Vulnerability Assessments in the Southern Rockies

Introduction

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The Southern Rockies Landscape Conservation Cooperative (SRLCC) covers over 127 million acres over parts of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. The SRLCC identified three geographic areas for developing Landscape Conservation Design: Four Corners Region, Upper Rio Grande, and the Green River Basin. The Four Corners region contains the Little Colorado River Basin and the San Juan River Basin, while the Upper Rio Grande region mainly contains streams in the Rio Grande and Pecos River basins as well as portions of streams in the Arkansas River, Canadian River, and Gunnison River basins. Through adaptation workshops participants identified high-priority resources, explored issues that cause changes in the environment, and provided feedback on vulnerability analyses to collaboratively develop conservation strategies.  

Vulnerability assessments for the Four Corners and Upper Rio Grande regions initially targeted five focal resources: cultural resources, elk and mule deer, sagebrush sagebrush
The western United States’ sagebrush country encompasses over 175 million acres of public and private lands. The sagebrush landscape provides many benefits to our rural economies and communities, and it serves as crucial habitat for a diversity of wildlife, including the iconic greater sage-grouse and over 350 other species.

Learn more about sagebrush ecosystems, native fish, and stream flow. Discussion and feedback given during the adaptation workshop refocused the assessment targets to:elk and mule deer, pinyon-juniper ecosystems, sagebrush ecosystems, native coldwater fish, and riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.

Learn more about riparian corridors. Cultural resources were removed from the effort and were addressed through a separate Tribal Forum.

Key Issues Addressed

Conservation challenges are no longer limited to a particular place or one species, and instead must be addressed across multiple geographies. A major challenge of managing changing landscapes is converting broad concepts into specific, tangible actions to conserve and restore ecosystems and natural resources over time. These landscape challenges are most effectively addressed by working together across boundaries and jurisdictions to achieve common goals. The LCD process can integrate vulnerability assessments to inform collaborative decision making by identifying challenges, developing mutual goals, and prioritizing management actions.

Project Goals

• Identify and summarize potential climate change climate change
  Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.
  
  Learn more about climate change impacts and other challenges for focal resources
• Incorporate existing assessments and LCD efforts of other partners
• Use assessments to quantify vulnerabilities 

Project Highlights

• Co-Producing Vulnerability Assessments:The development of large-scale assessments helped cover a diverse set of focal resources, incorporated science from participants, complemented the Landscape Conservation Cooperative Network Strategic Plan objectives, and produced products with multiple uses. Engagement with participants brought to light alternative data sources that were more current or specific to the focal region, thereby improving the final assessments.  
• Vulnerability Indicators: Spatial data were compiled to assess the vulnerability of focal resources to climate change and other environmental challenges. Data represented one or more indicators predicting vulnerability: presence of potential threats or issues; conditions or state of the focal resource; and traits or conditions that influence how the resource will respond to disturbance. Some information on potential stressors and threats were collected from workshop conversations or identified from other assessments or literature. 

Lessons Learned

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Landscape-Scale Habitat: It is critical for land management agencies to focus on species’ habitats and connectivity at the landscape-scale. Private landowners manage habitats and ecological processes, not individual species.

Input from the adaptation forum participants contributed to the improvement of the vulnerability assessments and provided a time and place for conversations about the types of additional information needed to successfully conserve resources. Forum participants identified resources of concern, management challenges, and a variety of disturbances and threats. The participants were able to refine the indicators of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. However, spatial data for some of the most significant indicators, such as nonnative species and grazing pressure, are unavailable across the geographic extent of the assessment.

Throughout the project, resource manager engagement proved a challenge. At various stages, key resource managers were not present and at one point, low turnout forced the cancellation of the elk/mule deer breakout session at the Upper Rio Grande Forum.   

Next Steps

• Incorporate information and data sources identified in the adaptation forums into the vulnerability assessment process
• After review and revision, use assessment data products in future adaptation forums to identify priority management areas and actions

Funding Partners

• Landscape Conservation Cooperative Network

Resources

• Southern Rockies LCC Conservation Planning Atlas
• Four Corners and Upper Rio Grande Adaptation Forums ScienceBase Catalog
• Southern Rockies LCC (SRLCC) Pre-workshop Webinar Series
  • SRLCC Vulnerability Assessment For Native Fish and Riparian Resources Webinar
  • SRLCC Vulnerability Assessment for Mule Deer and Elk Webinar
  • SRLCC Vulnerability Assessment for Sagebrush Ecosystems
  • SRLCC Vulnerability Assessment for Pinyon-Juniper Ecosystems
• Collective Ecological Consulting
• Dryland Consulting
• Healthy Community Food Systems
• Kesonie Botanical Consultants
• Pueblo of Tesuque Environment Department
• Querencia Environmental

Contact

• Megan Friggens, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station: meganfriggens@fs.fed.us

Case Study Lead Author

• Deanna Morrell, Program Analyst, US Bureau of Reclamation

Suggested Citation

Morrell, D., P. (2019). “Vulnerability Assessments to Inform Landscape-Scale Management in the Southern Rockies.” CART. Retrieved from https://www.fws.gov/project/vulnerability-assessments-southern-rockies.