Projected wetland densities under climate change: habitat loss but little geographic shift in conservation strategy

Sofaer, Helen R.; Skagen, Susan K.; Barsugli, J. J.; Rashford, Benjamin S.; Reese, Gordon C.; Hoeting, Jennifer A.; Wood, A. W.; Noon, Barry R.

doi:10.1890/15-0750.1

Cited by 66 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 93 publications

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“…Additionally, when comparing the effects of climate change on wetland distribution under current climate scenarios with future climate scenarios, we used the historic climate data rather than the projected current climate data from the ensemble of the five GCMs in our modelling scenarios. The method might underestimate the uncertainty of the GCMs [79]. Nevertheless, our predicted results addressed our research questions and were generally consistent with previous research.…”

Section: Results Implications and Uncertaintiessupporting

confidence: 92%

Predicting Wetland Distribution Changes under Climate Change and Human Activities in a Mid- and High-Latitude Region

Zhao

Wang

et al. 2018

Sustainability

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Abstract:Wetlands in the mid-and high-latitudes are particularly vulnerable to environmental changes and have declined dramatically in recent decades. Climate change and human activities are arguably the most important factors driving wetland distribution changes which will have important implications for wetland ecological functions and services. We analyzed the importance of driving variables for wetland distribution and investigated the relative importance of climatic factors and human activity factors in driving historical wetland distribution changes. We predicted wetland distribution changes under climate change and human activities over the 21st century using the Random Forest model in a mid-and high-latitude region of Northeast China. Climate change scenarios included three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) based on five general circulation models (GCMs) downloaded from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 5 (CMIP5). The three scenarios (RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5, and RCP 8.5) predicted radiative forcing to peak at 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5 W/m 2 by the 2100s, respectively. Our results showed that the variables with high importance scores were agricultural population proportion, warmness index, distance to water body, coldness index, and annual mean precipitation; climatic variables were given higher importance scores than human activity variables on average. Average predicted wetland area among three emission scenarios were 340,000 ha, 123,000 ha, and 113,000 ha for the 2040s, 2070s, and 2100s, respectively. Average change percent in predicted wetland area among three periods was greatest under the RCP 8.5 emission scenario followed by RCP 4.5 and RCP 2.6 emission scenarios, which were 78%, 64%, and 55%, respectively. Losses in predicted wetland distribution were generally around agricultural lands and expanded continually from the north to the whole region over time, while the gains were mostly associated with grasslands and water in the most southern region. In conclusion, climatic factors had larger effects than human activity factors on historical wetland distribution changes and wetland distributions were predicted to decline remarkably over time under climate change scenarios. Our findings have important implications for wetland resource management and restoration because predictions of future wetland changes are needed for wetlands management planning.

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Section: Results Implications and Uncertaintiessupporting

confidence: 92%

Predicting Wetland Distribution Changes under Climate Change and Human Activities in a Mid- and High-Latitude Region

Zhao

Wang

et al. 2018

Sustainability

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“…These losses are projected to continue due to land use change and variations in future climate conditions (Sofaer et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Depressional wetlands affect watershed hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological functions

Evenson

Golden

Lane

et al. 2018

Ecological Applications

103

118

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Depressional wetlands of the extensive U.S. and Canadian Prairie Pothole Region afford numerous ecosystem processes that maintain healthy watershed functioning. However, these wetlands have been lost at a prodigious rate over past decades due to drainage for development, climate effects, and other causes. Options for management entities to protect the existing wetlands, and their functions, may focus on conserving wetlands based on spatial location vis-à-vis a floodplain or on size limitations (e.g., permitting smaller wetlands to be destroyed but not larger wetlands). Yet the effects of such management practices and the concomitant loss of depressional wetlands on watershed-scale hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological functions are largely unknown. Using a hydrological model, we analyzed how different loss scenarios by wetland size and proximal location to the stream network affected watershed storage (i.e., inundation patterns and residence times), connectivity (i.e., streamflow contributing areas), and export (i.e., streamflow) in a large watershed in the Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota, USA. Depressional wetlands store consequential amounts of precipitation and snowmelt. The loss of smaller depressional wetlands (<3.0 ha) substantially decreased landscape-scale inundation heterogeneity, total inundated area, and hydrological residence times. Larger wetlands act as hydrologic "gatekeepers," preventing surface runoff from reaching the stream network, and their modeled loss had a greater effect on streamflow due to changes in watershed connectivity and storage characteristics of larger wetlands. The wetland management scenario based on stream proximity (i.e., protecting wetlands 30 m and ~450 m from the stream) alone resulted in considerable landscape heterogeneity loss and decreased inundated area and residence times. With more snowmelt and precipitation available for runoff with wetland losses, contributing area increased across all loss scenarios. We additionally found that depressional wetlands attenuated peak flows; the probability of increased downstream flooding from wetland loss was also consistent across all loss scenarios. It is evident from this study that optimizing wetland management for one end goal (e.g., protection of large depressional wetlands for flood attenuation) over another (e.g., protecting of small depressional wetlands for biodiversity) may come at a cost for overall watershed hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological resilience, functioning, and integrity.

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“…Similarly, the ensembles we developed complement network‐based approaches for understanding patterns of co‐occurrence (Morueta‐Holme et al, ). Given ongoing land use (Rashford, Walker, & Bastian, ) and climate change (Johnson et al, ; Sofaer et al, ) in the PPR, evaluating whether explicit estimation of environmental sensitivities increases the stability of surrogate relationships will be important to more fully explore.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clustering and ensembling approaches to support surrogate‐based species management

Sofaer

Flather

Skagen

et al. 2019

Diversity and Distributions

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Aim Surrogate species can provide an efficient mechanism for biodiversity conservation if they encompass the needs or indicate the status of a broader set of species. When species that are the focus of ongoing management efforts act as effective surrogates for other species, these incidental surrogacy benefits lead to additional efficiency. Assessing surrogate relationships often relies on grouping species by distributional patterns or by species traits, but there are few approaches for integrating outputs from multiple methods into summaries of surrogate relationships that can inform decision‐making. Location Prairie Pothole Region of the United States. Methods We evaluated how well five upland‐nesting waterfowl species that are a focus of management may act as surrogates for other wetland‐dependent birds. We grouped species by their patterns of relative abundance at multiple scales and by different sets of traits, and evaluated whether empirical validation could effectively select among the resulting species groupings. We used an ensemble approach to integrate the different estimated relationships among species and visualized the ensemble as a network diagram. Results Estimated relationships among species were sensitive to methodological decisions, with qualitatively different relationships arising from different approaches. An ensemble provided an effective tool for integrating across different estimates and highlighted the Sora (Porzana carolina), American Avocet (Recurvirostra Americana) and Black Tern (Chlidonias niger) as the non‐waterfowl species expected to show the strongest incidental surrogacy relationships with the waterfowl that are the focus of ongoing management. Main conclusions An ensemble approach integrated multiple estimates of surrogate relationship strength among species and allowed for intuitive visualizations within a network. By accounting for methodological uncertainty while providing a simple continuous metric of surrogacy, our approach is amenable to both further validation and integration into decision‐making.

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Projected wetland densities under climate change: habitat loss but little geographic shift in conservation strategy

Cited by 66 publications

References 93 publications

Predicting Wetland Distribution Changes under Climate Change and Human Activities in a Mid- and High-Latitude Region

Predicting Wetland Distribution Changes under Climate Change and Human Activities in a Mid- and High-Latitude Region

Depressional wetlands affect watershed hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological functions

Clustering and ensembling approaches to support surrogate‐based species management

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