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Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science (NIACS)
Climate change increases uncertainty about future conditions and creates new challenges for land owners and natural resource managers interested in sustaining healthy ecosystems over the long term.
The Climate Change Response Framework is a collaborative effort that addresses the major challenges that land managers face when considering how to integrate climate change into their planning and management. The Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science (NIACS) leads the Climate Change Response Framework with support from many partners.
The Climate Change Response Framework process is designed to continually incorporate new information, ideas, and lessons learned into the products and activities. It was conceived as a model for collaborative management and climate change response across large and diverse landscapes and has proven to be extremely successful.
Read more about the process in the publication Forest Adaptation Resources.
RESOURCES
Adaptation Strategies & Approaches
The Northern Institute of Applied Science has led the development of adaptation strategies and approaches for a variety of natural resource topics, which can be used with the Adaptation Workbook. These “menus” provide topical lists of adaptation actions that not only help you move from broad ideas to specific actions, but also express the adaptation intent of your actions. Although menu items can be applied in various combinations to achieve desired outcomes, not all items on the menu will work together or work in every ecosystem. Land managers can use these resources to select appropriate actions based on their unique project location and goals.
Adaptation Workbook
The Adaptation Workbook enables natural resource professionals to consider the potential effects of climate change on forests and to then design actions that can help reduce risk and increase the ability to cope with changing conditions. It provides a flexible process that accommodates a wide variety of geographic locations, scales, ecosystems, land uses, management goals, and ownership types. The Adaptation Workbook was created by the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science, and this process is described in Forest Adaptation Resources: Climate change tools and approaches for land managers, 2nd Edition.
Dibaginjigaadeg Anishinaabe Ezhitwaad - A Tribal Climate Adaptation Menu
Climate change has impacted and will continue to impact indigenous peoples, their lifeways and culture, and the natural world upon which they rely, in unpredictable and potentially devastating ways. Many climate adaptation planning tools fail to address the unique needs, values and cultures of indigenous communities. This Tribal Climate Adaptation Menu, which was developed by a diverse group of collaborators representing tribal, academic, intertribal and government entities in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, provides a framework to integrate indigenous and traditional knowledge, culture, language and history into the climate adaptation planning process.