Science Tools for Managers

Environmental and climate justice principles envision a world in which everyone has equal access to healthy, clean environments and is able to participate in the environmental and climate decisions that impact them. These principles are foundational to the CASC network’s mission, and are central to our partnership-driven, actionable science model.

CASC Climate Adaptation Technical Services (CATS) is a new, multi-year pilot effort to respond to management needs on climate adaptation. The program provides partners with tailored climate adaptation science, advice, and training to help them rapidly incorporate climate adaptation science into planning and decision making.

USGS scientists are developing a team science curriculum to teach researchers from different fields and backgrounds how to work collaboratively and creatively to address complex environmental challenges, such as the impacts of climate change.

Climate and economic stressors are causing large numbers of people to emigrate from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, even while new development continues. To provide a tool to help managers and policymakers make informed decisions about development and conservation, researchers for this Southeast CASC-supported project will co-produce a land change model that can simulate future scenarios

Urban forest managers often lack the essential information needed to make strategic decisions about planting and maintaining trees to mitigate climate change effects in urban areas. In this project, Southeast CASC-funded researchers will provide data on the health of urban tree species in the region and conduct an ecological and economic cost-benefit analysis to help local and regional urban fores

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal public land managers to assess potential environmental impacts of proposed actions. The USGS, Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Colorado State University, and North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center are working together to develop science syntheses that can facilitate considerations of climate change in...

The Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework is a decision-making tool that helps resource managers make informed strategies for responding to ecological changes resulting from climate change.

Soil-climate describes the temperature and moisture conditions important for plant growth and function. Soil condition patterns determine which vegetation is most abundant, thus controlling which habitats, invasive species, fuels, and economic activities are present in a region. Here, we use a model to simulate the vertical movement of water in a soil profile to provide insights into landscape...

Scenario planning is a powerful tool to help decision makers plan for an uncertain future. Through this process, people consider different ways the climate could change and explore how these changes would affect resources important to them. USGS scientists work with natural and cultural resource managers to use climate change scenario planning to prepare for a wide range of possible futures.

Prairie dog colonies in North America’s Central Grasslands undergo cycles of collapse and recovery caused by the non-native sylvatic plague, and each phase of the cycle negatively affects wildlife or livestock. Researchers supported by this North Central-CASC project will develop a decision-support web tool for users to predict prairie dog colony dynamics under changing climatic conditions to help

Water levels in the Great Lakes are fluctuating in ways that we have not seen in the past, with both historically low- and high-water levels occurring in the last decade. Expectations are that larger and more frequent water-level fluctuations will occur in response to climate change. The increased variability in lake levels has implications for the management of invasive plants found in the coasta

The Bonnet Carré spillway (BCS) is a flood-control structure along the Lower Mississippi River designed to prevent flooding in the city of New Orleans by diverting excess water into the nearby Lake Pontchartrain estuary. Alarmingly, the BCS was opened as many times over the past decade (2011–2020) as it had been over the six prior decades combined (1951–2010), with devastating effects on the estua