droughts, it's certainly going to exacerbate 00:08:41.490 --> 00:08:46.890 them. 00:08:46.890 --> 00:08:51.270 Another feature of anthropogenic climate change is that climate change is increasing the risk 00:08:51.270 --> 00:08:56.260 of mega drought, so you can see on the left, we're looking at the Central Plains. 00:08:56.260 --> 00:08:59.050 The Y axis is showing you the percent risk. 00:08:59.050 --> 00:09:05.520 From the last part of the past century, risk was fairly low in the Central Plains, and 00:09:05.520 --> 00:09:13.210 here we're looking at three drought indices PDSI and two soil moisture proxies. 00:09:13.210 --> 00:09:19.090 You look on the right side of that graph from 2050 to 2099 and you can see that that risk 00:09:19.090 --> 00:09:22.870 of a multidecadal drought is really strong. 00:09:22.870 --> 00:09:27.640 If you look at the map on the right side, you can see the spatial variability in that 00:09:27.640 --> 00:09:33.390 risk, and you can see that the western US and southern US is fairly at risk from mega 00:09:33.390 --> 00:09:36.840 drought in the future, but take a look at that map and you can see that this really 00:09:36.840 --> 00:09:40.710 is truly a global issue. 00:09:40.710 --> 00:09:46.640 The other side of the human piece for exposure is human water use. 00:09:46.640 --> 00:09:48.760 Humans really add to the severity of drought. 00:09:48.760 --> 00:09:55.890 You can see in this graph, this is just a graph of water level in a particular basin, 00:09:55.890 --> 00:10:01.080 and you can see on the left, that's a totally climateinduced drought where water level declines. 00:10:01.080 --> 00:10:05.241 In the middle, you can see an example of a totally humaninduced drought where, let's 00:10:05.241 --> 00:10:10.130 say, water level declines solely because humans are pulling water out of the system through 00:10:10.130 --> 00:10:12.380 irrigation or what have you. 00:10:12.380 --> 00:10:14.170 In reality, what we have is on the right. 00:10:14.170 --> 00:10:16.170 It's a combination of these things. 00:10:16.170 --> 00:10:22.530 For example, we can simulate a natural drought shown there in yellow, but the reality of 00:10:22.530 --> 00:10:26.660 what we see and what we observe is a combination of natural and human effects. 00:10:26.660 --> 00:10:33.070 In fact, in the future, human modifications are set to reduce water availability perhaps 00:10:33.070 --> 00:10:40.180 even more than climate change in some regions, for example the Colorado Basin where I live. 00:10:40.180 --> 00:10:44.840 All those pieces sum up our exposure piece for ecological drought and we're calling that 00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:50.670 "ecologically available water," the idea that this is a combination of these atmospheric 00:10:50.670 --> 00:10:56.060 and terrestrial water availability as well as the natural and human processes that control 00:10:56.060 --> 00:11:00.150 that availability. 00:11:00.150 --> 00:11:04.800 Moving further down our conceptual diagram, you can see we're thinking about sensitivity 00:11:04.800 --> 00:11:05.950 and adaptive capacity. 00:11:05.950 --> 00:11:12.520 These are just the ecological or evolutionary characteristics of a system that control how 00:11:12.520 --> 00:11:16.860 strongly it responds to the same level of exposure. 00:11:16.860 --> 00:11:22.140 Of course on the blue side, the human side, natural resource management can certainly 00:11:22.140 --> 00:11:29.440 manipulate the ecological and evolutionary characteristics that go into sensitivity. 00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:35.000 For example, the graph on the left, I'm showing you a graph of predawn water potential for 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:38.340 two different tree species in the Southwest. 00:11:38.340 --> 00:11:43.400 You can see that pinyon pine up top in red had a much higher threshold by which once 00:11:43.400 --> 00:11:49.820 you cross that predawn water potential, you are more likely to die whereas the juniper 00:11:49.820 --> 00:11:52.440 below that had a much lower threshold. 00:11:52.440 --> 00:11:57.850 The pinyon pines experienced much more mortality than the junipers did. 00:11:57.850 --> 00:12:02.140 On the right side, we're showing this natural resource management idea and how they can 00:12:02.140 --> 00:12:05.050 affect these ecological characteristics. 00:12:05.050 --> 00:12:10.110 For example, this graph is showing a time series of basal area, and the yellow box in 00:12:10.110 --> 00:12:13.770 the middle is a strong drought that this site experienced. 00:12:13.770 --> 00:12:19.700 You can see that the areas that rescind, that top dotted line graph, really recovered much 00:12:19.700 --> 00:12:20.700 more quickly. 00:12:20.700 --> 00:12:25.670 Their basal area was much higher post drought than the other sites. 00:12:25.670 --> 00:12:32.760 Moving down our conceptual figure further, once you cross a threshold of vulnerability, 00:12:32.760 --> 00:12:39.200 you're going to get an ecological impact, so, widespread tree mortality, major fish 00:12:39.200 --> 00:12:40.760 kills, things like that. 00:12:40.760 --> 00:12:48.870 In turn, that is going to cause losses perhaps in ecosystem services that we see on the right 00:12:48.870 --> 00:12:55.630 side there in blue, but panning out overall for our ecological drought conceptual framework, 00:12:55.630 --> 00:12:59.420 we think that the feedbacks are very important. 00:12:59.420 --> 00:13:03.870 This is represented by the arrows that you see on either side of the graph. 00:13:03.870 --> 00:13:09.300 For example, on the yellow side, when an ecological impact happens, let's say widespread tree 00:13:09.300 --> 00:13:14.510 mortality, that's now going to feedback and change the ecological characteristics of that 00:13:14.510 --> 00:13:19.150 place, or it's going to change the landscape characteristics say from the perspective of 00:13:19.150 --> 00:13:22.420 a species that's now migrated to a new location. 00:13:22.420 --> 00:13:27.010 Even through teleconnections, it can affect the probability of future drought in that 00:13:27.010 --> 00:13:28.010 area. 00:13:28.010 --> 00:13:33.431 On the blue side, our idea is that once an ecosystem service impact is so strong, it's 00:13:33.431 --> 00:13:39.700 going to feedback and cause humans to really think about various institutions and how can 00:13:39.700 --> 00:13:45.790 we change our natural resource management practices or our water use institutions in 00:13:45.790 --> 00:13:51.050 order to reduce vulnerability to these ecological impacts in the future. 00:13:51.050 --> 00:14:01.850 At this point, we're trying to take our conceptual framework and turn it into a really flexible 00:14:01.850 --> 00:14:04.190 framework for a vulnerability analysis. 00:14:04.190 --> 00:14:09.070 To do this, we're borrowing ideas from the species and habitat distribution modeling 00:14:09.070 --> 00:14:16.040 community where essentially we're trying to look at an ecological response, say tree mortality, 00:14:16.040 --> 00:14:23.030 and create models that drive that response based on each aspect of our conceptual diagram. 00:14:23.030 --> 00:14:29.270 We're trying to integrate each aspect of vulnerability and mostly we're trying to parse out which 00:14:29.270 --> 00:14:33.890 are the strongest drivers, these human or natural controls on these responses. 00:14:33.890 --> 00:14:39.770 In particular, we want to discover what those drivers are so that we can link them to particular 00:14:39.770 --> 00:14:45.540 strategies and outcomes that might reduce vulnerability to ecological drought in the 00:14:45.540 --> 00:14:46.540 future. 00:14:46.540 --> 00:14:48.900 Essentially, this is what we're trying do. 00:14:48.900 --> 00:14:53.250 We're trying to come up with an equation for ecological drought. 00:14:53.250 --> 00:14:57.860 For example, I'm pulling the icon from our conceptual figure here. 00:14:57.860 --> 00:15:03.160 You can see on the left, we're looking at some ecological response, say tree mortality 00:15:03.160 --> 00:15:09.881 as a function of a combination of meteorological drought, landscape characteristics, climate 00:15:09.881 --> 00:15:17.440 change, water use, these ecological and evolutionary characteristics, as well as resource management. 00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:21.250 Ok so let's see. 00:15:21.250 --> 00:15:27.880 Thinking about trying to come up with a function to describe what drives a past ecological 00:15:27.880 --> 00:15:30.210 drought impact. 00:15:30.210 --> 00:15:36.490 Let's say your model was driven solely, or really most importantly by soil moisture, 00:15:36.490 --> 00:15:40.520 or some aspect of the landscape characteristics, like I have highlighted here. 00:15:40.520 --> 00:15:41.800 That might tell you, "Hey! 00:15:41.800 --> 00:15:46.670 Mimicking beaver activity is a really good strategy to consider, and we need to really 00:15:46.670 --> 00:15:50.370 attempt to improve water retention on the landscape." 00:15:50.370 --> 00:15:56.120 In contrast, you might have a system where your primary driver was something about water 00:15:56.120 --> 00:15:57.120 infrastructure. 00:15:57.120 --> 00:16:01.029 Let's say you're modeling a fish kill, and what you see is that it's really the timing, 00:16:01.029 --> 00:16:05.660 and amount of irrigation that was pulled out of the system that maybe drove that impact. 00:16:05.660 --> 00:16:11.029 Then you might consider water markets as a strategy, and really your desired outcome 00:16:11.029 --> 00:16:14.700 would be to lower that water withdraw. 00:16:14.700 --> 00:16:18.339 Another example might be a situation where you're looking at tree mortality, and you 00:16:18.339 --> 00:16:23.380 see that it was actually plant density that was a really strong driver of any kind of 00:16:23.380 --> 00:16:26.760 spatial variability in an ecological response. 00:16:26.760 --> 00:16:31.060 That might point to a strategy such as forest thinning, so that you can reduce competition 00:16:31.060 --> 00:16:34.150 for water in the future. 00:16:34.150 --> 00:16:40.770 We're attempting to try and do this kind of analysis in such a way that it's an easy template 00:16:40.770 --> 00:16:47.580 that can be shopped around to different areas, different regions by using the same system. 00:16:47.580 --> 00:16:54.130 We're really excited to use software developed by folks at the USGS Fort, and the USGS North 00:16:54.130 --> 00:16:59.600 Central Climate Science Center, and this is the VisTrails Software for Assisted Habitat 00:16:59.600 --> 00:17:00.600 Modeling. 00:17:00.600 --> 00:17:02.899 This is an open source management and workflow system. 00:17:02.899 --> 00:17:07.890 What's really great about it, is it builds ecological response models using a bunch of 00:17:07.890 --> 00:17:09.279 different techniques. 00:17:09.279 --> 00:17:13.120 It's combining machine learning, and correlative niche modeling. 00:17:13.120 --> 00:17:17.770 We think this is a really great framework for us to do our analysis here, and hope that 00:17:17.770 --> 00:17:21.850 others can easily pick it up in the future. 00:17:21.850 --> 00:17:27.660 To test this out, we're working with the National Drought Resilience Partnership, and they have 00:17:27.660 --> 00:17:32.550 a demonstration project in the upper Missouri Headwaters region, which you can see here 00:17:32.550 --> 00:17:39.510 in this map, in Southwestern Montana right along the Missouri River. 00:17:39.510 --> 00:17:46.000 What we're attempting to do is look at tree mortality after an early 2000's really strong 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:51.341 drought that was in this area, and essentially, just following along with the functions, we're 00:17:51.341 --> 00:17:57.250 trying to look at tree mortality as a function of rainfall, vapor pressure deficit, ecologically 00:17:57.250 --> 00:18:03.559 relevant landforms, and temperature, especially including maximum temperatures, irrigation 00:18:03.559 --> 00:18:09.930 levels, any kind of human influence on stream flow, as well as vegetation density, and identity. 00:18:09.930 --> 00:18:15.070 Hopefully any kind of maps that we can pull together for resource management that has 00:18:15.070 --> 00:18:18.050 gone on in the area. 00:18:18.050 --> 00:18:23.290 We're hoping that this lays the groundwork, and it really forms a template for other ecosystems 00:18:23.290 --> 00:18:24.880 and locations. 00:18:24.880 --> 00:18:29.670 We think that once we build these models, you can automatically have a predictive system 00:18:29.670 --> 00:18:33.580 that could perhaps be an early warning for ecological impacts. 00:18:33.580 --> 00:18:38.270 Not an early warning for drought, but an early warning for those ecological impacts. 00:18:38.270 --> 00:18:41.600 The system could also allow you to test scenarios. 00:18:41.600 --> 00:18:46.700 So, for example, you could look at drought impacts during future climates, or perhaps, 00:18:46.700 --> 00:18:52.010 and this is something I'm most excited about, is how can we test the efficacy of different 00:18:52.010 --> 00:18:54.050 strategies. 00:18:54.050 --> 00:19:00.230 If you really think beaver mimicry is a great idea, let's get some data layers developed 00:19:00.230 --> 00:19:05.929 for beaver activity, and we could put those into our models, and see, "Well, how would 00:19:05.929 --> 00:19:11.270 tree mortality...How much would it have decreased had we had this strategy on the landscape 00:19:11.270 --> 00:19:15.179 at the time?" 00:19:15.179 --> 00:19:21.270 With that, I wanted to say that we're really excited about our new framework, and this 00:19:21.270 --> 00:19:26.270 template for analysis, and we're hopeful that this framework and template could be used 00:19:26.270 --> 00:19:29.470 in upcoming USGS drought projects. 00:19:29.470 --> 00:19:33.230 With that, I would like to pass the baton to Laura Thompson. 00:19:33.230 --> 00:19:36.430 Laura Thompson:  Thank you, Shelley. 00:19:36.430 --> 00:19:49.179 Now, I'm going to talk about some of the ecological drought projects that the NCCWSC is sponsoring. 00:19:49.179 --> 00:19:53.490 There's two different types of projects. 00:19:53.490 --> 00:19:57.330 We have a group of solicited projects, and then a group of directed projects. 00:19:57.330 --> 00:20:05.060 The goal of both of these different studies is essentially to fill key knowledge gaps 00:20:05.060 --> 00:20:13.630 with regards to ecological drought, and then also to gain insight on future research that 00:20:13.630 --> 00:20:17.460 needs to come about of the results of these knowledge gaps. 00:20:17.460 --> 00:20:29.780 In 2015, the NCCWSC put out a call for research funding proposals. 00:20:29.780 --> 00:20:35.980 We ended up funding four different projects, including drought related to forest management, 00:20:35.980 --> 00:20:46.490 drought and the impacts on migratory water birds, and the impacts of drought on stream 00:20:46.490 --> 00:20:52.970 drying, as well as dryland ecosystems in the Western US that include a lot of grassland 00:20:52.970 --> 00:20:53.970 areas. 00:20:53.970 --> 00:21:01.970 Just to go into a little bit of depth on some of the findings on some of these projects, 00:21:01.970 --> 00:21:10.260 a recent study by Munson and Long…the goal of the project was to better understand the 00:21:10.260 --> 00:21:14.330 resilience of grasslands under future climate conditions. 00:21:14.330 --> 00:21:20.510 Grasslands are really important for providing ecosystem services for a large portion of 00:21:20.510 --> 00:21:21.510 the US. 00:21:21.510 --> 00:21:28.880 The actual goal of the study was to determine the capacity of grass species to shift phenology 00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:32.610 in response to climate over the last century. 00:21:32.610 --> 00:21:38.390 The approach that the authors took was to use ovarian samples from approximately the 00:21:38.390 --> 00:21:42.400 last 100 years from several different regions in the Western US. 00:21:42.400 --> 00:21:49.170 The colored areas are different eco regions, the dots represent species locations, and 00:21:49.170 --> 00:21:54.650 the different colors represent different species. 00:21:54.650 --> 00:22:02.920 They were able to relate flowering times with different climate variables. 00:22:02.920 --> 00:22:14.190 Just to give you an example, this graph shows, on the left, two graphs show a species in 00:22:14.190 --> 00:22:19.720 relation to flowering date related to temperatures through time, and temperature through space. 00:22:19.720 --> 00:22:31.090 Particularly on the bottom left graph, you notice that species tend to either increase, 00:22:31.090 --> 00:22:38.870 advance their flowering date with relation to temperature, or their flowering date becomes 00:22:38.870 --> 00:22:41.900 later as a result of temperature. 00:22:41.900 --> 00:22:49.530 When those are broken up by different photosynthetic pathways and functional traits, we notice 00:22:49.530 --> 00:22:58.650 that C3 grasses, which are grasses that essentially do better in cooler, wetter environment, tend 00:22:58.650 --> 00:23:04.220 to advance their flowering date in relation to increases in temperature. 00:23:04.220 --> 00:23:10.460 Where C4 grasses that respond better to warmer, dryer temperatures actually have later flowering 00:23:10.460 --> 00:23:11.730 date. 00:23:11.730 --> 00:23:18.240 The authors actually went a little further, and these graphs just show individual species. 00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:25.429 Indian rice grass in the two left graphs, and blue grama in the two right graphs. 00:23:25.429 --> 00:23:33.370 They found that the Indian rice grass is a C3 grass, and will actually advance its flowering 00:23:33.370 --> 00:23:39.340 date if it's more pronounced in more Northern eco regions. 00:23:39.340 --> 00:23:46.860 The further North you go, you may see a stronger phenological response. 00:23:46.860 --> 00:23:52.620 The key findings from this study is that, in the past, many grassland species have been 00:23:52.620 --> 00:23:55.970 responsive, phenologically, to climate, which suggestw that that could continue in the future. 00:23:55.970 --> 00:24:00.730 Some of these systems may be fairly resilient to climate change. 00:24:00.730 --> 00:24:09.370 It's not all doom and gloom, which is always a good thing. 00:24:09.370 --> 00:24:15.350 To highlight some of our directed projects, we have a number of studies on ungulates, 00:24:15.350 --> 00:24:25.600 including a couple of projects on bighorn sheep, mule deer phenology, tracking how mule 00:24:25.600 --> 00:24:33.730 deer track green up throughout the season, and a remote sensing project that is closely 00:24:33.730 --> 00:24:36.340 related to that, through EROS. 00:24:36.340 --> 00:24:47.200 Also, we have some fish projects and aquatic projects in various places in the country. 00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:59.179 To highlight one of these studies in the Southwest, the pronghorn is a species found in the Central 00:24:59.179 --> 00:25:03.740 North America, the interior Western US. 00:25:03.740 --> 00:25:10.970 The goal of this study was to better steer conservation, sustainable conservation for 00:25:10.970 --> 00:25:19.070 ungulate species under climate change, and then disentangle some of these relationships 00:25:19.070 --> 00:25:26.570 between climate, population dynamics, and project them across time. 00:25:26.570 --> 00:25:32.450 This map shows the number of populations that were included in this study. 00:25:32.450 --> 00:25:33.559 There were population surveys. 00:25:33.559 --> 00:25:41.540 This is 18 different populations in the Southwest, and these population surveys go back to the 00:25:41.540 --> 00:25:43.090 '60s. 00:25:43.090 --> 00:25:52.309 They were able to relate population growth with climate variables, and the authors found 00:25:52.309 --> 00:26:00.070 a pretty strong relationship between precipitation for the majority of the population as well 00:26:00.070 --> 00:26:02.860 as temperature. 00:26:02.860 --> 00:26:10.750 The precipitation in particular had a strong seasonal response, which suggests that precipitation 00:26:10.750 --> 00:26:14.490 was particularly important during the lactation period for these animals. 00:26:14.490 --> 00:26:22.200 They wanted to be able to determine how these animals might persist in the future given 00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:24.630 future climate scenarios. 00:26:24.630 --> 00:26:32.770 They were able to model using two different climate scenarios from CMIP5, a less conservative 00:26:32.770 --> 00:26:46.780 or somewhat high scenario as far as greater climate change impacts and more conservative 00:26:46.780 --> 00:26:51.710 estimates of slower climate change impacts. 00:26:51.710 --> 00:26:56.520 The black is the high scenario, and the gray line is the low scenario. 00:26:56.520 --> 00:27:03.380 They essentially found that approximately half the population will go extinct by the 00:27:03.380 --> 00:27:05.790 year 2090 in these different regions. 00:27:05.790 --> 00:27:19.430 In a few areas some of the populations might actually be able to persist where precipitation 00:27:19.430 --> 00:27:28.130 may potentially increase. 00:27:28.130 --> 00:27:44.220 I mentioned we had some fish projects as well. 00:27:44.220 --> 00:27:54.350 One is in the southwestern US on the cutthroat trout which is the most southern of the cutthroat 00:27:54.350 --> 00:27:55.350 species. 00:27:55.350 --> 00:28:01.260 There's several expectations with regards to potential impacts of climate change, and 00:28:01.260 --> 00:28:04.700 very little monitoring has occurred for this species. 00:28:04.700 --> 00:28:10.510 The goal was to examine potential drought risks for these vulnerable populations. 00:28:10.510 --> 00:28:18.549 I apologize the picture is covering it up, but you have a pretty picture of a trout, 00:28:18.549 --> 00:28:25.419 and you can see the orange cutthroat on the front. 00:28:25.419 --> 00:28:29.630 The approach was to empirically access the effects of seasonal stream temperatures and 00:28:29.630 --> 00:28:33.750 discharge in Rio Grande cutthroat trout that may be potentially at risk for drought conditions, 00:28:33.750 --> 00:28:47.179 and then model drought effects on the persistence of populations including modeling stream discharge, 00:28:47.179 --> 00:28:54.090 intermittency, and temperature in these different streams where they exist. 00:28:54.090 --> 00:29:04.800 Finally evaluate how drought conditions will alter population model rates. 00:29:04.800 --> 00:29:10.789 We have a study that's just starting up in Hawai’i. 00:29:10.789 --> 00:29:13.361 Drought doesn't just occur in the southwest. 00:29:13.361 --> 00:29:16.110 We actually do have island drought as well. 00:29:16.110 --> 00:29:19.170 The need for this particular study is due to the fact that there's limited incorporation 00:29:19.170 --> 00:29:20.870 of climate change into stream management. 00:29:20.870 --> 00:29:27.370 There is a desire to better understand future conditions. 00:29:27.370 --> 00:29:40.920 The goal of this project is to identify critical conservation areas with climate change using 00:29:40.920 --> 00:29:42.720 stream flow. 00:29:42.720 --> 00:29:48.580 The approach is to simulate stream flow, both windward and leeward watersheds and access 00:29:48.580 --> 00:29:52.010 the impact of changes in climate on native species; describe current habitat usage and 00:29:52.010 --> 00:29:58.940 project future distribution of these species and then build an assessment framework called 00:29:58.940 --> 00:30:06.990 “ridge to reef” framework for prioritizing aquatic conservation efforts. 00:30:06.990 --> 00:30:14.669 And then also compile stream conditions and information on species distribution. 00:30:14.669 --> 00:30:21.870 This provides a bit of an overview of some of our solicited and directed research projects. 00:30:21.870 --> 00:30:29.360 Most of these I should point going back to Shelley's framework tend to focus more on 00:30:29.360 --> 00:30:38.730 the ecological impacts that certainly have implications for natural resources management 00:30:38.730 --> 00:30:40.200 and ecosystem services. 00:30:40.200 --> 00:30:43.910 I'm going to hand it back to Shawn Carter. 00:30:43.910 --> 00:30:46.290 Shawn:  Thanks, Laura. 00:30:46.290 --> 00:30:53.530 As Laura alluded to there is socioeconomic component to some of this work that we're 00:30:53.530 --> 00:30:59.440 not addressing given time constraints today but will be dealt with in future webinars 00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:01.539 as part of the SNAPP initiative. 00:31:01.539 --> 00:31:06.770 Finally, I would like to close today's presentation by mentioning two other activities that are 00:31:06.770 --> 00:31:10.820 meant to summarize our understanding of eco drought and the implications for research 00:31:10.820 --> 00:31:15.520 management and broader public understanding. 00:31:15.520 --> 00:31:19.450 First in cooperation with the Integration and Application Network team at the University 00:31:19.450 --> 00:31:24.990 of Maryland, we're holding a series of regional workshops to conceptualize ecological drought 00:31:24.990 --> 00:31:26.880 impacts around the country. 00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:32.419 These are the impacts encountered by each of our eight Department of Interior Climate 00:31:32.419 --> 00:31:33.730 Science Centers. 00:31:33.730 --> 00:31:36.559 They're shown here on the map. 00:31:36.559 --> 00:31:40.919 Our goal is to engage scientists and managers in discussions about how future droughts might 00:31:40.919 --> 00:31:43.660 play out within the respective geographies. 00:31:43.660 --> 00:31:51.289 So far we've completed five of the eight CSCs with each producing its own summary newsletter 00:31:51.289 --> 00:31:53.460 which are shown here. 00:31:53.460 --> 00:31:57.880 Additional materials can be found using the links that I'm going to provide at the end 00:31:57.880 --> 00:32:00.409 of this talk. 00:32:00.409 --> 00:32:05.650 Finally, we hope to integrate all of these activities that we've just touched on in this 00:32:05.650 --> 00:32:07.910 webinar today. 00:32:07.910 --> 00:32:12.230 Our proposed framework for using ecologically available water and integrating some of those 00:32:12.230 --> 00:32:17.350 feedbacks that Shelley mentioned, our SNAPP pilots in the upper Missouri, working with 00:32:17.350 --> 00:32:23.419 our partners in the National Drought Resilience Partnership, our sponsored research from around 00:32:23.419 --> 00:32:29.370 the country and then our regional conceptualizations of ecological drought from these workshops 00:32:29.370 --> 00:32:31.530 at our Climate Science Centers. 00:32:31.530 --> 00:32:36.170 We hope to incorporate all of these into a comprehensive synthesis over the summer, a 00:32:36.170 --> 00:32:39.020 national synthesis of ecological drought. 00:32:39.020 --> 00:32:44.290 Stay tuned for a more national scale summary of these projects in the future. 00:32:44.290 --> 00:32:48.690 With that, I'll conclude our presentation today. 00:32:48.690 --> 00:32:54.120 Listed here are a few sources for more information and also some acknowledgement of the valuable 00:32:54.120 --> 00:32:56.890 contributions from our partners who we've mentioned. 00:32:56.890 --> 00:33:00.040 I'd like to thank you all very much for your time today. 00:33:00.040 --> 00:33:05.880 I apologize in advance that we won't be able to accommodate everybody that wanted to join. 00:33:05.880 --> 00:33:08.000 We'll entertain your questions. 00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:09.250 Thanks. 00:33:09.250 --> 00:33:12.830 John:  Thank you all for your presentations. 00:33:12.830 --> 00:33:15.059 First off, let's start with Evan Albert. 00:33:15.059 --> 00:33:17.250 Could this be part of a historical cyclical phenomenon? 00:33:17.250 --> 00:33:20.730 I read somewhere that analysis of tree rings suggest the western states have had many droughts 00:33:20.730 --> 00:33:26.250 of two decades or longer including two mega droughts lasting longer than 100 years. 00:33:26.250 --> 00:33:33.570 Do you know what that was in reference to? 00:33:33.570 --> 00:33:37.419 I'm sorry about that. 00:33:37.419 --> 00:33:42.210 Shelley:  I think Evan's question is about megadrought. 00:33:42.210 --> 00:33:45.000 I'm going to guess. 00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.310 Evan, this is a really active area of research right now. 00:33:49.310 --> 00:33:54.280 There's a lot of really cool stuff going, and it's true there were lots of mega droughts 00:33:54.280 --> 00:33:59.270 in the past particularly in the southwest and particularly during the medieval climate 00:33:59.270 --> 00:34:03.780 anomaly, so around 1,000 years ago right before the little ice age. 00:34:03.780 --> 00:34:09.419 There's a lot of thought around whether those higher temperatures during that time period 00:34:09.419 --> 00:34:13.450 drove those mega droughts, but it's a really complex picture. 00:34:13.450 --> 00:34:18.079 There's a lot involved with sea surface temperatures, with various oscillations like the Pacific 00:34:18.079 --> 00:34:23.899 decadal oscillation or the AMO, things like that, internal atmospheric feedbacks are really 00:34:23.899 --> 00:34:26.169 important. 00:34:26.169 --> 00:34:30.289 One thing I'd say is that maybe there isn't a whole lot of really strong consensus right 00:34:30.289 --> 00:34:34.859 now, but it's a really active area of research where a lot of people are doing great work 00:34:34.859 --> 00:34:41.599 to try and figure out what really drove megadroughts in the past, and what are we likely to see 00:34:41.599 --> 00:34:44.629 in the future. 00:34:44.629 --> 00:34:55.710 John:  Would it be possible for all citations and papers used for these presentations to 00:34:55.710 --> 00:34:58.260 be summarized for us? 00:34:58.260 --> 00:34:59.260 Certainly. 00:34:59.260 --> 00:35:07.690 If the presenters are willing to come up with something, I could certainly pass that along 00:35:07.690 --> 00:35:13.960 to everyone that would be interested. 00:35:13.960 --> 00:35:18.269 Shelley or Shawn or Laura, would any of you be interested in that? 00:35:18.269 --> 00:35:21.339 Shelley:  Yeah, absolutely. 00:35:21.339 --> 00:35:22.339 Happy to do that. 00:35:22.339 --> 00:35:28.700 John:  Whenever they get it to me I'd be happy to forward that on to everyone else. 00:35:28.700 --> 00:35:31.079 Shelley:  Thanks, John. 00:35:31.079 --> 00:35:33.450 John:  Roger Sayre. 00:35:33.450 --> 00:35:38.210 I'm hoping I say that right. 00:35:38.210 --> 00:35:43.309 Will the Hawaii work and ecological stream classification that NCCWSC has reported as 00:35:43.309 --> 00:35:44.690 a stratification device? 00:35:44.690 --> 00:35:53.619 Shawn:  I'm looking at the person who might be responsible in our office for that. 00:35:53.619 --> 00:35:59.740 We don't have an answer for Roger at this moment, but that is an active area of research 00:35:59.740 --> 00:36:04.739 as well that we have a couple of investigators working on right now. 00:36:04.739 --> 00:36:06.289 Stay tuned. 00:36:06.289 --> 00:36:13.369 Actually, I'll just add that is one of the Climate Science Centers that has not had their 00:36:13.369 --> 00:36:18.670 drought workshop yet, and we'll be holding that in about four to six weeks from now. 00:36:18.670 --> 00:36:21.239 That will also be discussed at that workshop. 00:36:21.239 --> 00:36:23.210 John:  Doug Beard. 00:36:23.210 --> 00:36:27.819 The Hawai’i work is Ralph Tingley’s work. 00:36:27.819 --> 00:36:31.759 Uncertain how it'd be used yet. 00:36:31.759 --> 00:36:32.759 OK. 00:36:32.759 --> 00:36:38.619 Thank you for adding onto that as well, Doug. 00:36:38.619 --> 00:36:48.640 Monica Ketcham is uploading some links on ecological drought from NCCWSC and SNAPP. 00:36:48.640 --> 00:36:50.069 Thank you, Monica. 00:36:50.069 --> 00:36:54.470 Feel free to take advantage of those anyone who is attending. 00:36:54.470 --> 00:37:03.430 I would like to thank Shawn and Laura and Shelley and Kate and Elda and everyone that 00:37:03.430 --> 00:37:04.499 put this together. 00:37:04.499 --> 00:37:07.789 It was quite a few people in this presentation. 00:37:07.789 --> 00:37:11.900 I would like to thank all of you for your presentation. 00:37:11.900 --> 00:37:15.420 I'd like to thank everyone who attended for your participation in this. 00:37:15.420 --> 00:37:17.049 Shawn:  Thank you. 00:37:17.049 --> 00:37:18.130 Shelley:  Thanks.