AdaptWest

Conservation planning efforts that do not consider climate change have the potential to be inefficient at best and, at worst, ineffective. Although many approaches have been suggested for integrating climate adaption within the conservation planning process, climate-adaptation conservation planning is still in the early stages of development.

To help remedy this knowledge gap, we are

1) conducting a comprehensive comparison and synthesis of the many available approaches that have previously been developed,

2) applying those approaches to the majority of western North America, and

3) developing a spatial database from the results of these analyses.

These products will provide agencies and organizations with detailed knowledge about how the different approaches work and to what degree they are complementary or duplicative. The database will provide users with integrative analyses and tools that can inform conservation planning and prioritization across much of western North America.

We are working to ensure that the data and publications produced will have broad utility in informing both policy and on-the-ground conservation efforts, and hope that the data will become integrated within the work of other large-scale conservation efforts such as those being facilitated by agencies and non-governmental organizations in both nations. Project scientists are already working with collaborators within agencies and NGOs. Please contact us with any questions or ideas on how our products can be made more useful for your work.

The first datasets went online in late 2013. Additional spatial data products and initial written summaries of results will be made available in mid 2014. Project completion is scheduled for late 2016.