Incorporating Climate Change Information into Stream Restoration Planning
Sarah LeRoy1*, Megan Friggens2, Gregg Garfin3, Rebeca González Villela4, Sue Harvison5, Katharine Hayhoe6, Sharon Lite7, Martín José Montero Martínez4, John Nielsen-Gammon8, Jeff Renfrow9, David Rissik10, Julio Sergio Santana Sepúlveda4, Bart (A.J.) Wickel11, Mark Briggs12
1University of Arizona
2USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station
3University of Arizona
4IMTA
5Owner, 3 Bar Ranch
6Texas Tech University
7Environment Consultant
8Texas A&M University
9Rio Bravo Restoration
10National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, AU
11Stockholm Environment Institute
12RiversEdge West
Climate change is dramatically impacting temperatures and precipitation patterns around the globe with cascading impacts on many natural resource processes. The flow regimes of streams of dryland regions are being particularly impacted. For practitioners working to restore stream conditions, the impacts of climate change on stream processes can reduce the effectiveness of restoration tactics and make restoration objectives more difficult (if not impossible) to achieve. Therefore, to improve the likelihood for success and long-term viability of stream restoration efforts, practitioners need to develop climate-adapted restoration responses that are based on a sound understanding of what climate change means in the region where the stream restoration effort is taking place. In a forthcoming guidebook on stream restoration, we summarize the impacts of climate change, provide sources of climate information and review a range of climate-adapted responses that practitioners can consider to improve the likelihood for long-term restoration success. In this presentation, I will summarize these subject areas, and present strategies for strengthening the climate adaptive capacity of stream restoration actions, using several case studies from Australia, Mexico, and the southwestern U.S. Strategies include: altering restoration objectives, such as time frames, locations, and desired outcomes; altering restoration tactics, such as eliminating stressors (e.g., pollution, non-native or invasive species), protecting streamflow, and changing the focus from restoration to protection; and pausing implementation if needed, given the extent to which climate change will impact restoration objectives.