By Dr. Bruce Stein, National Wildlife Federation. Adapted from an article published in the Fall 2020 edition of “Natural Selections,” the newsletter of the DoD Natural Resources Program34.
DoD lands and waters harbor an extraordinary array of wild species and natural ecosystems, essential for a high-quality training and testing environment. Understanding climate-related vulnerabilities to these natural resources, and designing strategies to reduce resulting risks, is critical to maintaining mission requirements and supporting installation resilience. In 2019, the DoD released “Climate Adaptation for DoD Natural Resource Managers,” a guide designed to help installations incorporate climate concerns into INRMPs. The guide is a tool for implementing policy in DoD Manual 4715.03, Integrated Natural Resources Management Plan Implementation Manual, which calls for installations to address potential climate impacts when revising or updating their INRMPs.
The guide introduces the emerging discipline of climate adaptation, reviews the impacts a changing climate may have on various INRMP program elements, and provides options for incorporating climate considerations within the structure of the INRMP document itself. The guide also offers a structured planning process for evaluating climate-related risks and drafting strategies and actions to address impacts that could compromise installation functions and readiness.
Natural resources personnel can use the guide at several levels, depending on where an installation is in both their INRMP planning cycle and their efforts to address climate concerns. The guide outlines the basic process for adaptation planning, including climate vulnerability assessments and design of strategies to reduce associated risks. The guide lays out a six-step INRMP adaptation planning framework designed to help installation managers understand how a changing climate may affect their resources and management objectives; develop and document potential adaptation responses; and ultimately evaluate, select, and implement climate-informed natural resources projects.
34 https://www.denix.osd.mil/nr/
This step-by-step cycle is supported by a series of detailed worksheets that can help managers systematically work through the adaptation process. By providing ways to elicit and record key information and decisions, the worksheets also offer tools for revisiting and updating adaptation planning over time—the essence of “iterative risk management.” Importantly, the six-step planning framework and associated worksheets are intended as an aid, not a mandate.
The adaptation guide offers different options for how installations can incorporate climate considerations into the INRMP process and document. For those just beginning to think about climate impacts on their installation, the guide provides an overview of climate science, an introduction to adaptation and resilience principles, and a selection of relevant literature and other informational resources. Those undertaking a complete INRMP revision can address a changing climate throughout the INRMP using a “full-integration” approach. This approach helps to ensure that climate concerns are integrated across the full range of resources and program activities. Those who have just started to consider climatic concerns, or who are in between full revision cycles, can address a changing climate in an INRMP appendix using an “appendix-only” approach.
The guide and its associated resources (i.e., worksheets, fact sheets) are already helping to inform adaptation planning and INRMP revisions at installations nationwide. In one example, managers at the Army’s PTA on the Island of Hawai?i have drawn on the guidance to help craft an approach for integrating climate considerations into the INRMP for this biologically diverse installation. Pohakuloa is home to large tracts of sub-alpine and dryland tropical ecosystems, with the latter being one of the rarest habitats in the world. To align with the overall INRMP update cycle, the team is using an “appendix-only” approach and plans to more fully integrate climate throughout the INRMP during the next formal revision.
The guide is also helping managers in Alaska, a state experiencing particularly rapid warming and unique climate-related threats like melting permafrost, as they update an Air Force INRMP addressing multiple installations, including some particularly vulnerable coastal sites. In New Hampshire, Army National Guard managers are using the guide’s INRMP adaptation planning framework to explore the changing climate’s effects and potential solutions.
Climatic changes are expected to amplify existing threats to DoD installations’ unique ecosystems and numerous rare species. Enhancing the resilience of threatened and endangered species to climatic and other threats on installations is an important focus of installation planning, consistent with FWS biological opinions. Active management to improve the resilience of these species includes invasive plant control, wildland fire management, predator removal, and genetic conservation actions for rare plants.
Installations across the country face varying climate concerns and management challenges, and no one-size-fits-all approach exists for climate adaptation. However, by helping managers understand the principles and processes underlying effective adaptation planning, the DoD climate adaptation guide serves as an important tool for enhancing installation resilience and maintaining military readiness.
Advances in climate change science are happening rapidly. A plethora of technical tools, scientific advances, information sources and websites, and DoD guidance have enabled some installations to move through the initial step of assessing exposure, followed by a subsequent period of beginning to evaluate vulnerability, culminating in an action-oriented phase of being able to develop and prioritize adaptation strategies and the integration of all that information with the INRMP along with associated objectives, activities and projects. Collectively, these efforts and the information making its way into INRMPs comprise a significant milestone toward climate resiliency for installations.
Implementing climate change considerations and integrating them with the INRMP does have its challenges, first and foremost being installation in-house expertise and staff capacity. Despite the availability of training, tools and state and federal agency resources, preparing the analysis is daunting. Most installations are not able to implement the Stein et al. (2019) 6-step guidance using in-house resources. Some installations may be able to implement some of the steps with assistance from cooperators and contractors. A few installations may be able to carry out the science and document integration in its entirety.
Currently the integration of climate change in the INRMPS is carried out both piecemeal by individual installations and through broad support agreements established by/through the military services.
Next Page: INRMP review, revisions and updates
Author
David S. Jones, RA IV, Ecologist/Project Manager
Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands
Warner College of Natural Resources
Colorado State University