How to Consider Climate Change in Coastal Conservation

Climate-Smart Conservation: Putting Adaptation Principles into Practice
Pages 75 to 76 provide information on defining the appropriate geographic scope.

NOAA Digital Coast GeoZone Blog: Watershed or County Boundaries?
This short discussion can help when considering whether the geographic scope should follow natural or political boundaries.

Coastal Planning Advisor
This online tool helps users tailor a decision-making process for a number of common coastal challenges (i.e., climate change, erosion and shoreline protection, and wetland conservation). Use it to identify and generate a customized list of key questions to answer, both general and issue-specific. Related resources are provided.

Achieving Hazard-Resilient Coastal and Waterfront Smart Growth
Table 2 provides intersections between hazard mitigation and smart growth strategies that, taken together, can reduce risk, increase livability, and support conservation.

Introduction to Stakeholder Participation
Provides guidance for engaging stakeholders throughout the planning process. Several worksheets as well as this checklist are provided to help identify stakeholders.

Climate-Smart Conservation: Putting Adaptation Principles into Practice
Pages 77 to 78 provide guidance for engaging key participants and partners when incorporating climate concerns into conservation planning.

Adapting to Climate Change: A Planning Guide for State Coastal Managers
Page 46 provides examples of goals that incorporate climate change.

Risk Communication Basics
Use this guide to help better understand your audience’s values and concerns and design a strategy to communicate climate and hazard impacts in a way that will resonate.

Green Infrastructure Protective Services Animation
This short animation explains to local officials the storm-protection benefits of conserving coastal natural resources.

Green Infrastructure Benefits Handout
Use this handout when communicating with local officials about the benefits of conserving natural resources.

Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper
This online viewer shows social, economic, and ecological data to help identify conservation targets that support multiple assets in your geography.

Habitat Features That Benefit Coastal Risk Reduction
This table (adapted from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers) provides a quick look at targets that support conservation goals with a risk-reduction aim.

Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation
See pages 11 to 12 for specific ideas on identifying conservation targets.

The Nature Conservancy’s Standard Key Ecological Attributes
This spreadsheet can jumpstart the team’s selection of key supporting attributes.

Coastal Change Analysis Program Land Cover Data
For those using GIS, time-series coastal land cover data are available at 30-meter resolution (Alaska is an exception). High resolution data (1.5 meter) are also available for select project areas, including Hawaii and the Pacific and Caribbean territories. For non-GIS users, the Land Cover Atlas provides statistics and maps through an online viewer and printable reports.

NatureServe Explorer
This online encyclopedia contains geospatial and tabular data on more than 70,000 species and natural communities in the U.S. and Canada. State natural heritage programs are also helpful for learning what is available locally.

Conservation Action Planning Handbook
Use Step 3 of the handbook to assign health ratings to the key supporting attributes. This information provides an overall “viability rank” for the target, a baseline that can inform goals and the actions that might be needed to increase viability. Ranking specifics rely on expert input and local data and knowledge about the targets and the attributes.

International Union for Conservation of Nature Threat and Action Classifications
Use the online “Threats and Actions v2.0” table to quickly find common threats classified from tens of thousands of species, sites, and projects. Scan the classifications to identify threats that may apply to conditions at your site.

Coastal Change Analysis Program Land Cover Atlas
If land use pressures are a concern, this online viewer shows where coastal wetlands and forests have given way to development or other land cover types. To see how areas change over time, users can query by land cover type and date to see maps and change statistics. For GIS staff members, the land cover data layers found in the online viewer are available for download.

Landscape Fragmentation Tool
If fragmentation is a concern, a spatial analyst can use this ArcGIS tool to quantify and assess the amount of fragmentation present for a relevant land cover feature (such as wetlands or forests) in a defined area of interest. Four fragmentation metrics are mapped: core, patch, edge, and perforated.

Impervious Surface Analysis Tool
If water quality is a concern, a spatial analyst can use this ArcGIS tool to assess how much impervious surface is in a selected geography (likely your conservation target or a surrounding area); where there is good, fair, or poor water quality; and how changes in land cover can impact water quality.

National Invasive Species Information Center
If invasive species are a concern, this comprehensive, centralized site is helpful. Federal, state, local, and international sources are included, as are existing management plans searchable by species or geography. See "What’s in My State” to find invasive species threats, management resources, and local experts for each state.

Conservation Action Planning Handbook
Use Step 4 in the handbook to assign ratings to the identified stressors based on the likely impact on the conservation target. Drawing on expert opinion and local information, an overall “threat rank” can inform strategies or actions to reduce the most significant threats.

Summary of Climate Change Phenomena, Impacts, and Consequences
This table (adapted from NOAA and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports) is a good starting point. The climate information provided is general but complements regionally-specific information.

U.S. Global Change Research Program’s National Climate Assessment
This assessment contains current and future climate change impact information. It is national in scope but includes potential impacts for each region and by key sector (e.g., water and land use).

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2014 Synthesis
See this authoritative source to select climate change scenarios. Topic 2 assesses projections, and resulting impacts of various scenarios. Table 2.1 presents the likely range of sea surface temperature and sea level change for years 2065 and 2100. Information from a state climatologist or regional climate center will also be helpful for this step.

Scenarios for Climate Assessment and Adaptation
This page links to regional information used for the Third National Climate Assessment (2014). Access the information by clicking on your region of interest within the map.

Sea Level Rise Viewer
Click on Local Scenarios to visualize different sea level rise scenarios.

Sea Level Rise Viewer and Lake Level Viewer
Use one of these tools to visualize water level changes and impacts. Both feature online maps with nationally consistent data and analyses. The Sea Level Rise Viewer simulates one to six feet of rise for all U.S. coastal areas except Alaska. Potential marsh impacts—including marsh migration and loss—are also provided. The Lake Level Viewer depicts Great Lakes lake level changes from six feet above and below long-term averages. For both tools the maps can be shared and data layers downloaded.

Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper
This online tool is used to visualize community exposure to coastal flood hazards (such as storm surge and sea level rise). Select maps of natural areas from the Ecosystem Exposure section, then overlay a coastal hazard data layer to better understand potential impacts. Use the natural areas and built infrastructure map to see where ecosystems protect the built environment or the reverse—places where natural resources could be impeded by built structures. These screening-level maps are available for all coastal counties along the East Coast and Gulf Coast and can be shared online or printed.

NOAA Digital Coast GeoZone Blog: Which Sea Level Rise Tool Should I Use?
This discussion provides context and a link to a matrix that allows side-by-side tool comparisons applicable for each coastal state. National, regional, and state-specific tools are included.

Data.gov and NOAA’s Digital Coast Data Registry
Both provide national data sets useful for analyzing trends related to conservation targets and climate stressors. Most suitable for organizations conducting modeling and other quantitative analyses of climate impacts, including GIS analyses.

Scanning the Conservation Horizon: A Guide to Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment
This foundational guidance document defines and expands on key process steps for assessing the vulnerability of species and ecosystems to climate change based on sensitivity, exposure, and adaptive capacity. It provides a broad framework and a series of case studies (some coastal) to demonstrate application of the process.

Coastal Resilience Mapping Portal
The mapping portal provides a suite of interactive tools from The Nature Conservancy to help decision makers understand their risk and vulnerability and identify nature-based solutions for addressing them. Click on the U.S. map for national coverage, or click on point markers for specific geographies that have finer-scale data available.

Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Tool for Coastal Habitats
Includes a scoring sheet and detailed guidance on conducting comprehensive coastal habitat vulnerability assessments. The process is applied at the site scale per habitat and relies on local data and knowledge.

Climate-Smart Conservation: Putting Adaptation Principles into Practice
See pages 114 to 117 for information on revisiting—and if needed, revising—conservation goals.

International Union for Conservation of Nature Threats and Actions Classification
See this authoritative source to select climate change scenarios. Topic 2 assesses projections, and resulting impacts of various scenarios. Table 2.1 presents the likely range of sea surface temperature and sea level change for years 2065 and 2100. Information from a state climatologist or regional climate center will also be helpful for this step.

Adapting to Climate Change: A Planning Guide for State Coastal Managers
Chapter 5 offers advice for identifying coastal management strategies, including a table (page 51) that suggests approaches for addressing specific climate phenomena in coastal environments.

Climate-Smart Conservation: Putting Adaptation Principles into Practice
To think through specific strategies that integrate climate considerations, revisit this report; Chapter 8 offers ideas on strategy identification.

Climate Smart Conservation: Putting Adaptation Principles into Practice
Chapter 9 (pages 141 to 152) describes four categories of criteria and tools useful for evaluating various management alternatives. Suitable for all levels of expertise, this chapter gives an overview and logical process for evaluating, comparing, and ultimately selecting among the range of options identified in Step 5.

How to Write a Strategic Plan
This guide provides an overview or refresher on writing a meaningful and strategic management plan for any context. It offers a 10-step process and worksheets used to define a target audience, niche, and desired outcomes; draft goals, objectives, and an implementation plan; and evaluate progress.

Conservation Action Planning Handbook
Step 6 of this handbook describes how to define what success looks like for a strategic conservation plan and the specific strategies or actions needed to achieve it.

Conservation Action Planning Handbook
Step 8 of this handbook offers guidance on translating goals and strategies into an action plan. This step walks the reader through the process of identifying specific actions, who will complete them, by when, and the resources needed.

Adapting to Climate Change: A Planning Guide for State Coastal Manager
Chapter 6, pages 103 to 104 describes potential funding sources to finance conservation or adaptation projects, and Appendix A (page 107) offers a list of federal sources by agency.

Green Infrastructure Mapping Guide
This online guide steps a spatial analyst through the process of developing a GIS work plan for hazard and climate resilience by prioritizing nature-based solutions or conservation areas. This approach can create a bridge between the planning team’s overall goals and objectives and project-level decision making. The guide provides examples, process guidance, and templates.

Habitat Priority Planner
This GIS-based tool prioritizes areas for conservation based on project goals and objectives. It can be used with ArcGIS versions 9.2 to 10.2. The “In Action” and “Support” tabs offer tips and stories of how others have used this tool.

Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation (Pages 25 to 27) and
Conservation Action Planning Handbook (Step 7)
Both documents provide guidance for developing a monitoring plan and defining indicators of progress.

Risk Communication Basics
Use this guide to help design a strategy to communicate the benefits of conservation efforts.

Green Infrastructure Benefits Handout
Use this handout when communicating with local officials about the benefits of conserving natural resources.

Funding Sources for Conservation in a Changing Climate
This Land Trust Alliance website provides links to potential funding sources that support conservation efforts.