NE CSC Newsletter

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Secretary of the Interior Announces Climate Science Funding  Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has announced funding of more than $10 million awarded by Interior's regional Climate Science Centers to universities or other partners for research to guide managers of parks, refuges and other resources in planning how to help species and ecosystems adapt to climate change.  READ MORE...

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Tuesday October 23, 8:30 am - 5:00 pm ET (Overview is 9:30 - 10:15 am)

North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative presents, 

"Designing Sustainable Landscapes Workshop"

Various speakers from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the North Atlantic Conservation Cooperative, and UMass Amherst. 

For a direct link to the live broadcast, click on the title above.

A foundational project of the North Atlantic LCC is known as Designing Sustainable Landscapes.  The purpose of this project is to assess the capability of current and potential future landscapes in the North Atlantic LCC geographic area to provide integral ecosystems and suitable habitat for wildlife, and provide guidance for strategic habitat conservation decisions.  The first phase of this project is to develop and test the approach in three pilot watersheds including the Kennebec watershed in Maine, as well as the middle tributaries of the Connecticut River watershed in Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire and the Pocomoke and Nanticoke River Watersheds in Maryland and Delaware.   READ MORE...

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Thursday October 25, 4:00 pm ET

Northeast Climate Science Center Webinar Series presents, 

"Approaches for Integrating Climate Change into Water Resources Planning"

Levi Brekke, Water and Climate Research Coordinator, Bureau of Reclamation, Research and Development Office

For a direct link to the webinar, click on the title above.

For detailed webinar instructions, visit:  http://necsc.umass.edu/webinars/webinar-tips

Water managers and planning practitioners face several common challenges in preparing for climate change:  understanding how such change could affect water and environmental resources, bringing science and technology to bear on the needs of resource managers, and addressing the goals of agency programs and authorizations where climate change is a factor.  The Bureau of Reclamation is facing such challenges, dealing with a growing demand for incorporating climate change information into general studies, basin assessments (e.g., WaterSMART, Secure Water Act - West Wide Risk Assessments), and project-specific environmental compliance (e.g., NEPA Environmental Impact Statements, ESA Biological Assessments).  READ MORE...

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Establishment of the Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science  The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) is establishing and seeking nominations for the Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science (Committee). The Committee will provide advice on matters and actions relating to the establishment and operations of the U.S. Geological Survey National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center and the DOI Climate Science Centers. In doing so, the Committee will obtain input from Federal, state, tribal, local government, nongovernmental organizations, private sector entities, and academic institutions.  READ MORE...

Dr. Gwen White selected as LCC Science Coordinator for the Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers Landscape Conservation Cooperative   The Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) announced that Dr. Gwen White will serve as the partnership’s science coordinator. White will play a key role in collaboratively developing, maintaining, and advancing a strategic, landscape oriented approach to fish and wildlife conservation.  READ MORE...

Landscape Conservation across the Confluence: Celebrating the Missouri/Mississippi Rivers Confluence Conservation Partnership  St. Louis, Mo. – Acting Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Rachel Jacobson today joined private landowners, conservation organizations and natural resource agency leaders to celebrate partnership efforts in association with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program in Missouri, recognizing the Missouri/Mississippi Rivers Confluence Conservation Partnership as a signature demonstration of partnering for America’s Great Outdoors Rivers Initiative.  “The convergence of these two tremendous river systems provides a sanctuary for fish and wildlife in our nation’s heartland,” Assistant Secretary Jacobson said. “The steadfast allegiance of private landowners, conservation organizations, and public natural resources agencies to conserve these habitats is a prime example of how public servants and private individuals are leading conservation into the 21st century.”  READ MORE...

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EPA Releases Interactive Map of Results from National Estuary Program Projects
  EPA's National Estuary Program (NEP), a place-based program to protect and restore the water quality and ecological integrity of estuaries of national significance, has released its first-ever interactive map, NEPmap, with more than a decade's worth of NEP habitat data.  A simple static map with contained descriptions of NEP habitat protection and yearly restoration projects has been replaced with a large set of data layers to enable viewing of NEP habitat information in a wider environmental context.  The NEPmap allows users to view water quality conditions in their estuary and surrounding watershed(s) alongside NEP habitat projects.  NEPmap users can also generate and print maps and reports, change map scales, turn on and off background layers, and interact with information points to provide a greater level of detail than a traditional static map.  READ MORE...

EPA Releases Report: "Implications of Climate Change for State Bioassessment Programs and Approaches to Account for Effects"  This final report uses biological data collected in wadeable rivers and streams, by four states, to examine the components of state and tribal bioassessment and biomonitoring programs that may be vulnerable to climate change.  The study investigates the potential to identify biological response signals to climate change within existing bioassessment data sets; analyzes how biological responses can be categorized and interpreted; and assesses how they may influence decision-making processes.  The analyses suggest that several biological indicators may be used to detect climate change effects and such indicators can be used by state bioassessment programs to document changes at high-quality reference sites.  READ MORE...