Wilderness areas in a changing landscape: changes in land use, land cover, and climate

Abstract

Wilderness areas are not immune to changes in land use, land cover, and/or climate. Future changes will intensify the balancing act of maintaining ecological conditions and untrammeled character within wilderness areas. We assessed the quantitative and spatial changes in land use, land cover, and climate predicted to occur in and around wilderness areas by (1) quantifying projected changes in land use and land cover around wilderness areas; (2) evaluating if public lands surrounding wilderness areas can buffer future land‐use change; (3) quantifying future climate conditions in and around wilderness areas; and (4) identifying wilderness areas expected to experience the most change in land use, land cover, and climate. We used projections of land use (four variables), land cover (five variables), and climate (nine variables) to assess changes for 707 wilderness areas in the contiguous United States by mid‐21st century under two scenarios (medium‐low and high). We ranked all wilderness areas relative to each other by summing and ranking decile values for each land use, land cover, and climate variable and calculating a multivariate metric of future change. All wilderness areas were projected to experience some level of change by mid‐century. The greatest land‐use changes were associated with increases in agriculture, clear cutting, and developed land, while the greatest land cover changes were observed for grassland, forest, and shrubland. In 51.6% and 73.8% of wilderness areas, core area of natural vegetation surrounding wilderness was projected to decrease for the medium‐low and high scenarios, respectfully. Presence of public land did not mitigate the influence of land‐use change around wilderness areas. Geographically, projected changes occurred throughout the contiguous U.S., with areas in the northeast and upper Midwest projected to have the greatest land‐use and climate change and the southwestern U.S. projected to undergo the greatest land cover and climate change. Our results provide insights into potential future threats to wilderness areas and the challenges associated with wilderness stewardship and climate adaptation. Despite the high degree of protection and remoteness of wilderness areas, effective management and preservation of these lands must consider future changes in land use, land cover, and climate.

Personalised ecology and the future of biodiversity

“…Scientific discussion of how to slow and reverse global biodiversity loss has concentrated far more on ecological solutions than on social change. This has been exemplified by papers published in the run-up to the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-15) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), where research focused strongly on how best to set targets and measure progress for conservation (e.g., Watson et al, 2020;Obura et al, 2021;Allan et al, 2022;Leadley et al, 2022), the importance and maintenance of wilderness areas (e.g., Aycrigg et al, 2022;Pérez-Hämmerle et al, 2022), identifying priority areas for biodiversity conservation, and for expanding, and increasing the effectiveness of, protected area systems (e.g., Hanson et al, 2020;Ward et al, 2020;Allan et al, 2022;Brennan et al, 2022;Wauchope et al, 2022) and understanding the threats to, and recovery of, individual species (e.g., Grace et al, 2021;Mair et al, 2021;Bolam et al, 2022). There is no doubt that these are all vitally important issues.…”

Vulnerability of wilderness areas to day-use visits

“…In the US, wilderness areas have a higher level of protection from human activity than any other protected areas (e.g., national parks, wildlife refuges), making them particularly important for preserving biodiversity and natural ecological processes (Dietz et al 2015, Dietz et al 2023). Yet, the ecological integrity of wilderness areas can be impacted by surrounding land use and by daily visitors (Martinuzzi et al 2015, Aycrigg et al 2022a. Recreation in wilderness areas presents a challenge because, despite a few wilderness areas being closed to the public, the ability to visit wilderness areas is a key mandate of The Wilderness Act (US Public Law 88-577; Stankey et al 1985).…”