Wednesday, August 4, 2010

PS 55-90: Sustainable forest ecosystems under changing climate: a template for assessing impacts and management options

Jennifer A. Moore Myers, Emrys A. Treasure, and Steven G. McNulty. USDA Forest Service

Background/Question/Methods

The USDA Forest Service is developing a Template for Assessing Climate Change Impacts and Management Options (TACCIMO). This web-based tool connects national, state, and private forest planning with climate change impacts and management option through a report generation system. TACCIMO's primary objectives are to provide land owners, managers, and planners with the best and most current climate change science available; facilitate the review of forecasts, impacts, and management options; and create a document to aid in sustainable forest planning and management analysis.  

Results/Conclusions

The US Science Assessment Products 4.2 and 4.3 and the USDA Forest Service Strategic Climate Change Plan form the basis of TACCIMO, which uses a web-based information interface to maintain linkages to information sources, forecasts, and tools. The web interface guides users through the TACCIMO report generation process, which begins by selecting factors impacting ecosystems relevant to a particular management focus or geographic location. Impact content can be interactively prioritized based on multiple criteria (i.e., scope, severity, and management opportunity). Geospatial climate forecasts are available to produce standard and custom maps, figures, and tables that can provide context for assessing impacts and management options. Finally, users can export a custom report tailored to their management issues, including scientifically reviewed supporting literature. Currently forest planners and other resource professionals in the USDA Forest Service are testing and evaluating TACCIMO. This poster will present an overview of TACCIMO data sources and the connections between climate change science and forest planning language and snapshots of the user interface, geospatial resources, and sample reports.