This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-13-253 
entitled 'Climate Change: Various Adaptation Efforts Are Under Way at 
Key Natural Resource Management Agencies' which was released on June 20,
2013. 

This text file was formatted by the U.S. Government Accountability 
Office (GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as 
part of a longer term project to improve GAO products' accessibility. 
Every attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data 
integrity of the original printed product. Accessibility features, 
such as text descriptions of tables, consecutively numbered footnotes 
placed at the end of the file, and the text of agency comment letters, 
are provided but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format 
of the printed version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an 
exact electronic replica of the printed version. We welcome your 
feedback. Please E-mail your comments regarding the contents or 
accessibility features of this document to Webmaster@gao.gov. 

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright 
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed 
in its entirety without further permission from GAO. Because this work 
may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the 
copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this 
material separately. 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to Congressional Requesters: 

May 2013: 

Climate Change: 

Various Adaptation Efforts Are Under Way at Key Natural Resource 
Management Agencies: 

GAO-13-253: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-13-253, a report to congressional requesters. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

change poses a variety of threats to federally managed natural 
resources, such as forests and wildlife, including possibly more 
frequent and severe droughts and wildfires. Adaptation-—adjustments in 
natural or human systems to a new or changing environment that 
exploits beneficial opportunities or moderates negative effects-—can 
be used to help manage the risks to vulnerable natural resources. GAO 
was asked to review federal agencies’ efforts to incorporate climate 
change adaptation into their natural resource planning and management 
since GAO last reported on this issue in 2007. 

This report examines (1) steps key federal natural resource management 
agencies-—Forest Service, NOAA, Fish and Wildlife Service, National 
Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management-—have taken since 2007 to 
address adaptation and (2) how these agencies have collaborated at the 
national level on adaptation since 2007. GAO analyzed the agencies’ 
climate change adaptation guidance and planning documents and 
interviewed agency officials. GAO also visited one field location for 
each agency, selected using a nonprobability approach, so the results 
are not generalizable to all of the agencies’ field locations. 

What GAO Found: 

Since 2007, the Forest Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration (NOAA), the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National 
Park Service have taken steps to establish strategic directions for 
addressing climate change adaptation. For example, the Forest Service 
developed a strategic framework document that established climate 
change adaptation as a central agency priority and another document, 
known as “the roadmap,” which identified actions that national forest 
managers were taking or could take to implement the direction outlined 
in the framework, including re-vegetating ecosystems that had been 
affected by fire with plant species that are better adapted to current 
and future climates. These four agencies have also developed guidance, 
training, and other tools for managers to use in adapting to climate 
change. For example, the National Park Service is developing guidance 
for park-based climate change adaptation plans that includes steps 
such as identifying conservation targets and conducting vulnerability 
assessments. The Bureau of Land Management has not established a 
strategic direction for addressing climate change impacts but is 
planning to develop a high-level climate change adaptation strategy by 
the end of the summer 2013. In addition, GAO visited one field 
location within each agency and found that managers at four of the 
five locations have taken steps to address climate change adaptation. 
For example: 

* Chugach National Forest managers have begun an assessment of the 
vulnerability to climate change of key resources to help set 
priorities and identify adaptation actions. For example, the 
vulnerability assessment will include information on how changes in 
climate are likely to affect snow cover and salmon populations, as 
well as an analysis of how these projected changes may affect 
residents in the region who rely on snow-based tourism and salmon for 
their livelihoods. 

* Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary managers are beginning to 
assess whether parts of their management plan should be revised to 
address climate change adaptation and have taken actions to protect 
marine resources, such as coral reefs, from climate change impacts. 
For example, the sanctuary is collaborating with local stakeholders to 
develop systems and techniques to grow coral and other reef species 
for replanting in depleted reef systems. 

Managers at the Bureau of Land Management’s Kingman Resource Area, 
which manages its lands for livestock grazing and other uses, have not 
taken steps to address climate change adaptation and are awaiting 
agency direction. 

The federal natural resource management agencies GAO reviewed are 
collaborating on climate change adaptation. For example, agencies are 
collaborating through landscape conservation cooperatives, comprising 
public and private organizations working to define shared goals and 
provide science for conservation planning, among other things. In 
addition, agencies have collaborated in developing national strategies 
for addressing climate change adaptation in the federal government. 
For example, the Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA, and others 
collaborated on a strategy, released in March 2013, for addressing 
climate change adaptation in managing fish, wildlife, and plants. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO is not making any recommendations. GAO received written comments 
from the Department of Agriculture, which said the Forest Service 
agreed with the findings. GAO also received general and technical 
comments from the Departments of Commerce and the Interior, which were 
incorporated as appropriate. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-253]. For more 
information, contact Anne-Marie Fennell at (202) 512-3841 or 
fennella@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

Four of the Five Agencies Have Developed Climate Change Adaptation 
Strategies and Four of the Five Sites We Visited Have Taken Steps to 
Address Adaptation: 

The Agencies Have Begun Using Several Mechanisms to Collaborate and 
Have Prepared National Adaptation Strategies and Climate Assessments: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Comments from the Department of Agriculture: 

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Table: 

Table 1: Current and Projected Impacts of Climate Change in the United 
States: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Map of the National Forest System: 

Figure 2: Map of the National Marine Sanctuary System: 

Figure 3: Map of National Wildlife Refuges: 

Figure 4: Map of the National Parks: 

Figure 5: Map of Lands Managed by the Bureau of Land Management: 

Figure 6: Map of Chugach National Forest: 

Figure 7: Map of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Boundaries: 

Figure 8: Map of Florida's Reef Management Jurisdictions: 

Figure 9: Map of San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge: 

Figure 10: Map of Glacier National Park: 

Figure 11: Map of the Bureau of Land Management's Rapid Ecoregional 
Assessments: 

Figure 12: Map of Kingman Resource Area and Arizona Field Office 
Administrative Boundaries: 

Figure 13: Map of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives: 

Abbreviation: 

NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 
441 G St. N.W. 
Washington, DC 20548: 

May 31, 2013: 

The Honorable Max Baucus: 
Chairman: 
Committee on Finance: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Sheldon Whitehouse: 
Chairman: 
Subcommittee on Oversight: 
Committee on Environment and Public Works: 
United States Senate: 

According to multiple scientific studies, including those done by the 
U.S. Global Change Research Program,[Footnote 1] climate-related 
changes will likely adversely affect many aspects of the natural 
environment in the United States.[Footnote 2] These changes include 
increases in air and water temperatures, wildfires, and drought; 
forests stressed by drought becoming more vulnerable to insect 
infestations; rising sea levels; and reduced snow cover and retreating 
glaciers. In addition, various species are expected to be at risk of 
becoming extinct due to the loss of habitat critical to their 
survival. Many of these changes have already been observed on 
federally managed lands and waters and are expected to continue. As we 
reported in October 2009,[Footnote 3] policymakers are increasingly 
viewing adaptation--defined by the National Research Council[Footnote 
4] as adjustments in natural or human systems to a new or changing 
environment that exploits beneficial opportunities or moderates 
negative effects--as a risk-management strategy to protect vulnerable 
natural resources that might be affected by changes in the climate. 

The federal government manages nearly 30 percent of the land in the 
United States. Specifically, federal agencies manage natural resources 
on about 650 million acres of land, including 401 national park units 
and 155 national forests. In addition, federal agencies also manage 
marine resources in the United States and its exclusive economic zone, 
[Footnote 5] including fisheries and protected species, and marine 
protected areas that include13 national marine sanctuaries. These 
resources are managed primarily by the Department of Agriculture's 
Forest Service; the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); and the Department of the 
Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and 
Bureau of Land Management. 

In August 2007, we reported that federal natural resource managers 
lacked specific guidance for incorporating climate change into their 
planning efforts and management actions.[Footnote 6] Without such 
guidance, we reported that their ability to address climate change and 
effectively manage resources was constrained. We recommended, among 
other things, that the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the 
Interior develop clear written guidance that explains how federal 
natural resource managers are expected to address the effects of 
climate change. The three departments generally agreed with our 
recommendation and have been taking steps to address it. In addition, 
in October 2009, we reported that climate change is a complex, 
interdisciplinary issue with the potential to affect every sector and 
level of government operations and that government-wide adaptation 
planning and collaboration could assist climate change adaptation 
efforts.[Footnote 7] We concluded that adaptation will require new 
approaches to match new realities and that old ways of doing business--
such as making decision based on the assumed continuation of past 
climate conditions--will not work in a world affected by climate 
change. In 2013, we added climate change to our list of high-risk 
areas because it poses significant financial risks to the federal 
government. One of the areas where the federal government's fiscal 
exposure is expected to increase is in its role as the manager of 
large amounts of land and other natural resources.[Footnote 8] 

In an October 2010 report, the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation 
Task Force, established by the President and made up of 
representatives from more than 20 federal departments and agencies, 
concluded that the federal government has the responsibility to manage 
climate-related impacts on federal resources by, among other things, 
leading and supporting actions that reduce vulnerability, increase 
resilience, and enhance coordination.[Footnote 9] In response to 
recommendations from the task force or initiatives from their 
Secretaries, the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and the 
Interior have developed various mechanisms to address climate change 
impacts on natural resources and the people, industries, and 
communities that depend on them.[Footnote 10] These mechanisms 
include, for example, climate change adaptation strategies within the 
departmental strategic plans, adaptation-related policies and 
guidance, and national interagency collaborative initiatives. In 
addition, the three departments have all, in various ways, informed 
their respective agencies to begin addressing climate change 
adaptation. 

You asked us to review what federal agencies are doing to incorporate 
climate change adaptation into their natural resource planning and 
management activities. This report examines (1) steps key federal 
natural resource management agencies have taken since 2007 to address 
climate change adaptation and (2) how these agencies have collaborated 
with each other at the national level since 2007 to address climate 
change adaptation. While federal agencies have taken many different 
climate change adaptation actions, we focused on those actions that we 
determined were most directly relevant to helping guide the management 
activities of the field location we visited at each agency. 

We selected the following four key federal natural resource management 
agencies to review because they administer over 90 percent of the 
federal lands in the United States. The four agencies are (1) the 
Forest Service, (2) the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, (3) the 
National Park Service, and (4) the Bureau of Land Management. We 
selected NOAA because it manages coastal and ocean natural resources, 
such as the national marine sanctuary system.[Footnote 11] To 
determine how the five natural resource management agencies have 
addressed climate change adaptation since 2007, we reviewed and 
analyzed relevant strategic plans, actions plans, policies, resource 
management plans, and guidance documents for the five agencies and 
interviewed senior officials at each agency. 

To learn how one natural resource site managed by each of the agencies 
has addressed climate change adaptation since 2007, we visited five 
sites, reviewed planning documents, and interviewed agency officials 
that manage the resources at those sites. The five sites we visited 
were (1) the Forest Service's Chugach National Forest in south-central 
Alaska; (2) NOAA's Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in southern 
Florida; (3) the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's San Pablo Bay 
National Wildlife Refuge in northern California; (4) the National Park 
Service's Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana; and (5) the 
Bureau of Land Management's Kingman Field Office in northwestern 
Arizona. We visited four of these sites--Chugach National Forest, 
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Glacier National Park, and 
Kingman Field Office--because they were also included in our 2007 
review.[Footnote 12] For the 2007 review, we selected the sites we 
visited to ensure geographic representation across the country and to 
include the four principal ecosystem types that are managed by federal 
agencies--forests, grasslands and shrublands, coasts and oceans, and 
fresh waters.[Footnote 13] For this review, we included the San Pablo 
Bay National Wildlife Refuge so that we could review a site managed by 
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Because we selected a 
nonprobability sample of five sites,[Footnote 14] the results we 
obtained from these sites are not generalizable to all of the natural 
resource areas managed by the five agencies; however, they provide 
specific examples of how some federally managed natural resource areas 
have addressed climate change adaptation at the site level. We also 
interviewed stakeholders, including state, local, and tribal 
government officials and representatives from nongovernmental 
organizations, to discuss their adaptation efforts. 

To learn how the natural resource management agencies have 
collaborated with each other at the national level since 2007 to 
address climate change adaptation, we reviewed documents such as the 
October 2011 Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force progress 
report[Footnote 15] and the National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate 
Adaptation Strategy.[Footnote 16] We also interviewed officials from 
the five agencies, including officials who have roles and 
responsibilities related to collaboration. 

We conducted this performance audit from December 2011 to May 2013 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Background: 

Climate change is having a variety of impacts on natural resources in 
the United States, including more severe drought and increased 
wildfires. The five key federal natural resource management agencies 
included in this review--the Forest Service, NOAA, U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management-
-have unique roles and are facing a variety of management challenges 
related to climate change. Climate change is also altering assumptions 
that have been central to natural resource planning and management in 
the past and recent reports have highlighted the importance of 
establishing climate change planning in the federal government to help 
ensure it can continue to provide important services in a changing 
environment. 

Climate Change Impacts in the United States: 

According to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, changes in the 
climate have been observed in the United States and its coastal waters 
and will adversely affect aspects of the nation's natural environment. 
As table 1 shows, changes in the climate--including warmer 
temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, rising sea levels, 
and more intense storms--affect the natural environment in a number of 
ways including more severe drought, increased frequency of large 
wildfires, insect infestations, changed habitats, and possible loss of 
species that cannot survive in the changed conditions. 

Table 1: Current and Projected Impacts of Climate Change in the United 
States: 

Category: Temperature; 
Current and projected impacts: 
* U.S. average temperature has risen more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit 
over the past 50 years and is projected to rise more in the future--
how much more depends primarily on the amount of heat-trapping gases 
emitted globally and how sensitive the climate is to those emissions; 
* Higher ocean temperatures; 
Examples of impacts to natural resources: Drought; increased frequency 
of large wildfires; insect infestations; changes to habitat and 
species loss; melting of glaciers; Stronger storms with higher wind 
speeds and more rainfall; coral bleaching. 

Category: Precipitation; 
Current and projected impacts: 
* Precipitation has increased an average of about 5 percent over the 
past 50 years. Projections of future precipitation generally indicate 
that northern areas will become wetter and southern areas, 
particularly in the West, will become drier; 
* The amount of rain falling in the heaviest downpours has increased 
approximately 20 percent on average in the past century, and this 
trend is very likely to continue, with the largest increases in the 
wettest places; 
* In most regions of the country, the fraction of precipitation 
falling as rain has increased in the last 50 years; 
Examples of impacts to natural resources: Loss of snow cover; 
increased flooding in some areas; more severe drought in some areas. 

Category: Extreme weather events and storms; 
Current and projected impacts: 
* Many types of extreme weather events, such as heat waves and 
regional droughts, have become more frequent and intense during the 
past 40 to 50 years; 
* The destructive energy of Atlantic hurricanes has increased in 
recent decades. The intensity of these storms are likely to increase 
in this century, and along with it, associated wind, precipitation, 
and storm surges; 
* In the eastern Pacific, the strongest hurricanes have become 
stronger since the 1980s, even while the total number of storms has 
decreased; 
* Cold season storm tracks are shifting northward, and the strongest 
storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent; 
Examples of impacts to natural resources: Flooding, erosion, and 
inundation of coastal ecosystems. 

Category: Sea levels; 
Current and projected impacts: 
* Sea level has risen along most of the U.S. coast over the last 50 
years and will likely rise more in the future; 
* The magnitude of sea level rise on the U.S. coast is expected to 
vary by region. Due to land subsidence, in some regions, local sea 
level rise is expected to exceed global mean sea-level rise, which is 
estimated to be .2 to 2 meters by the end of the century. In other 
regions, such as Alaska and the Pacific Northwest coast, land uplift 
may reduce the local effects of global sea level rise; 
Examples of impacts to natural resources: Inundation of some coastal 
areas; erosion; changes to habitats and possible species loss due to, 
among other things, saltwater intrusion. 

Category: Ocean acidification; 
Current and projected impacts: 
* Seawater becomes less alkaline (its pH decreases) when the ocean 
absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The pH of seawater has 
decreased significantly since 1750, and is projected to drop much more 
dramatically by the end of the century if carbon dioxide 
concentrations continue to increase; 
Examples of impacts to natural resources: Affects the process of 
calcification by which living things create shells and skeletons, with 
substantial negative consequences for coral reefs, mollusks, and some 
plankton species important to ocean food chains. 

Sources: GAO analysis of Information from the U.S. Global Change 
Research Program and NOAA. 

[End of table] 

According to a 2009 study by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, 
in areas where weather events become more intense and frequent with 
climate change, economic and social costs will increase.[Footnote 17] 
For example, insect pests are economically important stressors on 
forest ecosystems in the United States. Coupled with pathogens, they 
account for $1.5 billion in damage every year, according to the study. 
Changes in climate have contributed to major insect pest outbreaks in 
the United States over the past several decades because rising 
temperatures increase insect outbreaks in a number of ways, according 
to the study. For example, longer and warmer seasons allow some 
insects to develop faster, sometimes completing two life cycles 
instead of one in a single growing season, and warmer conditions also 
help expand the ranges of some insects. In addition, recreation and 
tourism are important to the economy and the quality of life for many 
people. In many communities, according to the study, recreation and 
tourism generate billions of dollars for regional economies through 
activities such as fishing, hunting, skiing, hiking, and diving and 
some of these economic benefits could be reduced or lost as a result 
of the impacts from climate change. 

Precisely how and to what extent changes in the climate will affect 
particular federal lands and waters in the future is uncertain, but 
climate-related changes have already been observed on federally 
managed lands and waters. Moreover, some of these changes are expected 
to continue and increase in intensity, according to the U.S. Global 
Change Research Program. 

Roles of the Five Key Federal Natural Resource Management Agencies and 
Climate Change Impacts to the Natural Resources They Manage: 

The Forest Service. The Forest Service's mission is to sustain the 
health, diversity, and productivity of the nation's forests and 
grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The 
Forest Service manages 193 million acres of national forest and 
national grasslands. The nation's 155 national forests and 20 national 
grasslands contain much of the nation's terrestrial biodiversity and 
provide a range of ecosystem services.[Footnote 18] For example, 
national forests provide important habitat for many rare, threatened, 
and endangered species as well as timber and fresh water.[Footnote 19] 
The agency manages national forests for a variety of uses including 
recreation, timber harvesting, livestock grazing, mining, and 
wilderness protection. Wildfires, invasive species, and extreme 
weather events are among the critical stressors currently affecting 
national forests, and they are all expected to be exacerbated by 
climate change. According to a 2011 report by the Interagency Climate 
Change Adaptation Task Force, these impacts put at risk the many 
benefits Americans receive from forests.[Footnote 20] See figure 1 for 
a map of the National Forest System. 

Figure 1: Map of the National Forest System: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map] 

Map depicts: 
National forest; 
National grassland. 

Sources: Forest Service; Map Resources (map). 

[End of figure] 

NOAA. NOAA's mission includes understanding and predicting changes in 
climate, weather, oceans, and coasts and conserving and managing 
coastal and marine ecosystems and resources. Among its many diverse 
responsibilities, NOAA administers the 13 national marine sanctuaries 
and 1 marine national monument that make up the marine sanctuary 
system, according to a senior NOAA official. The system encompasses 
more than 165,000 square miles of coastal, ocean, and Great Lakes 
waters. Sanctuaries are managed to protect and conserve their 
resources and to allow uses that are compatible with resource 
protection. For example, coral reefs are an important natural resource 
found in some sanctuaries, and they are susceptible to the effects of 
climate change,[Footnote 21] including increased temperatures that 
cause bleaching,[Footnote 22] and ocean acidification[Footnote 23] 
that inhibit the production of coral skeletons. See figure 2 for a map 
of the national marine sanctuary system. 

Figure 2: Map of the National Marine Sanctuary System: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map] 

Map depicts: 

Marine sanctuary: 
American Samoa (U.S.); 
Channel Islands; 
Cordell Bank; 
Florida Keys; 
Flower Garden Banks; 
Gray’s Reef; 
Gulf of the Farallones; 
Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale; 
Monitor; 
Monterey Bay; 
Olympic Coast; 
Stellwagen Bank; 
Thunder Bay. 

Marine monument: 
Papahanaumokuakea. 

Source: NOAA. 

[End of figure] 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is 
responsible for managing lands under its jurisdiction primarily to 
conserve and protect fish and wildlife and their habitats, although 
other uses such as hunting and fishing are allowed when they are 
compatible with the primary purposes for which the lands are managed. 
The service manages 561 national wildlife refuges and 209 waterfowl 
production areas on about 150 million acres of land throughout the 
nation.[Footnote 24] The national wildlife refuge system is a network 
of lands and waters across the country designated for the 
conservation; management; and, where appropriate, restoration of fish, 
wildlife, and plant resources and their habitats. Wildlife refuges are 
home to, among other things, more than 700 species of birds, 220 
species of mammals, and more than 200 species of fish. According to 
the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, one of the climate change-
related issues of concern at refuges is that species may become 
separated from the resources they need to survive.[Footnote 25] For 
example, projected sea level rise may significantly alter habitat at 
coastal refuges for certain protected plant and animal species. If 
these species do not have the ability to relocate, they may be unable 
to survive. See figure 3 for a map of the national wildlife refuges. 

Figure 3: Map of National Wildlife Refuges: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map] 

Map depicts National Wildlife Refuges in United States, Pacific 
Islands, Navassa Island, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands. 

Sources: Fish and Wildlife Service; Map Resources (map). 

[End of figure] 

National Park Service. The National Park Service's mission is to 
preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources of the national 
park units for the enjoyment of current and future generations. 
[Footnote 26] The park service manages 401 national park units 
covering more than 84 million acres throughout the United States and 
its territories. See figure 4 for a map of the 59 national parks. The 
national park system contains representative landscapes from all of 
the nation's ecosystems, and national parks can be found across a 
broad range of average temperatures (from tropical heat to arctic 
cold) and elevations (from the mountain tops to sea level). Climate 
change is expected to significantly alter the natural resources in 
national parks. For example, one computer-based model predicts that 
some of the park's largest glaciers in Glacier National Park will melt 
by 2030, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. 

Figure 4: Map of the National Parks: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map] 

National Parks depicted: 

Alaska: 
Denali NP and Preserve; 
Gates of the Arctic NP and Preserve. 
Glacier Bay NP and Preserve; 
Kenai Fjords NP; 
Katmai NP and Preserve; 
Kobuk Valley NP; 
Lake Clark NP and Preserve; 
Wrangell-St. Elias NP and Preserve. 

American Samoa: 
National Park of American Samoa. 

Arizona: 
Grand Canyon NP; 
Petrified Forest NP; 
Saguaro NP. 

Arkansas: 
Hot Springs NP. 

California: 
Channel Islands NP; 
Death Valley NP; 
Joshua Tree NP; 
Kings Canyon NP; 
Redwood NP; 
Sequoia NP; 
Yosemite NP. 

Colorado: 
Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP; 
Great Sand Dunes NP and Preserve; 
Mesa Verde NP; 
Rocky Mountain NP. 

Florida: 
Biscayne NP; 
Dry Tortugas NP; 
Everglades NP. 

Hawaii: 
Haleakala NP; 
Hawai‘i Volcanoes NP. 

Kentucky: 
Mammoth Cave NP. 

Maine: 
Acadia NP. 

Michigan: 
Isle Royale NP. 

Minnesota: 
Voyageurs NP. 

Montana: 
Glacier NP. 

New Mexico: 
Carlsbad Caverns NP. 

North Dakota: 
Theodore Roosevelt NP. 

Ohio: 
Cuyahoga Valley NP. 

Oregon: 
Crater Lake NP. 

South Carolina: 
Congaree NP. 

South Dakota: 
Badlands NP. 

Tennessee: 
Great Smoky Mountains NP. 

Texas: 
Big Bend NP; 
Guadalupe Mountains NP. 

Utah: 
Arches NP; 
Bryce Canyon NP; 
Canyonlands NP; 
Capitol Reef NP; 
Great Basin NP; 
Zion NP. 

Virgin Islands: 
Virgin Islands NP. 

Virginia: 
Shenandoah NP. 

Washington: 
Mount Rainier NP. 
North Cascades NP; 
Olympic NP. 

Wyoming: 
Grand Teton NP; 
Wind Cave NP; 
Yellowstone NP. 

Source: National Park Service. 

[End of figure] 

Bureau of Land Management. The Bureau of Land Management manages 
federal land for multiple uses, including recreation; range; timber; 
minerals; watershed; wildlife and fish; natural scenic, scientific, 
and historical values, as well as for the sustained yield of renewable 
resources.[Footnote 27] The bureau manages about 245 million acres of 
surface lands located primarily in 12 western states. The agency 
manages and issues permits for activities such as energy development, 
recreation, livestock grazing, timber harvesting, and mining. The 
bureau generally has a three-tiered organizational structure in the 
states where it manages land, beginning with the state office that 
oversees district offices, which coordinate between the state and 
field offices. Field offices are responsible for managing designated 
areas of land, which are known as resource areas. The field offices 
manage lands that are environmentally significant to the nation. For 
example, the Kingman Field Office in Arizona manages lands that 
include 9 wilderness areas,[Footnote 28] 12 areas of critical 
environmental concern,[Footnote 29] and 5 river segments under 
consideration for wild and scenic river designations.[Footnote 30] 
Wildfires, invasive species, and droughts are among the stressors 
currently affecting land managed by the bureau and may be exacerbated 
by climate change, which may affect the land's capacity to be managed 
for multiple uses. For example, according to a senior bureau official, 
if droughts persist and increase, the bureau may have to consider 
limiting livestock grazing on certain land parcels to protect drought-
stressed plant and animal species. See figure 5 for a map of the lands 
managed by the Bureau of Land Management. 

Figure 5: Map of Lands Managed by the Bureau of Land Management: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map] 

Depicts lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management in the Western 
U.S. 

Sources: Bureau of Land Management; Map Resources (map). 

Note: The Bureau of Land Management's Eastern States Office manages 
30,000 acres of surface land (not shown on this map) and 40 million 
acres of land with subsurface minerals scattered throughout 31 states. 

[End of figure] 

The laws governing resource management for the five key agencies 
generally do not require them to take specific actions but rather give 
them discretion to decide how best to carry out their responsibilities 
in light of their respective statutory missions, as well as the need 
to comply with or implement specific substantive and procedural laws, 
such as the Endangered Species Act,[Footnote 31] or the National 
Environmental Policy Act.[Footnote 32] The agencies are generally 
authorized to plan and manage for changes in resource conditions 
regardless of the cause that brings about the change. Therefore, 
although not specifically required to, the five key federal resource 
management agencies are generally authorized to address climate change 
adaptation in their planning and management. 

Addressing Climate Change Adaptation in Natural Resource Management 
and Planning: 

According to a 2010 National Research Council report, climate change 
is altering assumptions that have been central to natural resource 
management and planning in the past.[Footnote 33] Traditionally, 
natural resource management has assumed that past climate conditions 
would continue--with similar patterns of variation and the same 
probabilities of extreme events. However, according to the report, 
that assumption is no longer valid. Due to the level of greenhouse 
gases already in the atmosphere, even if significant efforts to reduce 
emissions of these gases are undertaken, climate change is expected to 
continue. Furthermore, natural resource management has historically 
been based on the idea of maintaining current environmental conditions 
or restoring species and habitats to some desired former condition. As 
the climate continues to change, this approach to resource management 
will become increasingly more difficult if not impossible to maintain, 
according to recent studies highlighted in a July 2011 National 
Wildlife Federation report.[Footnote 34] For example, national 
wildlife refuges were established as specific locations that could 
provide safe havens for species, but as climate change alters these 
environments, managers may not be able to maintain them in their 
current condition and, as a result, they may no longer provide the 
habitats necessary to help conserve and protect vulnerable species. 
According to a 2012 report,[Footnote 35] protected areas like national 
parks, forests, or wildlife refuges, may not be sufficient to conserve 
a diverse array of biological resources in a changing climate, which 
will likely require a greater emphasis on landscape-scale conservation 
and connectivity among protected habitats.[Footnote 36] As we reported 
in October 2009, efforts to build large, connected landscapes will 
become more important as species attempt to migrate or otherwise adapt 
to climate change.[Footnote 37] 

The options for managing natural resources can be thought of as a 
continuum moving from promoting resistance to encouraging resilience 
to facilitating transformation, according to the National Fish, 
Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy report.[Footnote 38] A 
natural resource system, such as a forest, can be managed to promote 
its ability to withstand disturbances, such as pest outbreaks, without 
losing any of its current functions. According to the report, this 
first approach focuses on managing for resistance. If that is not 
possible, a second approach could be to manage a forest to promote 
resilience, which, according to the report, means the ability to 
recover from disturbances and maintain current functions to the extent 
possible. For example, forest thinning, while not preventing forest 
fires, can make forests more resilient so that when fires do occur 
they are not as severe, and the forest can recover more quickly. A 
third approach, however, attempts to facilitate a transition of the 
natural environment by planning for anticipated changes and taking 
management actions to help guide them. For example, according to the 
Forest Service, managers could broaden the genetic variety of the 
trees and other plants used for restoration to help ensure they are 
better suited to projected future climatic conditions. However, the 
extent to which natural resource managers can use any of the 
approaches along the continuum is determined by, among other things, 
their agency's mission, laws, and regulations. 

Several recent reports have highlighted the importance of establishing 
climate change adaptation planning throughout federal agencies and 
have identified similar frameworks for conducting such planning. 
[Footnote 39] For example, in October 2010, the Interagency Climate 
Change Adaptation Task Force, co-chaired by the Council on 
Environmental Quality, NOAA, and the Office of Science and Technology 
Policy,[Footnote 40] concluded that climate change will challenge the 
operations and programs of nearly every federal agency and that 
implementing adaptation planning would help ensure that the federal 
government has the capacity to execute its missions and maintain 
important services in the face of climate change.[Footnote 41] The 
report recommended, among other things, encouraging and mainstreaming 
climate change adaptation planning across the federal government. The 
report also recommended that federal agencies should use a flexible 
planning framework for conducting agency adaptation planning that is 
both consistent across agencies and tailored to the specific planning 
needs of each agency. 

Although different reports use different terminology, the climate 
change adaptation planning frameworks they outline generally consist 
of four key elements that are reviewed and revised as needed as new 
information emerges. These four elements are: 

* Identify conservation targets and success measures. As part of this 
element, an agency sets a mandate for action on climate change 
adaptation; articulates clear goals and objectives related to the 
resources it manages; and identifies ways to measure whether it has 
been successful in meeting its goals. 

* Assess and understand the risks, vulnerabilities, and opportunities 
posed by climate change. As part of this element, agencies seek to 
understand (1) what aspects of the climate are changing and over what 
periods; (2) which resources will be most at risk; (3) why these 
resources are likely to be vulnerable, including how climate changes 
are interacting with existing stressors, such as drought; and (4) what 
uncertainties are associated with the predicted climate change impacts 
and how this may impact adaptation efforts. 

* Develop and prioritize management adaptation actions. As part of 
this element, agencies determine how they should respond to the risks 
they have identified by considering a wide array of possible 
adaptation measures. Agencies then determine the highest priority 
adaptation measures, based at least in part on technical, financial, 
or legal considerations. 

* Implement management options, evaluate the results, and use the 
lessons learned from the process to improve future adaptation. As part 
of this element, an agency implements its adaptation actions and then 
monitors and evaluates its results to determine the actions' 
effectiveness and makes adjustments as necessary. Because the climate 
is expected to continue to change, adaptation actions will need to be 
regularly monitored to determine if they continue to be effective. 
Agency adaptation plans must also be able to incorporate new 
information about risks, lessons learned from implementation, and 
modified priorities to retain their effectiveness. 

Four of the Five Agencies Have Developed Climate Change Adaptation 
Strategies and Four of the Five Sites We Visited Have Taken Steps to 
Address Adaptation: 

The Forest Service, NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the 
National Park Service have all developed a strategic direction for 
addressing climate change adaptation through a variety of planning 
documents. The agencies have also developed guidance, training, and 
other tools for managers to use in adapting to climate change. The one 
field location we visited for each agency has taken various steps to 
address climate change adaptation, such as conducting vulnerability 
assessments. The Bureau of Land Management has not developed a 
strategic direction for addressing climate change impacts, but it has 
taken some adaptation-related steps. Managers at the bureau field 
location we visited, absent direction from headquarters, have not 
taken steps to address climate change adaptation. 

The Forest Service Has Set a Strategic Direction, Established a 
Performance Goal, and Provided Tools for National Forests to Address 
Climate Change Adaptation: 

In October 2008, the Forest Service developed a strategic framework 
for responding to climate change.[Footnote 42] According to the 
framework, addressing climate change adaptation must be a central 
priority for the agency because many ecosystem services provided by 
national forests--which include water for drinking and agriculture, as 
well as lumber and fiber for paper--may be lost or significantly 
altered if national forest ecosystems are left to adapt on their own. 
The framework also stated that management strategies based on 
historical or current conditions will need to be adjusted or replaced 
with approaches that support adaptation to changing conditions brought 
about by climate change. According to the framework, Forest Service 
natural resource managers will use current science to better 
understand and predict the impacts of climate change on natural 
resources, including plant and animal species. The agency will also 
use an iterative approach, according to the framework, meaning that 
natural resource managers are to modify their management actions, if 
needed, as new scientific information emerges. They also are to 
collaborate with partners--including private landowners and tribal 
entities--to share technical expertise and coordinate management 
actions across land ownership boundaries to more effectively address 
adaptation. 

In February 2011, the Forest Service published a document, known as 
"the roadmap," which identified actions that natural resource managers 
in national forests were already taking or could take to implement the 
strategic direction outlined in the agency's strategic framework. 
[Footnote 43] According to the roadmap, ongoing actions that agency 
natural resource managers were already taking include collaborating 
with scientists to assess the vulnerability of key species to climate 
change and re-vegetating ecosystems that had been affected by fire or 
other major disturbances with plant species that are better adapted to 
current and future climates. Actions that natural resource managers 
could begin taking in the short term, according to the roadmap, 
include collaborating with partners to develop strategies for creating 
and protecting connected habitat by, for example, establishing 
corridors across private lands to allow species affected by climate 
change to migrate to landscapes to which they are better adapted. 
Longer-term actions include developing comprehensive strategies for 
maintaining and restoring the connectivity of habitats. 

The Forest Service has also established a performance goal for 
national forests. In 2011, the Forest Service informed national forest 
managers that by 2015 they are expected to address at least one of the 
following three areas related to climate change adaptation: (1) 
assessing the vulnerability of key resources--such as the availability 
of clean and abundant drinking water from national forest watersheds--
to the impacts of climate change, (2) reducing the vulnerability of 
key resources to climate change, and (3) monitoring and evaluating 
climate change impacts and the effectiveness of adaptation activities. 
To help track progress in achieving the goal, the Forest Service also 
directed each national forest to report annually on its status, plans, 
and actions for assessing vulnerabilities, reducing vulnerabilities, 
and monitoring and evaluating effectiveness. The agency also published 
guidance in 2011 to assist the national forests in preparing their 
annual reports, which are referred to as climate change performance 
scorecard reports. For example, regarding monitoring, the guidance 
provided examples of current national monitoring programs that could 
be used to track climate change impacts, as well as instructions on 
where to find additional information about such programs. 

In addition, the agency has taken other steps to help national forests 
address adaptation. Specifically, in April 2012, the Forest Service 
finalized a new planning rule that includes climate change adaptation 
requirements.[Footnote 44] Also, in February 2013, the agency issued 
draft guidance outlining specific steps that forests can take to 
implement these requirements. Each national forest is governed by a 
land management plan--referred to as a forest plan--which must be 
revised at least every 15 years to guide its long-term natural 
resource management actions. The planning rule is intended to ensure, 
among other things, that forest plans will be responsive and can adapt 
to issues such as the challenges of climate change. The rule also 
requires that each national forest have a monitoring program that 
addresses climate change impacts. To help the forests translate the 
monitoring requirement into action, the draft agency guidance we 
reviewed stated, for example, that in developing their monitoring 
programs, the forests could consider monitoring types of vegetation 
that are likely to be among the first affected by climate change. 
According to the draft guidance, doing so could help natural resource 
managers in the forests to identify opportunities to assist those 
natural resources in adapting to climate change. Agency officials told 
us they plan to finalize the guidance by the end of 2013. 

The Forest Service has also begun developing decision support tools to 
help its natural resource managers address climate change adaptation. 
For example, in 2012, the Forest Service issued the Climate Project 
Screening Tool, which was developed by agency scientists to help 
natural resource managers determine how, if at all, climate change 
considerations could impact decisions to proceed with, modify, or 
cancel proposed projects. The tool includes, for a variety of project 
types, examples of key questions natural resource managers might 
consider to address climate change adaptation. For example, on a 
proposed project to restore an aquatic species, managers might 
consider whether the species is likely to survive in the landscape if 
the waters continue to grow warmer as a result of climate change. The 
tool provides a template that natural resource managers can use to 
record climate change considerations in their decision-making process. 
Specifically, the template allows managers to document information 
about the proposed project, climate change trends and local impacts, 
their responses to key questions, and their decisions about whether or 
how to proceed with the project. 

The Forest Service is also providing information and training to help 
natural resource managers address climate change adaptation. For 
example, the agency continues to update its Climate Change Resource 
Center--a publicly accessible web portal it developed as a reference 
for natural resource managers and decision makers who need information 
and decision support tools to address climate change adaptation in the 
national forests, among other purposes.[Footnote 45] The website 
includes peer-reviewed resources such as lectures on addressing 
climate change adaptation in natural resource management. In one of 
these lectures, for example, a Forest Service scientist discusses how 
agency scientists partnered with natural resource managers at the 
Olympic National Forest and Tahoe National Forest to address climate 
change adaptation at those forests, and what managers in other forests 
might learn from this effort. 

The Chugach National Forest Has Begun to Conduct a Climate Change 
Vulnerability Assessment: 

In 2011, Forest Service officials at the Chugach National Forest began 
conducting a vulnerability assessment to determine how key natural 
resources, communities, and economies in and around the national 
forest may be affected by climate change. The officials we spoke with 
at the forest said that the vulnerability assessment will help them 
determine which resources may have a natural capacity to adapt 
successfully to climate change and which resources may not. This is a 
change from August 2007, when we reported that, while officials at the 
Chugach National Forest recognized that climate change was harming 
some natural resources in the forest, they had not taken steps to 
incorporate climate change adaptation into planning and management in 
part because it was not an agency priority.[Footnote 46] Officials at 
the Chugach National Forest attributed the change to a number of 
factors, including the strategic direction provided by the Forest 
Service to address climate change adaptation. Figure 6 shows a map of 
the Chugach National Forest. 

Figure 6: Map of Chugach National Forest: 

[Refer to PDF for image: map] 

Source: Forest Service. 

[End of figure] 

[Side bar] 

Name: Chugach National Forest; 
Location: Southeast of Anchorage, Alaska. 
Managed by: Department of Agriculture, Forest Service.
Size: Approximately 5.4 million acres. 
Ecosystem types: Boreal forests, temperate rain forests, and wetlands. 
Wildlife: Over 230 vertebrate species such as brown bear, moose, and 
wolf populations. Aquatic species include grayling, trout, and salmon, 
and bird species include bald eagles, swans, and geese. 
Vegetation: Sitka spruce, western hemlock, and mountain hemlock are 
the most common tree species. 
Uses: Approximately 500,000 people visit every year to fish, hike, and 
kayak, among other things. Many south-central Alaska Native residents 
also rely on the forest’s resources for subsistence hunting, fishing, 
trapping, and gathering activities. 
Key management activities: The forest is largely managed for 
recreational purposes, which includes constructing and maintaining 
trails and campgrounds. 
Other information: Approximately one-third of the forest is covered in 
rock and ice. 

[End of side bar] 

As of March 2013, the forest had established teams of subject area 
experts who were working on the vulnerability assessment. These 
experts included ecologists, physical scientists, and social 
scientists from the Forest Service's Research and Development branch, 
the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the 
National Park Service, and the University of Alaska. Chugach National 
Forest officials told us that the vulnerability assessment will 
include information on the expected ecological impacts of climate 
change on key natural resources, such as snow and salmon, as well as 
information on the expected social and economic impacts of these 
ecological changes. For example, some climate projections suggest that 
the forest will have more rain and less snow, and that, in some areas, 
changes in climate could result in salmon that are smaller and face 
more threats to their survival, according to Forest Service 
researchers. These projected climate change impacts may affect various 
users, including residents in the region who rely on snow-based 
tourism and salmon for their livelihoods and Alaska Native residents 
in the region who rely on forest resources for subsistence hunting, 
fishing, trapping, and gathering. Officials at the national forest 
told us they plan to complete a draft vulnerability assessment by the 
summer of 2013. 

Moreover, officials at the national forest told us that conducting a 
climate change vulnerability assessment is important because it will 
help the forest to successfully incorporate climate change adaptation 
when it revises its forest plan. They told us that the current forest 
plan--which was finalized in 2002--does not address climate change 
adaptation. The national forest has established a team that will be 
responsible for beginning to revise the forest plan in 2013. The 
Forest Service's April 2012 planning rule requires that national 
forests use the best available scientific information, such as 
information about the impacts of climate change and the ability of 
species and habitat in the forest to adapt, to inform the forest 
planning process. Chugach National Forest officials said that the 
vulnerability assessment will help the national forest to implement 
these requirements. Revising the forest plan will include 
collaboration with tribes and other stakeholders, as well as outreach 
to the public, according to officials we spoke with. National forest 
officials expect to finalize the revised forest plan by 2016. 

Officials we spoke with at the Chugach National Forest said they also 
plan to use information included in the climate change vulnerability 
assessment to identify specific steps that the forest can take to 
address climate change adaptation. These officials said that the 
results of the climate change vulnerability assessment could inform 
management decisions related to recreation in the forest, among other 
things. For example, they told us that the climate change 
vulnerability assessment could help them identify changes in forest 
conditions due to climate change, resulting in expansion of the 
distribution of important wildlife, such as the Sitka black-tailed 
deer. This could lead to new hunting and viewing opportunities for 
national forest users, according to forest officials. 

A Chugach National Forest official identified a challenge to 
addressing climate change adaptation at the forest. The official said 
that the forest and its stakeholders in the region, including other 
resource management agencies and university researchers, will likely 
face challenges in collaborating on climate change adaptation. The 
official said this is due to limited resources, competing priorities, 
and a lack of formal mechanisms to ensure that forest officials and 
stakeholders communicate key information about climate change impacts 
and adaptation efforts. 

NOAA Has Set a Strategic Direction and Provided Guidance and Tools for 
Marine Sanctuaries to Address Climate Change Adaptation: 

In January 2012, NOAA published a strategic plan that includes, among 
other things, a long-term goal of responding to climate change and its 
impacts.[Footnote 47] The strategic plan includes four objectives to 
help achieve this goal: (1) improve scientific understanding of 
climate change and its impacts, (2) conduct assessments that identify 
potential climate change impacts and inform climate science decisions, 
(3) support adaptation efforts through a coordinated source of 
reliable and timely climate information, and (4) provide sources of 
information to educate the public about climate change. According to 
the strategic plan, understanding and predicting climate change is 
urgent, particularly at the regional and local levels. Therefore, 
scientists' ability to better understand and predict climate change 
trends and impacts will be critical to climate change adaptation 
planning and decision making. In addition, according to the strategic 
plan, assessments are needed to help identify gaps in climate science 
research and inform research priorities, a coordinated source of 
climate information is needed to provide decision makers with climate 
science information that is readily available and easy to use, and 
education is needed to help inform the public about climate change 
vulnerabilities and challenges. 

In an effort to coordinate climate change adaptation activities across 
the agency and with its federal and nonfederal partners, NOAA 
established a climate adaptation team in January 2011. A senior NOAA 
official said the adaptation team is developing and coordinating a 
variety of initiatives that will help the agency address the impacts 
of climate change. For example, the adaptation team is developing a 
comprehensive inventory of NOAA's existing and emerging climate change 
adaptation activities, which is to help the agency coordinate, 
communicate, and promote adaptation activities across the agency. In 
addition, the adaptation team has proposed actions that NOAA can take 
to strengthen interagency relationships with the Department of the 
Interior's landscape conservation cooperatives.[Footnote 48] For 
example, one of the proposed actions is for NOAA to provide clear 
guidance to all levels within the agency to seek opportunities to 
collaborate with landscape conservation cooperatives wherever 
applicable. 

NOAA has also developed a framework for ensuring that climate change 
adaptation is considered at national marine sanctuaries. In March 
2009, NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, which guides the 
activities of the nation's marine sanctuary system, published its 
policy on addressing climate change impacts on sanctuaries' resources. 
According to the policy, the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries 
will work with NOAA's Climate Program Office, among others, to assess 
climate change impacts on sanctuaries' resources and develop options 
for addressing these impacts.[Footnote 49] The policy also stated that 
the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries was developing a long-term 
initiative that would address climate change impacts on individual 
sanctuaries. Subsequently, the office developed the Climate Smart 
Sanctuary Initiative in June 2010 to help address climate change 
impacts throughout the national marine sanctuary system.[Footnote 50] 

The goal of the Climate Smart Sanctuary Initiative is to have each 
national marine sanctuary meet specific standards that will allow it 
to receive climate smart certification. Examples of standards that 
sanctuaries must meet to receive climate smart certification include 
(1) preparing or updating a sanctuary condition report on resources so 
it is less than 5 years old,[Footnote 51] (2) developing a report that 
identifies climate change impacts over the next 50 to 100 years that 
are most consequential to a sanctuary's resources, (3) undergoing 
training on how to plan and manage for climate change impacts, and (4) 
developing and implementing a climate change action plan that 
addresses the impacts identified in the climate change impacts report. 
According to the Climate Smart Sanctuary Initiative, the action plan 
is to include strategies that, for example, consider addressing the 
most urgent issues first and are clear, simple, and explicit. However, 
the plan is not intended to address every climate impact--only those 
identified as priorities. Moreover, the strategies identified in the 
plan are supposed to be practically attainable within the resources 
currently or potentially available to the sanctuary. The initiative 
also includes a peer and public review and evaluation process that is 
designed to help determine whether the sanctuary has met the 
certification standards. 

The Climate Smart Sanctuary Initiative is currently being piloted at 
the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in California, 
the National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa, and the Olympic Coast 
National Marine Sanctuary in Washington. According to a senior Office 
of National Marine Sanctuaries official, although the sanctuaries are 
not required to participate in the initiative, it is anticipated that 
all of them will work toward developing climate change action plans 
that eventually will be incorporated into their management plans. 
[Footnote 52] However, the official said the rate of climate change 
action plan development will depend on factors such as budget, 
individual sanctuary priorities, and timelines for the management plan 
review and update process. 

Furthermore, coral reefs are one of the most important natural 
resources in national marine sanctuaries, and NOAA has taken steps to 
provide guidance to sanctuary managers and others about how to help 
protect them from threats related to climate change. In June 2009, 
NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program published guidance that 
identified four goals to help coral reef managers overcome climate 
change threats to coral reef ecosystems.[Footnote 53] For example, one 
of the goals focuses on increasing coral reef resilience to climate 
change through effective management strategies such as reducing land-
based sources of pollution and other stressors. The guidance also 
identifies objectives to help coral reef managers achieve each of the 
goals, such as providing training opportunities to increase their 
understanding of the management strategies available to address 
climate change impacts. A Coral Reef Conservation Program official 
said that they are currently in the process of drafting a climate 
change implementation plan that will help guide coral reef managers' 
efforts to address the goals and objectives outlined in the guidance 
document. According to the official, the plan is expected to be 
released in the spring of 2013. 

In addition, NOAA has made climate information and products available 
to decision makers through its climate web portal for use in managing 
climate change impacts.[Footnote 54] For example, users can access 
decision support tools such as NOAA's Coral Reef Watch Program. The 
program has a suite of map-based products from NOAA's Coral Reef 
Conservation Program that provide information on the environmental 
conditions of coral reef ecosystems. For example, satellite data 
provides current reef environmental conditions to quickly identify 
areas at risk for coral bleaching. Sanctuary managers can also access 
coral bleaching alerts that can be used to trigger bleaching response 
plans and support appropriate management decisions. 

The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Is Beginning to Consider 
How to Address Adaptation and Has Also Taken Steps to Increase Coral 
Reef Resilience: 

The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is currently in the process 
of reviewing its management plan to determine whether its existing 
management strategies are sufficient to address threats, such as 
climate change, to marine resources.[Footnote 55] This is a change 
from August 2007 when we reported that resource managers at the 
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary said that they did not have 
guidance for how or whether they should account for climate change in 
planning and management decisions.[Footnote 56] A senior sanctuary 
official attributed the change to a number of factors, including the 
desire to address climate change impacts in accordance with the 
Climate Smart Sanctuary Initiative. Figure 7 shows the boundaries of 
the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. 

Figure 7: Map of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Boundaries: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map] 

Depicted on the map: 

National park boundary; 
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary boundary; 
National wildlife refuge; 
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park; 
Ecological reserve. 

Sources: Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary; Map Resources (map). 

[End of figure] 

[Side bar] 

Name: Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. 
Location: South of Miami, Florida westward to encompass the Dry 
Tortugas, excluding Dry Tortugas National Park. 
Managed by: Department of Commerce, administered by NOAA, and jointly 
managed with the State of Florida.
Size: Covers about 2,900 square nautical miles of waters surrounding 
the Florida Keys.
Ecosystem type: Coasts and oceans. 
Wildlife: More than 6,000 species of marine life, such as bottlenose 
dolphins, West Indian manatees, and sea turtles. 
Vegetation: Mangroves—primarily the red, black, and white mangroves—
line 1,800 miles of the sanctuary’s shoreline. Seagrass—-the most 
common types of seagrass in the Florida Keys are manatee, shoal, and 
turtle. 
Uses: Approximately 3 million people visit the Florida Keys annually 
and engage in activities such as scuba diving, snorkeling, wildlife 
viewing, and recreational fishing. 
Key management activities: The sanctuary works with multiple state and 
federal agencies, universities, and nongovernmental organizations to 
protect the Florida Keys coral reef system. 
Other information: The sanctuary protects the third largest living 
coral barrier reef system in the world and also contains maritime 
heritage resources such as shipwrecks, sites that span the European 
colonial period to the modern era. 

[End of side bar] 

According to a senior sanctuary official, the sanctuary is currently 
reviewing 2 of the 14 action plans--regulatory and marine zoning--that 
make up its management plan.[Footnote 57] The regulatory action plan 
contains strategies for regulating certain activities within the 
sanctuary--through permitting, certification, and notification and 
review processes--depending on how specific areas of the sanctuary 
have been categorized or zoned. Marine zoning is designed to protect 
and preserve sensitive parts of the ecosystem, such as coral reefs, 
while allowing activities that are compatible with resource 
protection. The marine zoning action plan for the sanctuary includes 
five types of zones with varying levels of protection. During this 
review of action plans, the sanctuary and its advisory council--with 
input from the public--will evaluate whether existing regulations and 
marine zones are sufficient to address threats, such as climate 
change, to marine resources.[Footnote 58] Depending on the outcome of 
the review, the marine zoning action plan could be revised to include 
access restrictions to sanctuary waters in some zones as a way to 
protect bleached corals when they are most vulnerable, according to a 
senior Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary official.[Footnote 59] 
For example, the revised plans could restrict the amount of fishing 
allowed; limit snorkeling and diving; and prevent boats from dropping 
anchor. The plan revision process requires a significant amount of 
time to develop and review scientific data, collaborate with 
stakeholders, develop alternatives, and obtain internal and external 
comments on any new proposals, according to a senior sanctuary 
official. The regulatory and marine zoning review process began in 
December 2011, and officials anticipate that the process will continue 
into 2015. 

To help establish a strategy to respond to the expected impacts of 
climate change on coral reefs, the Florida Keys National Marine 
Sanctuary contributed to the development of a climate change action 
plan for the Florida reef system.[Footnote 60] According to a senior 
sanctuary official, the action plan is the culmination of several 
years of collaborative effort among coral reef scientists, managers, 
and others to ensure actions are taken to build coral reef resilience--
the ability of the coral reef system to recover from climate change 
impacts. Furthermore, the action plan was developed to add Florida-
specific actions to the framework outlined in NOAA's Coral Reef 
Conservation Program Goals and Objectives 2010-2015 guidance document. 
[Footnote 61] The plan contains specific recommendations on coral reef 
climate change adaptation actions for the Florida reef system and 
identifies management actions that can be taken to increase reef 
resilience to climate. For example, the plan recommends Florida's 
coral reef management jurisdictions work to improve regulations and 
management that facilitate adaptation to climate change and ocean 
acidification. Figure 8 shows Florida's reef management jurisdictions. 
Another key action in the plan is to identify the potential effects of 
climate change on reef-dependent industries such as commercial and 
recreational fishing to determine the costs and benefits of any 
proposed climate change adaptation measures. According to a senior 
sanctuary official, the sanctuary has not implemented any of the 
adaptation action items listed in the plan, and its ability to do so 
will depend on having adequate funding. 

Figure 8: Map of Florida's Reef Management Jurisdictions: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map] 

Depicted on the map: 
Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative area; 
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary; 
State park; 
National park or wildlife refuge; 
Counties. 

Sources: NOAA; Map Resources (map). 

[End of figure] 

According to a senior Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary official, 
the sanctuary has not conducted vulnerability assessments of the 
natural resources it is responsible for managing as of February 2013. 
However, a senior official with the Department of the Interior's 
Peninsular Landscape Conservation Cooperative in Florida said that the 
four landscape conservation cooperatives that represent the Gulf Coast 
states are among several agencies--including NOAA--that are 
implementing a Gulf Coast-wide vulnerability assessment project. The 
goal of the project is to enhance conservation and restoration 
planning by providing an understanding of the effects of climate 
change on Gulf Coast ecosystems. Furthermore, steps will be taken to 
develop Gulf Coast climate change adaptation strategies after the 
vulnerability assessment is completed. According to the senior 
landscape conservation cooperative official, this type of coordinated 
effort is an attempt by the Department of the Interior and NOAA to 
better integrate their programs and to more effectively use agency 
resources. 

The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is currently in the process 
of taking a variety of management actions to help protect marine 
resources, such as coral reefs, from the stresses associated with 
climate change. For example: 

* Monitoring reefs for bleaching. The sanctuary provides funds for and 
helps to coordinate a program known as BleachWatch through Mote Marine 
Laboratory.[Footnote 62] The program is designed to monitor the 
Florida Keys coral reef ecosystem for signs of coral reef bleaching. 
Trained volunteers monitor the reefs on a regular basis during the 
bleaching season in the summer for early warning signs of coral 
bleaching and report their field observations to the BleachWatch 
program coordinator. Information from this program and other sources 
is summarized and published at various intervals during the bleaching 
season in a report that describes the potential risk for coral 
bleaching and helps sanctuary managers determine what actions they 
need to take--such as closing areas at high risk of bleaching to human 
activities--to offset coral bleaching events, according to a senior 
sanctuary manager. 

* Monitoring overall reef ecology and health. Since 1996, the 
sanctuary has collaborated in establishing a coral reef monitoring 
program that was developed to collect information about the 
sanctuary's reef ecosystem. The sanctuary issues permits to scientists 
from Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission so that they 
can systematically monitor coral reefs throughout the sanctuary. This 
research program, called the Coral Reef Evaluation and Monitoring 
Project, studies various aspects of reef ecology and health and 
employs numerous survey methods, such as recorded digital video to 
track the effects of increasing ocean temperatures and sea level rise 
associated with climate change. As of 2009, the program was collecting 
and assessing data from 109 sampling stations throughout the sanctuary. 

* Coral restoration. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is 
participating in a coordinated effort with Mote Marine Laboratory and 
The Nature Conservancy that is designed to develop systems and 
techniques to grow coral and other reef species for replanting in 
depleted reef systems. In 2009, NOAA's restoration center provided 
funding to The Nature Conservancy to expand Mote Marine Laboratory's 
restoration and coral nursery efforts.[Footnote 63] The first planting 
of coral fragments was completed in the fall of 2010, and an 
additional planting occurred in the spring of 2011. According to Mote 
Marine Laboratory documents, as of early 2012, the survival rate for 
these corals was 90 percent. 

A Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary senior official told us that 
the sanctuary faces challenges in adapting to climate change. A key 
challenge that limits the sanctuary's ability to develop climate 
change adaptation strategies is the lack of scientific information 
specific to its location about climate trends or extreme weather 
events due to climate change, according to the senior sanctuary 
official. This was also the case in August 2007 when we reported that 
a lack of adequate scientific information limited the ability of 
sanctuary resource managers to plan for and manage the effects of 
climate change.[Footnote 64] According to NOAA's 2012 strategic plan, 
scientific uncertainties limit decision makers' ability to understand 
and predict climate change, especially at the regional and local 
levels where such information is highly important for planning and 
decision-making purposes. A senior sanctuary official said that 
another challenge is that sanctuary staff have not received climate 
change adaptation training that focuses on specific climate change 
impacts that are relevant to the sanctuary's marine ecosystems. 
Instead sanctuary staff rely on high-level information gathered from 
conferences, workshops, on-the-job training, and lessons learned from 
colleagues. The official said it would be helpful to have training 
that is more focused than the high-level climate change information 
that is currently available; for example, training on why some corals 
that have experienced bleaching are susceptible to disease, while 
other bleached corals are not. Understanding these differences could 
help managers determine climate change adaptation strategies, 
according to the official. A senior Office of National Marine 
Sanctuaries official said the office has developed climate change 
adaptation training courses, but budget constraints have limited the 
implementation of these courses in the field. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Has Established a Strategic 
Direction, Taken Steps to Implement that Direction, and Developed 
Resources to Address Climate Change Adaptation: 

In September 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established a 
strategic direction for addressing climate change adaptation in 
natural resource management in its climate change strategic plan. 
[Footnote 65] According to the plan, the agency's approach to 
addressing climate change adaptation would be: 

* Science-based, iterative, and collaborative. The strategic plan 
stated that the agency would use the best available science to better 
predict, understand, and address the effects of climate change on 
fish, wildlife, and their habitat. However, because of uncertainty 
about, among other things, how climate change will affect particular 
landscapes and interact with nonclimate stressors, such as invasive 
species, the plan stated that the agency would take an iterative 
approach and refine its planning and management actions as it learned 
more. Furthermore, the plan also stated that the agency would 
collaborate with partners to address climate change adaptation. For 
example, it would collaborate with state and tribal partners who share 
direct responsibility for managing some of the nation's wildlife 
resources to address climate change adaptation on landscapes that are 
beyond the reach or resources of any one organization to address. 

* Based on clear priorities. The plan identified a need to be 
strategic with the agency's limited resources to effectively address 
climate change adaptation and stated that the agency would continue to 
establish and revise priorities to guide its actions. For example, one 
priority identified in the plan was to focus on protecting those 
species that are most vulnerable to climate change impacts, such as 
species that are dependent on sea ice. The agency stated that it would 
rely on the results of vulnerability assessments and field expertise 
to identify plant and animal species that are especially vulnerable to 
climate change impacts. 

* Increasingly focused on facilitating change based on expected future 
conditions. The strategic plan stated that in the near-term, the 
agency's climate change adaptation efforts would likely focus on 
maintaining current conditions, restoring historic conditions, or 
promoting the ability of a landscape to return to current or historic 
conditions after a severe wildfire or other disturbance caused or 
exacerbated by climate change. However, in the long-term, the agency 
stated that its climate change adaptation efforts would increasingly 
focus on facilitating changes based on predicted future conditions by, 
for example, using plant species that are more resistant to fire or 
better adapted to drier climates when restoring devastated landscapes. 
The plan said the agency would focus increasingly on such forward-
looking efforts as it better understands how the climate is likely to 
change and how those changes will affect ecosystems. 

The climate change strategic plan also outlined some of the steps the 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would take to implement its strategic 
direction. For example, according to the plan, the agency would take 
the following steps: 

* Help develop landscape conservation cooperatives. Within the 
Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has 
taken the lead in developing the system of 22 landscape conservation 
cooperatives, which are formal partnerships between federal and state 
agencies, tribes, nongovernmental organizations, universities, and 
others to define and address conservation goals and combat stressors 
at the landscape level.[Footnote 66] Many of these stressors, such as 
water scarcity and the spread of invasive species, are caused or 
exacerbated by climate change. According to a senior U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service official we spoke with, all of the cooperatives are 
addressing climate change adaptation, but the extent to which climate 
change adaptation is a priority varies. 

* Review agency policies to more effectively address climate change 
adaptation. The agency directed all of its regional and program 
offices to submit recommendations for policies that the agency should 
consider revising to allow for a more effective response to climate 
change adaptation. As of February 2013, the agency had received 
responses from most offices but had not determined which of its 
policies, if any, it needed to revise to more effectively address 
climate change adaptation. For example, based on a summary of 
responses from regional and program office officials prepared by the 
agency, some respondents recommended that the agency update its land 
acquisition policies to consider predicted climate change impacts when 
evaluating proposed land purchases. The agency planned to review these 
and other issues identified by respondents in 2013, according to an 
agency official we spoke with. 

* Enhance climate change monitoring capabilities. In July 2009, the 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began to develop and implement an 
inventory and monitoring program that is designed to help ensure that 
the wildlife refuges have the information they need to, among other 
things, successfully manage for climate change and other stressors. 
This includes, for example, baseline information on fish, wildlife, 
and plant communities, as well as water, air, and soil, which will 
help natural resource managers identify and respond to changes to 
these resources due to climate change, according to an agency 
official. In September 2010, the agency finalized a plan for the 
inventory and monitoring program that outlined six initial objectives 
and specific tasks to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2011. For 
example, one initial objective was to collect, synthesize, and manage 
information needed to assess the vulnerability of the refuge system's 
coastal and marine resources to sea level rise, rising ocean 
temperatures, and ocean acidification. One task identified in the plan 
was to model the potential impacts of sea level rise on the resources 
for all 147 coastal refuges where rising seas could impact coastal and 
estuarine wetland habitats. According to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service official we spoke with, by the end of 2012 modeling had been 
completed for all but 11 coastal refuges for which the necessary data 
were not available. 

Furthermore, in its 2010 climate change strategic plan, the U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service directed its National Conservation Training 
Center to implement a climate change curriculum to train agency 
employees in methods to address climate change in their day-to-day 
activities. In response, the center has begun addressing climate 
change adaptation in some of its training courses, according to an 
agency official we spoke with. For example, the center has offered a 3-
day in-person training course on how to conduct climate change 
vulnerability assessments. According to course documents, the training 
was intended to help participants design assessments that would meet 
their needs and help them understand how to evaluate, interpret, and 
use a completed assessment, among other things. The center developed 
this training in collaboration with partners, including other federal 
agencies. The training center has also offered an 8-week online 
training course on decision analysis for climate change that is 
intended to help natural resource managers make management decisions 
despite uncertainty about how climate change will impact the natural 
resources they manage. 

In addition, in June 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also 
published guidance on conducting climate change vulnerability 
assessments in a technical guide and a manager's guide.[Footnote 67] 
The technical guide includes an 8-step process for assessing 
vulnerabilities and selecting management actions to address these 
vulnerabilities. It also provides detailed guidance for conducting 
each step of the vulnerability assessment process. For example, one 
step of the process is to identify data needs. The technical guide 
includes a checklist of potential data needs, such as projected 
information on invasive species, sea levels, and storm surges. The 
manager's guide includes information about time frames, cost, and 
other resources needed to complete a vulnerability assessment. For 
example, the manager's guide estimates that conducting a vulnerability 
assessment will cost from $150,000 to $200,000, and provides a budget 
outlining these estimated costs. 

The San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge Has Established a Climate 
Change Adaptation Goal and Objectives: 

In October 2011, the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge finalized 
its first Comprehensive Conservation Plan to guide its management 
actions for a 15-year period.[Footnote 68] Among other things, the 
plan established, for the first time at the refuge, a goal to 
identify, assess, and adapt to current and future climate change 
impacts to refuge resources. Figure 9 shows a map of the San Pablo Bay 
National Wildlife Refuge. 

Figure 9: Map of San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map] 

Depicted on the map: 
Refuge boundary; 
Tidal marsh; 
Seasonal marsh. 

Source: Fish and Wildlife Service. 

[End of figure] 

[Side bar] 

Name: San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge. 
Location: Near San Francisco, California. 
Managed by: Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service.
Size: Eight noncontiguous units totaling approximately 17,390 acres 
Ecosystem type: Coasts and oceans (tidal marshlands and other 
wetlands). 
Wildlife: The endangered California clapper rail and salt marsh 
harvest mouse, as well as thousands of shorebirds and waterfowl that 
migrate through this area. 
Vegetation: The tidal marshes are largely covered with Pacific 
cordgrass and pickleweed, a salty pickle-looking plant.  
Uses: Recreational activities such as wildlife observation, hunting, 
and fishing. 
Key management activities: Managing invasive plant species, restoring 
and enhancing tidal circulation to marshlands, and protecting and 
restoring habitat for threatened and endangered species. 
Other information: Many of the marshes in the region have been filled, 
diked, or drained. Fifteen percent of the historic tidal wetlands 
remain. 

[End of side bar] 

To address this goal, the plan identified three climate change 
adaptation objectives as well as strategies for achieving these 
objectives. Specifically, the three objectives are: 

* Assess climate change impacts and conduct adaptation planning. To 
achieve this objective, by October 2014, the refuge plans to (1) 
assess the potential impacts of climate change to refuge resources, 
including promoting and supporting research on the vulnerability of 
endangered species within the refuge to climate change impacts and (2) 
conduct adaptation planning, which includes developing strategies for 
addressing climate change adaptation and prioritizing management 
actions for addressing climate change adaptation in both the short-
term and the long-term. 

* Prioritize acquisitions and projects based on projected climate 
change impacts. During the life of the plan, the refuge intends to use 
climate change data to prioritize both land acquisitions--a method of 
increasing habitat for refuge species--and projects to restore or 
enhance tidal marshes and other tidal habitat. One strategy identified 
in the plan for prioritizing acquisitions was to identify lands that 
will be important for the refuge to acquire to protect its marshlands 
by allowing them to migrate inland as sea levels rise.[Footnote 69] 
The refuge also has ongoing and planned projects intended to restore 
or enhance tidal circulation to marshes.[Footnote 70] For example, 
Cullinan Ranch--historically a tidal marsh within the refuge--was 
drained for oat hay farming in the late 1800s, and the refuge is 
working with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and others 
to restore its historic marshlands by, among other things, breaching 
and lowering tidal levees. As of February 2013, refuge staff were 
reviewing information about which areas within the refuge are 
projected to be most vulnerable to sea level rise to help them 
prioritize critical restorations and avoid costly restorations that 
are unlikely to be successful because of climate change impacts to 
such projects, according to the refuge manager. 

* Develop and implement a climate change inventory and monitoring 
plan. According to the conservation plan, by October 2016, the refuge 
intends to develop and implement a climate change inventory and 
monitoring plan to guide its long-term monitoring of natural resources 
such as wildlife populations and marshlands. An inventory and 
monitoring plan would facilitate more effective evaluation of how the 
refuge's natural resources are being affected by climate change 
impacts such as sea level rise, according to a refuge official we 
spoke with. 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials we spoke with said that the 
climate change adaptation goal and objectives established by the 
refuge are ambitious and that the refuge will face challenges in 
achieving them because of limited resources. For example, the four 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials assigned to the San Pablo Bay 
National Wildlife Refuge, including the refuge manager, are also 
responsible for two additional refuges in the region, according to 
officials we spoke with. One official told us that, although the U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service is providing the refuges with tools for 
addressing climate change adaptation, such as guidance on assessing 
vulnerabilities, limited resources make it difficult for staff at the 
San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge to take on additional tasks 
beyond what they are already doing. However, the San Pablo Bay 
National Wildlife Refuge may be able to address its climate change 
adaptation goal and objectives, in part, by collaborating with 
partners, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials. For 
example, the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge is collaborating 
with the U.S. Geological Survey to implement a tool to conduct 
monitoring of sediment growth in relation to sea level rise, according 
to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official. According to the 
official, this tool could help natural resource managers at the refuge 
determine whether the marshes are growing at a sufficient rate to 
outpace sea level rise. The official said that a critical step for 
addressing climate change adaptation is to use information gathered 
from this tool and other information to identify specific management 
actions for addressing adaptation. However, according to the official, 
funding to identify climate change adaptation options using 
information from this tool and other information is not available at 
this time. 

The National Park Service Has Developed a Strategic Direction, an 
Action Plan, and Training to Address Climate Change Adaptation: 

The National Park Service published a climate change response strategy 
in 2010 that established climate change adaptation priorities, goals, 
and objectives for natural and cultural resources and facilities. 
[Footnote 71] According to this strategy, one of the park service's 
priorities is the development of a climate change adaptation planning 
approach that includes conducting risk assessments, developing and 
implementing climate change action plans, and monitoring and 
evaluating the progress of adaptation actions. In addition, the 
response strategy established several goals, such as incorporating 
climate change considerations and responses at all levels of the 
agency's planning, as well as implementing climate change adaptation 
strategies that promote ecosystem resilience. The response strategy 
also includes key climate change objectives that the park service and 
its park managers could pursue to achieve the goals, such as 
developing guidance for addressing climate change in planning products 
and conducting climate change scenario planning.[Footnote 72] 

To guide the implementation of its climate change response strategy, 
the National Park Service released a climate change action plan in 
November 2012.[Footnote 73] This action plan outlines specific areas 
the park service plans to focus on in the short-term, such as (1) 
developing climate change guidance; (2) providing climate change 
science to parks; (3) fostering partnerships to address climate 
change; and (4) applying climate change adaptation tools, such as 
scenario planning. In addition, the plan identifies high-priority 
collaborative actions for the park service to undertake between 2012 
and 2014. For example, one action involves the National Park Service's 
Climate Change Response Program,[Footnote 74] park scientists, and 
others developing a park service climate change vulnerability 
assessment approach that will ensure vulnerability assessments are 
conducted consistently and comprehensively across all of the national 
parks. 

The National Park Service has also provided training on climate change 
adaptation. For example, between 2007 and 2012, according to an agency 
official, the park service held 17 workshops to train park managers on 
scenario planning. During these workshops, participants discussed 
climate change-related case studies and how they might incorporate 
climate change scenario planning results into their planning. In 
addition, the park service's Climate Change Response Program has been 
providing climate change-related training to park service staff since 
2007. For example, in July 2012, the park service held four webinars 
for national park superintendents to discuss approaches for addressing 
climate change-related issues at national parks. Specifically, 
participants discussed management actions that can be taken to address 
climate change, lessons learned from adaptation actions that have been 
taken, and available resources for park superintendents preparing to 
address climate change. For example, one webinar included lessons 
learned from the Assateague Island National Seashore's experience 
incorporating climate change adaptation into the park's general 
management plan using scenario planning and current climate science. 

In addition, the National Park Service is developing additional 
climate change adaptation guidance and has identified a climate change 
adaptation tool that park managers can use. Draft climate change 
adaptation guidance has been created for the park service's 
Intermountain Region[Footnote 75] that outlines a process for 
developing park-based climate change adaptation plans. The guidance 
includes steps such as identifying conservation targets, conducting 
vulnerability assessments, and implementing management actions. 
According to a senior park official, the primary audience for the 
guidance will be managers in the 89 national park units within the 
National Park Service's Intermountain Region, but it will also be 
available for other park managers to use. As of February 2013, the 
draft guidance was being reviewed internally, and the park service had 
not determined its release date. In addition, according to a senior 
park service official, the agency's Inventory and Monitoring Program 
can be used to address climate change. For example, park managers can 
use information gathered by the program to help understand the status 
and trends of natural resources in their parks, such as water 
availability and species occurrence and distribution. A park official 
said this information can be used in climate change vulnerability 
assessments and to develop climate change adaptation plans. 

According to a senior park service official, the park service faces a 
challenge in addressing climate change adaptation because of a 
reduction in funding for the agency's Climate Change Response Program. 
Specifically, the official said the program received approximately $10 
million dollars in both fiscal years 2010 and 2011, but it received 
approximately $3 million dollars in fiscal year 2012. The official 
said the reduced funding has limited the Climate Change Response 
Program's ability to provide financial support for enhanced monitoring 
as a part of the National Park Service's Inventory and Monitoring 
Program. For example, an official said the funding reduction affected 
the program's ability to monitor changes in park conditions, including 
those related to climate change such as water availability in desert 
national parks. A senior park service official said, with less 
funding, Inventory and Monitoring Program officials are not able to 
collect data as frequently, which affects the data's reliability. As a 
result, the official said the data's usefulness in helping park 
managers draw conclusions related to climate change has been limited. 

Glacier National Park Has Taken Steps to Address Climate Change 
Adaptation: 

Glacier National Park managers have taken steps to address climate 
change adaptation in their management activities. This is a change 
from August 2007 when we reported that park officials said they had 
not addressed climate change because they had not received explicit 
National Park Service guidance or funding.[Footnote 76] For example, 
Glacier Park managers said they are monitoring various species in the 
park, such as pika, to help determine their abundance and 
distribution.[Footnote 77] This baseline data will be used to detect 
changes in pika distribution over time, according to a senior park 
official. In addition, according to the National Park Service, Glacier 
National Park is taking other adaptation steps including planting 
trees in new habitats, managing invasive plants, and restoring native 
vegetation. Glacier National Park managers also participated in a 
National Park Service climate change scenario planning workshop in 
2010 to help inform future management decisions about the Crown of the 
Continent ecosystem, which includes Glacier National Park.[Footnote 
78] In preparation for and during this workshop, participants 
discussed potential climate change vulnerabilities and ecosystem 
changes within Glacier National Park and the Crown of the Continent 
ecoystem, including the sensitivities, vulnerabilities, and resiliency 
of aquatic and terrestrial systems to climatic and nonclimatic 
stressors. Figure 10 shows a map of Glacier National Park.[Footnote 79] 

Figure 10: Map of Glacier National Park: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map] 

Source: Glacier Park, Inc. 

[End of figure] 

[Side bar] 

Name: Glacier National Park. 
Location: Northwestern Montana near the Canadian border. 
Managed by: Department of the Interior, National Park Service.
Size: More than 1 million acres.
Ecosystem type: Fresh waters. 
Wildlife: Nearly 70 species of mammals such as gray wolves, grizzly 
bears, and wolverines; 270 species of birds such as golden eagles and 
harlequin ducks. 
Vegetation: Forests and alpine meadows. 
Uses: Approximately 2 million people visit the park annually to bike, 
camp, fish, view wildlife, and hike on more than 740 miles of trails. 
Key management activities: Preserving and protecting the health of 
various park plants, animals, and physical features. 
Other information: Glacier’s Going-to-the-Sun Road was the first 
National Park Service transcontinental divide road. In 1983, the road 
was included in the National Register of Historic Places and in 1985 
was named a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. 

[End of side bar] 

Glacier National Park resource managers said they have also taken 
steps to collaborate with several groups to address climate change 
adaptation. For example, Glacier National Park is a partner in the 
Crown Managers Partnership, which is a group of American and Canadian 
land management agencies within the Crown of the Continent ecosystem 
working to, among other things, assess regional ecological health 
factors such as climate change to help inform management decisions. 
The partners include universities and federal, provincial, state, 
local, First Nations[Footnote 80] and tribal governments. In 
particular, according to the 2011 to 2012 annual report, the Crown 
Managers Partnership has been developing approaches to identify the 
current condition of ecological health in the Crown of the Continent 
ecosystem. Specifically, the partnership is using indicators, such as 
landscape change, habitat connectivity, invasive species, and water 
quantity, to establish a baseline, so that these indicators can be 
tracked over time to identify any changes that may be related to 
climate change. Glacier National Park managers said they have also 
collaborated with the U.S. Geological Survey's Northern Rocky Mountain 
Science Center on mapping the effects of glacial melt on the park's 
alpine vegetation. 

As of February 2013, Glacier National Park managers said that they had 
no plans to update their current general management plan for the park 
in the immediate future.[Footnote 81] While the current plan does not 
directly address climate change adaptation, park managers said it 
offers adequate guidance for both their natural resource management 
and climate change adaptation activities. For example, a park manager 
said the management plan guides the park's natural resource management 
activities--such as monitoring wildlife population trends, invasive 
species, and wildfires--which park mangers also consider to be climate 
change adaptation-related activities. The plan also outlines guiding 
principles, management strategies, and regional cooperation methods 
for park natural resource preservation, among other things. In 
addition, a Glacier National Park official said the park is planning 
to begin developing--starting late in 2013--what is known as a 
"foundation plan," which will describe the park's purpose, significant 
resources, and data and planning needs. It is also likely that the 
document will address climate change, according to the official. All 
parks are supposed to have completed their foundation documents by 
2016, according to a senior National Park Service official. 

Glacier National Park managers said they have encountered challenges 
in addressing climate change adaptation because of limited funding. 
According to park managers, funding is needed to monitor existing 
natural resources and conduct vulnerability assessments that would 
inform the development and implementation of a risk management 
strategy to protect vulnerable resources that might be affected by 
climate change. For example, park staff said additional funding could 
be used to address increased western spruce budworm infestations. This 
insect normally infests trees for 3 years, but due to temperature 
increases, its infestation period has lengthened to 7 to 15-year 
cycles, according to park managers. As a result, hundreds of forested 
acres of Glacier National Park have been weakened, which could 
increase their susceptibility to fires. 

The Bureau of Land Management Has Not Developed a Strategic Direction 
to Address Climate Change Adaptation but Has Taken Some Adaptation-
Related Steps: 

The Bureau of Land Management has not developed a strategic direction 
for its state, district, and field offices to help guide their efforts 
to address climate change impacts.[Footnote 82] However, a Bureau of 
Land Management senior official said the agency is planning to develop 
a high-level climate adaptation strategy by the end of the summer 2013 
in response to the climate change adaptation policy the Department of 
the Interior issued in January 2013. According to the official, this 
strategy will complement the agency's existing resource management 
strategies, such as those that guide its drought management 
activities. For example, the strategy may address how the agency plans 
to respond to the reductions, in cases of prolonged drought, of the 
availability of forage for domestic livestock, wild horses and burros, 
and wildlife, which may result from climate change. 

In addition, the bureau has not provided guidance to its offices on 
steps they can take to incorporate climate change adaptation into 
their natural resource planning and management. A Bureau of Land 
Management senior official said the agency has guidance to help 
managers address issues such as drought and invasive species, which he 
believes is sufficient to help them address climate change. Another 
official said that the bureau's natural resource managers could 
consider climate change adaptation when they are preparing documents, 
such as environmental assessments and environmental impact statements, 
in accordance with the requirements of the National Environmental 
Policy Act.[Footnote 83] Another official said the bureau has not 
developed climate change adaptation guidance because it is waiting 
until the Council on Environmental Quality finalizes its draft 
National Environmental Policy Act guidance on how to consider the 
effects of climate change when preparing environmental assessments or 
environmental impact statements. An official from the Council on 
Environmental Quality said the council is continuing to move forward 
on developing the draft guidance but did not indicate when it would be 
finalized. 

One step that the Bureau of Land Management has taken that may prove 
useful in addressing climate change adaptation is establishing a 
regional approach to managing public lands that includes an assessment 
of regional vulnerabilities. The bureau believes this regional 
approach is an essential and critical element of an effective climate 
adaptation strategy. A bureau information bulletin released in April 
2012 indicates that stressors affecting landscapes--such as climate 
change and wildfires--called for an approach that would transcend 
traditional land management boundaries and enable the bureau to better 
respond to these stressors across programmatic, organizational, land 
ownership, and political boundaries. This bulletin also refers to what 
the Bureau of Land Management calls a "landscape approach for managing 
the public lands" to address the bureau's land restoration needs in a 
broad context. The first step in implementing the new approach is 
conducting rapid ecoregional assessments,[Footnote 84] which map areas 
of high ecological value, gauge their sensitivity and resilience to 
environmental change, and establish baseline data that can be used to 
help determine the effectiveness of management actions. Although the 
focus of the "landscape approach" is broader than just climate change 
adaptation, a senior bureau official explained that rapid ecoregional 
assessments address how already occurring stressors, such as drought, 
invasive species, and wildfire, may be exacerbated by climate change. 
For example, one of the assessments' goals is to identify lands that 
are most susceptible to seasonal changes in temperature or 
precipitation as a result of changes in climate. As of February 2013, 
a bureau official said that one rapid ecoregional assessment was 
complete (Colorado Plateau), one was near completion (Sonoran Desert), 
eight others had been initiated, and four more were in the planning 
phase. Figure 11 shows the locations of the Bureau of Land 
Management's ecoregional assessments. 

Figure 11: Map of the Bureau of Land Management's Rapid Ecoregional 
Assessments: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map] 

Depicted on the map: 

Year of assessment initiation: 

2010: 
Central Basin and Range; 
Colorado Plateau; 
Middle Rockies; 
Mojave Basin and Range; 
Northwestern Great Plains; 
Seward Peninsula (Alaska); 
Sonoran Desert. 

2011: 
Northern Great Basin; 
Wyoming Basin; 
Yukon Kuskokwim (Alaska). 

2012 planning phase: 
Chihuahuan Desert; 
Madrean Archepelago; 
Northern Slope (Alaska); 
Southern Great Plains. 

Sources: Bureau of Land Management; Map Resources (map). 

[End of figure] 

Another step the bureau has taken that is related to climate change 
adaptation involves collaborating with other agencies to develop a 
draft field guide for vulnerability assessments. Bureau officials said 
that the completion date for the field guide was undetermined as of 
February 2013. The purpose of the field guide is to help inform 
natural resource managers about vulnerability assessments that are 
being conducted throughout the nation and to help reduce duplication 
of vulnerability assessment efforts. 

The Bureau of Land Management Kingman Resource Area Has Not Taken 
Steps to Address Climate Change Adaptation: 

Kingman Resource Area managers have not taken action to address 
climate change adaptation since we first reported in August 2007. 
[Footnote 85] At that time, we found that they (1) were unaware of any 
requirements to address climate change, (2) did not have guidance for 
how to consider climate change in their planning and management 
efforts, and (3) did not include climate change among the highest 
priority issues for the Kingman Resource Area. The Kingman official we 
spoke with said that since 2007 the Bureau of Land Management has not 
provided any direction on integrating climate change adaptation into 
Kingman's natural resource planning and management. In addition, the 
official said Kingman Resource Area staff still do not consider 
climate change adaptation a priority because the bureau does not 
require them to address climate change. As of February 2013, resource 
area staff had not conducted any climate change vulnerability 
assessments, developed specific adaptation plans, or taken any 
adaptation management actions, according to a Kingman resource 
manager. Figure 12 shows where the Kingman Resource Area is located 
and the Arizona field office administrative boundaries. 

Figure 12: Map of Kingman Resource Area and Arizona Field Office 
Administrative Boundaries: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map] 

Depicted on the map: 
Kingman Resource Area; 
Field office administrative boundaries. 

[End of figure] 

[Side bar] 

Name: Kingman Resource Area. 
Location: Northwestern Arizona, including portions of the Sonoran, 
Mojave, and Great Basin Deserts, and the Colorado Plateau. 
Managed by: Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management.
Size: Approximately 2.4 million acres.
Ecosystem type: Grassland and shrubland.
Wildlife: Desert bighorn sheep and the desert tortoise, among other 
wildlife. 
Vegetation: Saguaro cactus, Joshua tree, sagebrush, pinyon-juniper 
woodlands, and ponderosa pine forests. 
Uses: Livestock grazing, energy development, camping, hunting, and 
mining. 
Key management activities: Range improvements, such as maintaining 
fences and corrals, pasture rotation on lands where livestock are 
grazing, and maintaining water quality for livestock.
Other information: The field office is home to the historic U.S. Route 
66, national backcountry byway, and the largest wild burro population 
in the country. 

[End of side bar] 

Although the Bureau of Land Management has not provided guidance to 
Kingman Resource Area managers to incorporate climate change 
adaptation into their planning, the bureau's Arizona state office--
with assistance from the bureau's headquarters office--conducted an 
internal evaluation in 2010 of the Kingman resource management plan 
that found that Kingman could develop and document its strategy for 
adapting to climate change in its management plan.[Footnote 86] 
However, as of February 2013, a Kingman manager said no amendments or 
updates to the resource management plan to address climate change were 
planned, mainly due to budget constraints. According to the 2010 
internal evaluation of the Kingman resource management plan, Kingman 
Resource Area managers need the Bureau of Land Management and its 
state offices to develop guidance for bureau resource managers on how 
to address climate change in their planning. As of February 2013, this 
need had not been addressed. According to officials from the bureau's 
Arizona state office, they did not develop any guidance, in part, 
because they are waiting to receive instructions from Bureau of Land 
Management headquarters. 

The Agencies Have Begun Using Several Mechanisms to Collaborate and 
Have Prepared National Adaptation Strategies and Climate Assessments: 

The federal natural resource management agencies we reviewed recognize 
that there are limits to what they can accomplish on their own and 
therefore are also collaborating on climate change adaptation with, 
among others, each other, state and local government agencies, tribes, 
nongovernmental organizations, and other federal agencies. In 
addition, agencies have collaborated in developing reports that 
provide cross-cutting, national strategies for addressing climate 
change adaptation in the federal government and national climate 
assessments. 

Federal Natural Resource Management Agencies Have Identified a Need to 
Collaborate on Climate Change Adaptation and Are Using Several 
Mechanisms to Do So: 

Since 2007, key federal natural resource management agencies have 
identified a need to collaborate on climate change adaptation to 
leverage funding, staff, and resources; develop common goals; develop 
tools and strategies to inform landscape-scale planning and management 
decisions; facilitate information exchange among stakeholders; and 
avoid duplication. For example, the Forest Service included a 
collaboration goal in its October 2008 strategic framework for 
responding to climate change because the agency believes that 
collaborating with partners will be essential to address climate 
change across land ownership boundaries. According to the framework, 
the Forest Service manages 8 percent of all lands in the United 
States, but climate change impacts will extend across land ownership 
boundaries, and the Forest Service has a responsibility to work with 
others to address those impacts. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
also included a collaboration goal in its September 2010 climate 
change strategic plan because the agency believes collaboration is 
necessary to build shared scientific and technical capabilities, among 
other reasons. 

Landscape conservation cooperatives are one mechanism established 
since 2007 that enable federal agencies to collaborate in addressing 
climate change adaptation. At the direction of the Department of the 
Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began establishing the 
network of 22 cooperatives in fiscal year 2009. They provide a forum 
for federal agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 
National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and 
NOAA, to work collaboratively with state and local government 
agencies, tribes, and nongovernmental organizations to address at a 
landscape level climate change impacts on wildlife, water, land, and 
cultural resources. As of February 2013, all 22 cooperatives have been 
established, but because some were established more recently, they are 
at different stages of development. The cooperatives are located 
throughout the United States and extend into Canada and Mexico. Figure 
13 shows the locations of the cooperatives. 

Figure 13: Map of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map] 

Depicted on the map: 

Landscape conservation cooperatives: 
1. Appalachian; 
2. California; 
3. Desert; 
4. Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers; 
5. Great Basin; 
6. Great Northern; 
7. Great Plains; 
8. Gulf Coast Prairie; 
9. Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks; 
10. North Atlantic; 
11. North Pacific; 
12. Peninsular Florida; 
13. Plains and Prairie Potholes; 
14. South Atlantic; 
15. Southern Rockies; 
16. Upper Midwest and Great Lakes; 
17. Aleutian and Bering Sea Islands; 
18. Arctic; 
19. Northwest Boreal; 
20. Western Alaska; 
21. Pacific Islands; 
22. Caribbean; 
Unclassified. 

Source: Fish and Wildlife Service. 

[End of figure] 

Some landscape conservation cooperatives have begun taking actions to 
address climate change adaptation at the landscape level. For example, 
in August 2012, one cooperative, working with the nonprofit 
organization Nature Serve, hosted a 2-day workshop to develop climate 
change adaptation strategies for managed lands including the Sonoran 
and Mojave Deserts in the southwestern United States.[Footnote 87] 
Workshop participants included representatives from nonprofit 
organizations, universities, state agencies, and federal agencies 
including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land 
Management, and National Park Service. For major ecosystem types 
within the region, the participants identified "no-regrets" climate 
change adaptation management strategies they could take within 5 
years, longer-term management strategies they could take further in 
the future, and priorities for research and monitoring to lower 
uncertainty around identified strategies. In addition, a cooperative 
has funded several projects to identify climate change impacts on a 
variety of species and their habitat. For example, in 2010, the 
cooperative funded a nonprofit organization to collaborate with 
partners, including federal agencies such as the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey, to develop a plan and 
establish programs for long-term monitoring of wintering shorebirds in 
coastal California and northern Baja California, Mexico. This project 
was expected to, among other things, provide baseline information 
about these shorebirds to allow federal natural resource management 
agencies and others to identify changes as a result of climate change, 
according to the project proposal. 

Landscape conservation cooperatives have also begun collaborating with 
the eight regional Climate Science Centers established by the 
Department of the Interior,[Footnote 88] as well as other stakeholders 
to facilitate the coordination of climate science capabilities and 
monitoring activities across their regions, among other things. 
According to a Department of the Interior plan, the cooperatives and 
science centers are the cornerstones to an integrated approach to 
climate change science and adaptation at the department.[Footnote 89] 
The science centers are responsible for providing scientific 
information, tools, and techniques that land, water, wildlife and 
cultural resource managers and other interested parties can apply to 
anticipate, monitor, and adapt to climate change and other stressors 
at regional and local scales. In June 2012, the science center for the 
Southwest collaborated with four cooperatives and other partners to 
host a climate summit to identify the climate-related science needs of 
tribes and other stakeholders. For example, participating tribal 
members identified a need to develop climate change vulnerability 
assessments for species and locations that are culturally significant 
to tribes, among other needs. 

The Interagency Land Management Adaptation Group is another 
collaborative mechanism established since 2007 by natural resource 
management agencies to address climate change adaptation in federal 
land management activities. The group was established in January 2012 
and meets monthly as an informal network of high-level officials from 
federal land management and science agencies including the Bureau of 
Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest 
Service, and the National Park Service. Key non-land management 
members include the Council on Environmental Quality, NOAA, and the 
U.S. Geological Survey. According to group documents, members have 
shared information on federal climate change adaptation-related 
programs and activities; identified gaps that need to be addressed in 
federal agency climate change adaptation planning and management; 
identified challenges that federal land management agencies encounter 
when attempting to address climate change adaptation; discussed 
potential policy changes; and explored opportunities for further 
collaboration. One of the challenges they identified was the 
difficulty in identifying past or ongoing climate change vulnerability 
assessments, which creates a potential for duplication of effort, 
according to documents developed by group members. To address this 
challenge, in January 2013, the group agreed to develop a web-based 
searchable database, which will contain climate change vulnerability 
assessments prepared by federal agencies. The U.S. Geological Survey 
has agreed to compile the assessments and make the information 
available to all resource managers working to develop climate change 
adaptation plans. The interagency adaptation group has also formed 
work groups to develop and guide national-level collaborative actions 
in key areas of interest, including options and best practices for 
conducting vulnerability assessments, as well as adaptation planning, 
monitoring, and training. 

Federal natural resource management agencies have also collaborated to 
support NOAA's long-standing Regional Integrated Sciences and 
Assessments program, according to a program official. The program 
consists of 11 research teams that emphasize regional and local 
climate research and work with regional partners, such as NOAA's 
Regional Climate Centers, to help inform climate change adaptation 
planning and management.[Footnote 90] For example, research team 
scientists provide information that decision makers can use to help 
understand the impacts of drought, understand climatic influences on 
wildfires, and assess climate impacts on air quality. Another function 
of the research teams is to develop tools that enable decision makers 
to take into consideration the potential impacts of climate change. 
For example, the Carolinas' research team developed a climate change 
planning tool referred to as the Vulnerability and Consequence 
Adaptation Planning Scenarios that can be used by decision makers in 
coastal regions to determine potential climate change impacts and 
identify climate change adaptation actions. 

According to a program official, the Regional Integrated Sciences and 
Assessments' teams are collaborating with federal agencies on building 
regional capacity to address climate change.[Footnote 91] For example, 
NOAA initiated a fiscal year 2012 competitive grant process to promote 
collaborative research partnerships in support of regional climate 
adaptation. According to a Regional Integrated Sciences and 
Assessments program official, NOAA's priorities for selecting grant 
applications for funding include research related to: (1) addressing 
interactions between climate and nonclimate stressors in marine 
environments; (2) evaluating the use of climate information by coastal 
managers and the effectiveness of adaptation actions; (3) advancing 
the development and application of approaches for assessing the 
vulnerability of public lands; and (4) improving ways of communicating 
climate information to water managers across multiple regions of the 
United States. NOAA developed the funding priorities collaboratively 
with the Department of the Interior's Climate Science Centers and 
federal agencies, including the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. 
Army Corps of Engineers, Forest Service, and National Park Service. 
According to a Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program 
official, by setting priorities collaboratively, federal agencies can 
direct and leverage their resources and avoid potential duplicative or 
overlapping research projects. 

Federal natural resource management departments and agencies have also 
collaborated through the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task 
Force, which the President established in 2009. The task force is co-
chaired by the Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Science 
and Technology Policy, and NOAA, and includes representatives from 
more than 20 federal departments and agencies. In a 2010 report, the 
task force recommended a set of climate change adaptation policy goals 
and actions.[Footnote 92] For example, the task force recommended that 
federal agencies establish and implement adaptation action plans that 
address the challenges that climate change poses to their missions, 
operations, and programs. The task force also recommended that 
agencies address cross-cutting issues by developing, among other 
things, (1) a national action plan to strengthen climate change 
adaptation for freshwater resources; (2) a strategy for reducing the 
impacts of climate change on the nation's fish, wildlife, and plant 
resources and their habitats; and (3) a strategic action plan for 
strengthening the resilience of coastal, ocean, and Great Lakes 
communities and ecosystems to climate change. In October 2011, the 
task force reported that federal agencies had made significant 
progress in addressing the goals outlined by the task force in 2010. 
[Footnote 93] 

Federal Natural Resource Agencies Have Collaborated on National 
Strategies to Address Climate Change Adaptation and Climate 
Assessments: 

Since 2007, federal natural resource management agencies have 
collaborated to develop the three national strategies recommended by 
the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force. These strategies 
are as follows: 

* National Action Plan for Managing Freshwater Resources.[Footnote 94] 
Finalized in October 2011, the national action plan was prepared by 
officials from various federal agencies including the Bureau of 
Reclamation, the Forest Service, and NOAA. According to the plan, 
climate change impacts will pose challenges to protecting the quantity 
and quality of freshwater resources, including aquatic life and 
habitats. The plan established a national goal of having citizens and 
government agencies collaboratively manage freshwater resources in 
response to a changing climate to ensure adequate water supplies; 
safeguard human life, health, and property; and protect water quality 
and aquatic ecosystems. It included six recommendations for meeting 
that goal and outlined specific actions that federal agencies are 
taking or should take to address these recommendations. For example, 
one recommendation was to strengthen the assessment of water resource 
vulnerability to climate change. Actions identified to address this 
recommendation included ongoing Forest Service efforts to assess the 
vulnerability of watersheds and aquatic systems in national forests 
and grasslands. According to Forest Service officials, as of February 
2013, the agency had completed all 12 pilot watershed vulnerability 
assessments. 

* National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy. 
[Footnote 95] The national strategy, developed as directed by a 
congressional committee, was released in March 2013. It was developed 
with input from a steering committee led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service, NOAA, and the New York Division of Fish, Wildlife, and Marine 
Resources with officials from 11 additional federal agencies, 4 
additional state fish and wildlife agencies, 2 intertribal 
commissions, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The 
strategy stated that fish, wildlife, and plant resources are already 
being affected by climate change and described projected future 
impacts. The strategy also outlined goals for addressing climate 
change adaptation for fish, wildlife, and plants as well as strategies 
for addressing these goals. For example, one goal is to conserve 
habitat to support healthy fish, wildlife, and plant populations and 
ecosystem functions in a changing climate. Strategies for addressing 
the goal include identifying areas that are likely to be resilient to 
climate change and taking steps to ensure that those areas are 
protected. 

* National Ocean Policy Implementation Plan. Federal natural resource 
management departments contributed to preparing this plan, which 
identifies actions federal agencies will take to bolster the ocean 
economy, improve ocean health, and provide better science, among other 
things.[Footnote 96] In July 2010, the President issued an Executive 
Order regarding stewardship of our oceans, coasts, and the Great 
Lakes." [Footnote 97] The national ocean policy calls for management 
practices that will enhance the understanding of and capacity to 
respond to climate change and ocean acidification, among other things. 
The National Ocean Council, which includes the Secretaries of 
Agriculture, Commerce, the Interior, and the NOAA Administrator, 
published the implementation plan for the national ocean policy in 
April 2013. Among other things, the plan stated that federal agencies 
will enable and support efforts to understand, minimize, and adapt to 
the impacts of climate change, ocean acidification, sea-level rise, 
and extreme weather events, strengthening the resilience of coastal 
communities. For example, according to the implementation plan, 
federal agencies will offer tools and training courses on how to 
design and implement vulnerability assessments and develop assessments 
of coastal and ocean climate impacts in support of the National 
Climate Assessment. 

Federal agencies have also collaborated on national climate 
assessments, which analyze current trends in global change, both human-
induced and natural, and project major trends for the subsequent 25 to 
100 years. The Global Change Research Act of 1990 requires publication 
of a national climate assessment not less frequently than every 4 
years--the first and second assessments were first published by the 
U.S. Global Change Research Program in 2000 and 2009, 
respectively.[Footnote 98] Thirteen federal agencies, including the 
Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, 
and NOAA, contributed to the third assessment that was released as a 
draft for public comment in January 2013.[Footnote 99] The draft 
assessment provides information on climate change impacts and the 
status of climate change science, and it highlights ongoing climate 
change adaptation efforts, among other things. For example, the draft 
assessment states that, although substantial climate change adaptation 
planning is occurring at all levels of government, adaptation actions 
have been limited. According to the draft assessment, challenges to 
implementing adaptation actions include lack of resources and 
leadership, and difficulties in using climate change projections, 
which can be complex and difficult to apply to management decisions. 
To help ensure that natural resource managers and other decision 
makers have timely and relevant information, the draft assessment 
includes information on creating a sustained climate assessment 
process to more efficiently collect and synthesize climate change 
science. The draft assessment also states that climate change 
adaptation actions have rarely been evaluated for effectiveness 
because such actions have only recently begun to be initiated and 
comprehensive metrics for evaluating these actions have not been 
developed. The assessment is expected to be finalized by the end of 
2013. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a draft of this report for review and comment to the 
Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior. In its written 
comments, which are included in appendix I, the Department of 
Agriculture stated that the Forest Service agreed with our findings 
and will continue to engage in the collaborative efforts we identified 
to more efficiently and effectively address climate change adaptation. 

We received general comments from the Departments of Commerce and the 
Interior. The Department of Commerce stated that it appreciated our 
efforts to identify the progress made by key natural resource 
management agencies to address climate change. It also said that 
climate change adaptation efforts will improve over time through 
review and evaluation processes, and our report contributes to that 
effort. The Departments of Commerce and the Interior also said they 
have other programs, field locations, and climate change adaptation-
related activities that were not discussed in the report. By design, 
our report focused on specific programs, and we visited only one field 
location in each of the five agencies we examined. We acknowledge in 
the report that, while federal agencies have taken many different 
climate change adaptation actions, we focused on those actions that we 
determined were most relevant to the field location we visited at each 
agency. We also received technical comments from the Departments of 
Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior, which we incorporated as 
appropriate. 

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents 
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days 
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies of the report 
to the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior; the 
appropriate congressional committees; and other interested parties. In 
addition, this report will be available at no charge on the GAO 
website at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff members have questions about this report, please 
contact me at (202) 512-3841 or fennella@gao.gov. Contact points for 
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 
on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions 
to this report are listed in appendix II. 

Signed by: 

Anne-Marie Fennell: 
Director, Natural Resources and Environment: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Comments from the Department of Agriculture: 

USDA 
United States Department of Agriculture: 
Forest Service: 
Washington Office: 
1400 Independence Avenue, SW: 
Washington, DC 20250: 

File Code: 1420: 

Date: May 3, 2013: 

Ms. Anne-Marie Fennell: 
Director, Natural Resources and Environment: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Ms, Fennell: 

Thank you for the opportunity to review and provide comment on the 
draft U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report on, "Climate 
Change: Various Adaptation Efforts Are Underway at Key Natural 
Resource Management Agencies" (GAO-13-253). The Forest Service has 
reviewed the report and agrees with its findings. GAO did not offer 
any recommendations. 

The study's findings capture the agency's strategic, multi-faceted 
approach to such a complex and far-reaching issue as climate change 
adaptation. The findings also show that our strategy, policies, and 
guidance are being applied by one of our field units (Chugach National 
Forest) and integrated into its land management planning. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Strategic Plan for 2010-
2015 also provides broad guidance on climate change adaptation. The 
most relevant to the Chugach National Forest is Strategic Goal 2: 
Ensure our national forests and private working lands are conserved, 
restored, and made more resilient to climate change, while enhancing 
our water resources. In addition, the USDA Climate Change Adaptation 
Plan, prepared in accordance with Executive Order 13514, presents 
broad strategies and actions to address the effects of climate change 
on key mission areas including forestry and natural resources 
conservation. 

Although the Forest Service has made good progress since 2007 in 
addressing climate change through our own authorities and policies, we 
continue to ramp up national level collaboration with other agencies, 
partners, and stakeholders in the areas of science, monitoring, 
vulnerability assessments, and planning. Engagement in the formal and 
informal coordination efforts identified in the report will result in 
more efficient and effective responses to address this major 
environmental challenge. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to review your draft report. If 
you have any questions, please contact Thelma Strong, Chief Financial 
Officer, at 202-205-0429 or tstrong@fs.fed.us. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Thomas L. Tidwell: 
Chief: 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Anne-Marie Fennell, (202) 512-3841 or fennella@gao.gov: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the individual named above, Stephen Secrist, Assistant 
Director; Leo G. Acosta; Mark Braza; Frederick K. Childers; Elizabeth 
Curda; Keesha Egebrecht; Emily Hanawalt; Richard Johnson; Alison 
O'Neill; Jeanette Soares; and Kiki Theodoropoulos made key 
contributions to this report. Candace Carpenter; Brad Dobbins; Armetha 
Liles; and Janice Poling provided additional technical assistance. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] The U.S. Global Change Research Program coordinates and integrates 
federal research on changes in the global environment and their 
implications for society. Led by a team of officials from each of the 
U.S. Global Change Research Program's 13 participating departments and 
agencies, the U.S. Global Change Research Program engages in a variety 
of activities designed to strengthen and strategically direct climate 
change research in the U.S. and improve the flow of that information 
to federal, state, and local decision makers, and the public. 

[2] Thomas R. Karl, Jerry M. Melillo, and Thomas C. Peterson, eds., 
U.S. Global Change Research Program, Global Climate Change Impacts in 
the United States (New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 
2009). 

[3] GAO, Climate Change Adaptation: Strategic Federal Planning Could 
Help Government Officials Make More Informed Decisions, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-113] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 7, 
2009). 

[4] National Research Council, America's Climate Choices: Adapting to 
the Impacts of Climate Change, (Washington, D. C.: 2010). 

[5] The United Sates has jurisdiction over the U.S. exclusive economic 
zone--an area typically extending from 3 to 200 nautical miles off the 
coast--including jurisdiction to manage natural resources and protect 
and preserve the marine environment. The U.S. exclusive economic zone 
is the largest in the world covering about 3.4 million nautical miles 
or 1.7 times the landmass of the contiguous United States. 

[6] GAO, Climate Change: Agencies Should Develop Guidance for 
Addressing the Effects on Federal Lands and Water Resources, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-863] (Washington, D.C.: 
Aug. 7, 2007). 

[7] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-113]. 

[8] GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-283] (Washington, D.C.: February 
2013). 

[9] The White House Council on Environmental Quality, Progress Report 
of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force: Recommended 
Actions in Support of a National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, 
2010. 

[10] In addition, the October 5, 2009 Executive Order 13514 on Federal 
Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance directs 
federal agencies to evaluate their climate change risks and 
vulnerabilities and manage the effects of climate change on the 
agency's operations and mission in both the short-and long-term. In 
response to the Executive Order, the Departments of Agriculture, 
Commerce, and the Interior submitted adaptation plans for fiscal year 
2013 to the Council on Environmental Quality in June 2012 as part of 
their annual Strategic Sustainability Performance Plans. The Council 
on Environmental Quality is an office within the Executive Office of 
the President that, among other things, oversees implementation of the 
National Environmental Policy Act and develops and recommends to the 
President national polices to foster and promote the improvement of 
environmental quality. 

[11] NOAA also manages coastal and ocean ecosystems, marine fisheries, 
protected resources, and other marine protected areas. 

[12] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-863]. 

[13] An ecosystem is a coexisting set of species and their habitat, 
generally characterized by a particular type of climate and other 
physical conditions (e.g., soil types on land, water depths in 
freshwater and marine environments), as well as by the set of species 
present. 

[14] A nonprobability sample means that the five sites were not 
selected randomly. 

[15] Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, Federal Actions 
for a Climate Resilient Nation: Progress Report of the Interagency 
Climate Change Adaptation Task Force (October 2011). The task force 
includes representatives from more than 20 federal departments and 
agencies including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and the 
Interior. 

[16] National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation 
Partnership. National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation 
Strategy: Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Council on 
Environmental Quality, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Great Lakes 
Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, and National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration, (Washington, D.C.: 2012). 

[17] U.S. Global Change Research Program, Global Climate Change 
Impacts in the United States, 2009. 

[18] Ecosystem services are benefits to human society that result from 
ecosystem processes. Examples of ecosystem processes include 
photosynthesis by plants, respiration by a variety of organisms, and 
decomposition by bacteria. Examples of ecosystem services resulting 
from ecosystem processes are pollination of flowers and crops; 
purification of air, water, and soil; and the management of flows of 
fresh water. 

[19] According to the Forest Service, nearly one-fifth of the nation's 
water originates in the national forest system. 

[20] Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, Federal Actions 
for a Climate Resilient Nation: Progress Report of the Interagency 
Climate Change Adaptation Task Force (October 2011). The task force 
includes representatives from more than 20 federal departments and 
agencies. 

[21] Coral reefs cover less that 1 percent of the ocean floor but 
support an estimated 25 percent of all known marine species. 
Scientists estimate that more than 1 million species of plants and 
animals are associated with coral reef ecosystems. 

[22] Changes in water temperatures--warming and cooling--can stress 
coral polyps, causing them to lose algae, which give coral their 
color. This results in the coral turning completely white or bleached. 
The algae also provide coral polyps the nutrition they need to 
survive. Bleached corals are under greater stress and are less 
resistant to other threats, such as disease. Corals can recover from 
bleaching events, but if they do not regain algae within a relatively 
short time frame, they do not survive. 

[23] The ocean absorbs approximately one-third of the atmosphere's 
excess carbon dioxide, resulting in a more acidic ocean. For a coral 
reef to grow, it must produce calcium carbonate at a rate faster than 
the reef is being eroded. Ocean acidification slows the rate at which 
coral reefs generate calcium carbonate, thereby slowing the growth of 
coral skeletons. 

[24] Waterfowl production areas are lands comprising small natural 
wetlands and grasslands that provide breeding, resting, and nesting 
habitat for millions of waterfowl, shorebirds, grassland birds, and 
other wildlife. These areas are administered by administrative units 
known as wetland management districts. 

[25] U.S. Climate Change Science Program, Preliminary Review of 
Adaptation Options for Climate-Sensitive Ecosystems and Resources 
(June 2008). 

[26] National park units consist of, among others, national 
battlefields, historical sites, monuments, parks, reserves, and 
seashores. 

[27] The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 defines the 
term "multiple use" to mean, among other things, the management of the 
public lands and their various resource values so that they are 
utilized in the combination that will best meet the present and future 
needs of the American people. The act also defines the term "sustained 
yield" as the achievement and maintenance in perpetuity of a high-
level of annual or regular periodic output of the various renewable 
resources of the public lands consistent with multiple use. 

[28] Wilderness areas are undeveloped federal lands retaining their 
primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or 
human habitation, which are protected and managed so as to preserve 
their natural conditions and which generally appear to have been 
affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's 
work substantially unnoticeable; have outstanding opportunities for 
solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; are at 
least 5,000 acres or large enough to make practicable their 
preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and may also contain 
ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, scenic, or 
historical value. 

[29] When the Bureau of Land Management determines that certain public 
land areas require special management attention to protect and prevent 
irreparable damage to important historic, cultural, or scenic values, 
fish and wildlife resources, or other natural systems or processes, it 
may designate, after public comment, such lands as areas of critical 
environmental concern. 

[30] The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act created the National Wild and 
Scenic River System in 1968 to preserve certain rivers with 
outstandingly remarkable scenic, cultural, recreational, and other 
similar values in a free-flowing condition and to protect their 
immediate environments for the enjoyment of present and future 
generations. 

[31] The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. §§ 1531-1544) 
protects plant and animal species that are either facing extinction 
(endangered species) or are likely to face extinction in the 
foreseeable future (threatened species) and protects the ecosystems 
upon which they depend. The act includes provisions for listing 
species that need protection, designating habitat deemed critical to a 
listed species' survival, developing recovery plans for the 
conservation and survival of listed species, and protecting listed 
species against certain harms caused by federal and nonfederal 
actions. The act is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
and NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service. 

[32] Under the National Environmental Policy Act (42 U.S.C. §§ 4321-
4347) federal agencies must assess the effects of major federal 
actions--those they propose to carry out or to permit--that 
significantly affect the environment. The act has two principal 
purposes: (1) to ensure that an agency carefully considers detailed 
information concerning significant environmental impacts and (2) to 
ensure that this information will be made available to the public. 

[33] National Research Council, Adapting to the Impacts of Climate 
Change, (Washington, D.C.: 2010). 

[34] National Wildlife Federation, Moving the Conservation Goalposts: 
A Review of Climate Change Adaptation Literature (Washington, D.C.: 
June 2011). 

[35] Michelle D. Staudinger, Nancy B. Grimm, Amanda Staudt, Shawn L. 
Carter, F. Stuart Chapin III, Peter Kareiva, Mary Ruckelshaus, Bruce 
A. Stein. Impacts of Climate Change on Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and 
Ecosystem Services: Technical Input to the 2013 National Climate 
Assessment, 2012. 

[36] Landscape level (and landscape scale) typically means a regional 
system of interconnected properties that is larger than the boundaries 
of any single land management jurisdiction, such as a national park. 
Managing natural resources at the landscape level involves defining 
the scope of the landscape to be managed, identifying specific 
conservation objectives, and collaborating with stakeholders to 
achieve them. 

[37] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-113]. 

[38] National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation 
Partnership. National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation 
Strategy: Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Council on 
Environmental Quality, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Great Lakes 
Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, and National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration, (Washington, D.C.: 2012). 

[39] The White House Council on Environmental Quality, Progress Report 
of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force: Recommended 
Actions in Support of a National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, 
2010. Michelle D. Staudinger, Nancy B. Grimm, Amanda Staudt, Shawn L. 
Carter, F. Stuart Chapin III, Peter Kareiva, Mary Ruckelshaus, Bruce 
A. Stein. Impacts of Climate Change on Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and 
Ecosystem Services: Technical Input to the 2013 National Climate 
Assessment, 2012. National Research Council, Adapting to the Impacts 
of Climate Change, (Washington, D.C.: 2010). Glick, P., B.A. Stein, 
and N. A. Edelson, eds. Scanning the Conservation Horizon: A Guide to 
Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment (Washington, D.C.: National 
Wildlife Federation, 2011). 

[40] The Office of Science and Technology Policy was established by 
statute in 1976 to serve as a source of scientific and technology 
analysis judgment. 

[41] The White House Council on Environmental Quality, Progress Report 
of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force: Recommended 
Actions in Support of a National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, 
2010. 

[42] Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Service 
Strategic Framework for Responding to Climate Change (Washington, 
D.C.: 2008). 

[43] Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, National Roadmap for 
Responding to Climate Change (Washington, D.C.: 2011). 

[44] 77 Fed. Reg. 21162 (Apr. 9, 2012). 

[45] The Climate Change Resource Center can be found online at 
[hyperlink, http://www.fs.fed.us/ccrc]. 

[46] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-863]. 

[47] Department of Commerce, NOAA, Chart of the Future, NOAA's Next 
Generation Strategic Plan (Silver Spring, MD: 2012). 

[48] Interior has developed a network of collaborative landscape 
conservation cooperatives, comprising public and private agencies, 
working to provide the science and technical expertise needed to 
support conservation planning at landscape scales and to promote 
collaboration among their members in defining shared conservation 
goals. 

[49] Established in 2005, NOAA's Climate Program Office provides 
guidance and oversight for the agency's climate science and services 
program, and manages competitive research programs. NOAA funds, among 
other things, high-priority climate science, assessments, decision 
support research, outreach, education, and capacity building 
activities designed to advance an understanding of Earth's climate 
system, and to foster the application of this knowledge in risk 
management and adaptation efforts. 

[50] Department of Commerce, NOAA, NOAA's Climate Smart Sanctuaries: 
Helping the National Marine Sanctuary System Address Climate Change 
(Silver Spring, MD: 2010). 

[51] A condition report provides a summary of a sanctuary's resources, 
pressures on those resources, current conditions and trends, and 
management responses to the pressures that threaten the integrity of 
the marine environment. 

[52] A sanctuary management plan details the goals and objectives, 
management responsibilities, research activities, interpretive and 
educational programs, and enforcement, including surveillance 
activities, for the sanctuary. 

[53] Department of Commerce, NOAA, NOAA Coral Reef Conservation 
Program Goals and Objectives 2010-2015 (Silver Spring, MD: 2009). 

[54] NOAA's climate web portal was established in February 2010 and 
provides access to the agency's and its partners' diverse portfolios 
of climate data and information. [hyperlink, 
http://www.climate.gov/about.html]. 

[55] Department of Commerce, NOAA, Florida Keys National Marine 
Sanctuary Revised Management Plan (Silver Spring, MD: 2007). 

[56] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-863]. 

[57] The action plans that make up the management plan cover a variety 
of other topics as well, such as science management; research and 
monitoring; education and outreach; enforcement; and damage assessment 
and restoration. 

[58] Sanctuary advisory councils are community-based advisory groups 
established to provide advice and recommendations about sanctuary 
operations and projects, including education and outreach, research 
and science, regulations and enforcement, and management planning. 
They are particularly critical in helping a sanctuary during its 
management plan review process, according to sanctuary documents. The 
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary advisory council includes 
representatives from federal, state, and local governmental agencies 
located in the Florida Keys. 

[59] Extreme water temperatures--hot and cold--can stress coral 
polyps, causing them to lose algae, which give coral their color. This 
results in the coral turning completely white or bleached. The algae 
also provide coral polyps the nutrition they need to survive. While a 
bleached coral is not dead, and corals can survive bleaching events, 
they are under greater stress and are less resistant to other threats, 
such as disease. 

[60] Climate Change Action Plan for the Florida Reef System 2010-2015. 
Florida Reef Resilience Program (2010). 

[61] Department of Commerce, NOAA, Coral Reef Conservation Program 
Goals and Objectives 2010-2015 (Silver Spring, MD: 2009). 

[62] Mote Marine Laboratory, headquartered in southwest Florida, was 
founded in 1955 as an independent marine research institution. The 
core function of this nonprofit organization is marine and coastal 
research that is designed to ensure the conservation and sustainable 
use of marine resources to benefit local, national, and international 
communities. 

[63] NOAA's restoration center was created in 1991 and is responsible 
for restoring the nation's coastal, marine, and migratory fish 
habitat. The center focuses on funding four habitat restoration 
approaches that have the biggest impact on fishery production--opening 
rivers to fish migration, reconnecting coastal wetlands, rebuilding 
shellfish populations, and restoring corals. 

[64] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-863]. 

[65] Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 
Rising to the Urgent Challenge: Strategic Plan for Responding to 
Accelerating Climate Change (Washington, D.C.: 2010). 

[66] Landscape level (and landscape scale) typically means a regional 
system of interconnected properties that is larger than the boundaries 
of any single land management jurisdiction, such as a national park. 
Managing natural resources at the landscape level involves defining 
the scope of the landscape to be managed, identifying specific 
conservation objectives, and collaborating with stakeholders to 
achieve them. 

[67] Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The 
Refuge Vulnerability Assessment and Alternatives Technical Guide 
(Arlington, VA: 2012); Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service, Manager's Guide to Refuge Vulnerability Assessment 
and Alternatives: Overview and Practical Considerations (Arlington, 
VA: 2012). 

[68] Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, San 
Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Complex, San Pablo Bay National 
Wildlife Refuge Final Comprehensive Conservation Plan (Newark, CA: 
2011). 

[69] The San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge is largely located 
below sea level and, as a result, its natural resources are highly 
vulnerable to climate change impacts such as sea level rise. The 
refuge's natural resources include tidal marshes, which are vegetated 
wetlands that are inundated with water subject to the tidal influences 
of the Pacific Ocean. Even though tidal marshes are vulnerable to sea 
level rise, natural resource managers can help protect them by 
ensuring they have space to migrate inland as sea levels rise or 
restoring or enhancing tidal circulation to the marshes to help ensure 
that they can grow at a rate that outpaces sea level rise. 

[70] Marshes grow as water moves slowly through their soft-stemmed 
vegetation, allowing sediment to settle and accumulate on the floor of 
the marsh; however, some historic marshlands in the refuge have little 
or no tidal circulation as a result of, for example, dikes and levees 
constructed to develop farmlands, among other purposes. 

[71] U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Climate 
Change Response Strategy (Washington, D. C.: 2010). 

[72] Climate change scenario planning is a tool that involves 
evaluating the possible impacts of climate change under a variety of 
plausible climate futures. 

[73] U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Climate 
Change Action Plan 2012-2014 (Washington, D.C.: 2012). 

[74] The Climate Change Response Program supports initiatives to 
implement elements of the climate change response strategy, helps 
develop methods for assessing the vulnerability of agency resources to 
climate change, and develops adaptation strategies for natural 
resources in climate-sensitive areas, among other efforts. 

[75] The Intermountain Region includes Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New 
Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. 

[76] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-863]. 

[77] The American pika is a small mammal that inhabits vegetation in 
alpine and subalpine mountain areas extending south from central 
British Columbia and Alberta into the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico 
and the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, according to the U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service. The pika is particularly sensitive to 
temperature changes; death can occur after brief exposures to ambient 
temperatures greater than 77.9 degrees Fahrenheit. 

[78] The Crown of the Continent ecosystem includes 42,000 square 
kilometers of land that encompasses the Rocky Mountain region of 
Montana; British Columbia; and Alberta, Canada. The ecosystem includes 
grasslands, rock, ice, mountain peaks, and forests. 

[79] In 1932, Glacier National Park was combined with Waterton Lakes 
National Park in Alberta , Canada to form the world's first 
International Peace Park. 

[80] First Nations refers collectively to individuals of Aboriginal 
origin residing in Canada. 

[81] Glacier National Park, Final General Management Plan and 
Environmental Impact Statement Volume 1 (West Glacier, MT: Sept. 2, 
1999). According to a park official, management plans are generally 
updated every 20 years. 

[82] The bureau has a three-tiered organizational structure within 
each state, beginning with the state office that oversees district 
offices, which coordinates between the state and field offices. Field 
offices are responsible for managing designated areas of land, which 
are known as resource areas. 

[83] Bureau of Land Management offices and other federal agencies are 
required to prepare either environmental assessments or environmental 
impact statements, which are more detailed, when they evaluate certain 
proposed actions, such as drilling for oil on Bureau of Land 
Management land, to determine their impacts on the environment. These 
documents also evaluate alternatives to the proposed action, which 
could avoid or minimize adverse impacts to the environment. 
Ultimately, agencies may use the document to decide whether to 
prohibit a proposed action, allow it as proposed, or allow it with 
modifications. 

[84] An ecoregion is a large landscape that contains relative 
homogeneity in ecological systems or in relationships between 
organisms and their environments. It typically encompasses areas 
larger than those managed by an individual Bureau of Land Management 
field office and may include land managed by multiple federal, state, 
private, or other land managers. The Sonoran Desert in the 
southwestern United States is an example of an ecoregion. 

[85] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-863]. 

[86] Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Kingman 
Resource Area Proposed Resource Management Plan and Final 
Environmental Impact Statement (Kingman, AZ: 1993). The resource 
management plan is the key document that Kingman resource managers use 
to guide their management of the public lands and associated resources 
within their jurisdiction. 

[87] Nature Serve is a nonprofit conservation organization that 
provides information on rare and endangered species and threatened 
ecosystems. The information is used by, among others, government 
agencies, conservation groups, and academia to help inform natural 
resource management decisions. 

[88] According to Interior, the eight regional Climate Science Centers 
deliver basic climate change impact science to Landscape Conservation 
Cooperatives within their respective regions, including physical and 
biological research, ecological forecasting, and multi-scale modeling. 
Science centers will prioritize their delivery of fundamental science, 
data, and decision support activities to meet the needs of the 
cooperatives. This includes working with the cooperatives to provide 
climate change impact information on natural and cultural resources 
and to develop decision support tools for managers. 

[89] Department of the Interior, Interior's Plan for a Coordinated, 
Science-based Response to Climate Change Impacts on Our Land, Water, 
and Wildlife Resources (Washington D.C.: 2010). 

[90] NOAA's National Climatic Data Center manages six Regional Climate 
Centers that produce climate data and other resources for decision 
makers and other users at the local, state, regional, and national 
levels. 

[91] Participating federal agencies include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Forest Service. 
Participating offices within NOAA include, among others, the National 
Marine Fisheries Service; the National Ocean Service; the Earth 
Systems Research Laboratory; the National Weather Service's Climate 
Prediction Center; and the Climate Program Office's Modeling, Analysis 
Predictions and Projections program and Climate and Societal 
Interactions program. The U.S. Geological Survey and the Forest 
Service were among the agencies that contributed funds to projects in 
the grants competition. 

[92] The White House Council on Environmental Quality, Progress Report 
of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force: Recommended 
Actions in Support of a National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, 
2010. 

[93] Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, Federal Actions 
for a Climate Resilient Nation: Progress Report of the Interagency 
Climate Change Adaptation Task Force (October 2011). 

[94] Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, National Action 
Plan: Priorities for Managing Freshwater Resources in a Changing 
Climate, 2011. 

[95] National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation 
Partnership. National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation 
Strategy: Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Council on 
Environmental Quality, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Great Lakes 
Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, and National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration, (Washington, D.C.: 2012). 

[96] National Ocean Council, National Ocean Policy Implementation 
Plan, (Washington, D.C.: 2013). 

[97] Executive Order 13547, Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and 
the Great Lakes (July 19, 2010). 

[98] Pub. L. No. 101-606, § 106 (1990). In 2007, a federal district 
court held that the failure to complete an assessment at least every 4 
years violated the Global Change Research Act. Center for Biological 
Diversity v. Brennan, 571 F. Supp. 2d 1105, 1131 (N.D. Cal. 2007). 

[99] The January 2013 draft National Climate Assessment was prepared 
under the leadership of the National Climate Assessment and 
Development Advisory Committee, a federal advisory committee appointed 
by the Secretary of Commerce. 

[End of section] 

GAO’s Mission: 

The Government Accountability Office, the audit, evaluation, and 
investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting 
its constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the 
performance and accountability of the federal government for the 
American people. GAO examines the use of public funds; evaluates 
federal programs and policies; and provides analyses, recommendations, 
and other assistance to help Congress make informed oversight, policy, 
and funding decisions. GAO’s commitment to good government is 
reflected in its core values of accountability, integrity, and 
reliability. 

Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony: 

The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no 
cost is through GAO’s website [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. Each 
weekday afternoon, GAO posts on its website newly released reports, 
testimony, and correspondence. To have GAO e-mail you a list of newly 
posted products, go to [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov] and select 
“E-mail Updates.” 

Order by Phone: 

The price of each GAO publication reflects GAO’s actual cost of 
production and distribution and depends on the number of pages in the 
publication and whether the publication is printed in color or black 
and white. Pricing and ordering information is posted on GAO’s 
website, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/ordering.htm]. 

Place orders by calling (202) 512-6000, toll free (866) 801-7077, or 
TDD (202) 512-2537. 

Orders may be paid for using American Express, Discover Card, 
MasterCard, Visa, check, or money order. Call for additional 
information. 

Connect with GAO: 

Connect with GAO on facebook, flickr, twitter, and YouTube.
Subscribe to our RSS Feeds or E mail Updates. Listen to our Podcasts.
Visit GAO on the web at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs: 

Contact: 
Website: [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm]; 
E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov; 
Automated answering system: (800) 424-5454 or (202) 512-7470. 

Congressional Relations: 

Katherine Siggerud, Managing Director, siggerudk@gao.gov: 
(202) 512-4400: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street NW, Room 7125: 
Washington, DC 20548. 

Public Affairs: 
Chuck Young, Managing Director, youngc1@gao.gov: 
(202) 512-4800: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street NW, Room 7149: 
Washington, DC 20548. 

[End of document]