Repeatable approaches to work with scientific uncertainty and advance climate change adaptation in US national parks

Abstract

The US National Park Service has embraced participatory scenario planning as core process for conducting climate change adaptation. Here, we describe how NPS uses scenario planning, use of climate futures, and a range of approaches from "scenario lite" through an intensive, deep-dive scenario driven adaptation process.

Full text

UC Berkeley
Parks Stewardship Forum
Title
Repeatable approaches to work with scientific uncertainty and advance climate change
adaptation in US national parks
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/76p7m8rz
Journal
Parks Stewardship Forum, 36(1)
Authors
Runyon, A. N.
Carlson, A. R.
Gross, J.
et al.
Publication Date
2020
eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library
University of California

Climate Change and ProteCted PlaCes:
The Interdisciplinary Journal of Place-Based Conservation | volume 36/1 | 2020
AdApting to
new ReAlities
PSF
PARKS STEWARDSHIP FORUM
CITATION
Runyon, A.N., A.R. Carlson, J. Gross, D. J. Lawrence, and G.W. Schuurman. 2020. Repeatable
approaches to work with scientific uncertainty and advance climate change adaptation in US
national parks. Parks Stewardship Forum 36(1): 98–104.
https://escholarship.org/uc/psf

PSF 36/1 | 2020 98
A.N. Runyon, National Park Service
A.R. Carlson, National Park Service
J. Gross, National Park Service
D.J. Lawrence, National Park Service
G.W. Schuurman, National Park Service
Corresponding author
A.N. Runyon
National Park Service
Natural Science and Stewardship
Climate Change Response Program
1201 Oak Ridge Drive
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Amber_Runyon@nps.gov
Repeatable approaches to work with scientific uncertainty and
advance climate change adaptation in US national parks
Introduction
Managers and scientists widely acknowledge climate
change as one of the greatest threats to protected
areas in the US and worldwide (Gross et al. 2016).
The US National Park Service (NPS) began addressing
climate change as early as the 1990s, and in 2010 NPS
Director Jonathan Jarvis stated that “climate change
is fundamentally the greatest threat to the integrity
of our national parks that we have ever experienced”
(NPS 2010). Today, parks throughout the NPS system
experience impacts of human-caused climate change
(e.g., Monahan and Fisichelli 2014; Gonzalez 2018)
that threaten iconic park resources. Climate-related
impacts include: melting glaciers (e.g., Glacier National
Park, Kenai Fjords National Park; Burgess et al. 2013);
thermokarst formation effects on archaeological sites
(Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve; Gagli-
oti et al. 2016); loss of Joshua trees (e.g., Joshua Tree
National Park; Sweet et al. 2019); and sea-level rise
threatening historic lighthouses (e.g., Cape Hatteras
National Seashore; Schupp et al. 2015), historic arti-
facts (Anderson et al. 2017), and seaside forts (e.g., Dry
Tortugas National Park; Schupp et al. 2015). Droughts,
heat waves, floods, smoke, and fires associated with
increasing temperatures and altered hydrological re-
gimes now routinely affect park resources and visitors,
and these impacts are in no way unique to US parks—
protected area managers worldwide are challenged to
rapidly adapt their management to address ongoing
and projected climate change.
NPS established its Climate Change Response Program
(CCRP) in 2009 to support climate-informed manage-
ment for all resources,1 assets, and values across the
US national park system. However, this system of over
400 individual park units is immense and diverse, and
therefore requires an efficient, repeatable, and custom-
izable process for developing adaptation strategies.
Through numerous collaborations with park managers,
planners, climate scientists, scenario experts, and oth-
ers, CCRP has refined methods for developing and ap-
plying climate futures and scenarios to support nation-
al park management (NPS 2013; Star et al. 2016). Here,
we describe a range of scenario-based approaches that
range from simple to complex, and can be adopted and
widely used to support climate change adaptation for
parks and other protected areas.
Using climate change scenarios
to support adaptation in US national parks
Scenarios are an important tool to support manage-
ment strategies and decisions in situations of conse-
quential and irreducible uncertainty, and their applica-
tion is called scenario planning. Scenario planning has
a rich history of use by industry and the military (van
der Heijden 1997), and more recently in conservation
and climate change adaptation (Peterson et al. 2003;
Rowland et al. 2014). It is a flexible tool that is useful
for understanding potential climate change implica-
tions and uncertainties by using a structured process
to examine a range of possible futures that managers
may face (IPBES 2016). It also provides a foundation

PSF 36/1 | 2020 99
for adaptation, including conducting vulnerability
assessments and updating current management goals
and strategies to ensure feasibility and effectiveness.
The purpose of scenario planning is to consider not
just what is thought to be most likely, but instead to
challenge and move beyond preconceived notions
about the future and consider the full range of plausi-
ble conditions so that management decisions are better
informed and actions are more likely to succeed (Fig-
ure 1; NPS 2013). Scenario planning has wide potential
application in resource management planning and
decisionmaking, including not just addressing climate
uncertainties but also others of consequence.
When engaging with parks to support resource man-
agement decisions, CCRP works iteratively with park
staff and resource experts to (1) create climate futures
from climate model projections; (2) develop climate–
resource scenarios based on climate futures; and (3)
use these scenarios to inform decisionmaking (Fig-
ure 2). The number of park resources addressed in a
climate change scenario effort can range from a single,
highly consequential resource to a broad set of resourc-
es (see case studies below). Scenarios developed from
these engagements also span a range of depth—from
general implications to full vulnerability assessments.
Development of climate futures and scenarios
It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the
future.
—Yogi Berra
Successful resource management requires anticipat-
ing the future as much as possible, but climate change
is inherently complex and frequently impossible to
reduce to a single useful forecast. The best available
sources of information to support climate change
adaptation are projections made by general circulation
models (GCMs), which use scientific understanding of
Earth’s climate system to predict future climatic con-
ditions under multiple plausible levels of greenhouse
gas emissions (emissions pathways are defined by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as repre-
sentative concentration pathways, or RCPs;2 IPCC 2014).
Because our understanding of Earth’s climate is incom-
plete, multiple GCMs produced by various institutions
worldwide provide differing—yet plausible—projec-
tions of future climate.
To work with model- and emissions-related uncer-
tainties, we developed a standardized, quantitative
method for expressing the range of individual model
projections for a particular park in terms of a limited
set of discrete climate futures. The method is designed
for rapid implementation and ease of interpretation,
with opportunities to tailor the approach to a park’s
planning needs. We use a modified quadrant approach
(Rowland et al. 2014) in which we plot each projection,
in terms of degree of change relative to a historical
baseline, on one or more two-dimensional plots with
axes representing key climate variables (Figure 3).
Changes in key climate variables are averaged over
a future period relevant for park management deci-
sions (i.e., typically 10–40 years out). Then, quantile
limits are used to group GCM/RCP projections into
ranges for these variables (black box, center of Figure
3). Projections representing the more extreme ends
may be grouped into nominal categories representing
projection divergence, such as “Warm” vs. “Hot” for
temperature, and “Dry” vs. “Wet” for precipitation.
This method of using the GCMs to produce the climate
futures was derived from an approach pioneered by the
Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Lee et
al. 2015).
The purpose of defining climate futures is to consider
plausible changes in climate variables so that potential
effects on resources may be anticipated, and adaptation
strategies developed. Certain components of climate
future development require expert judgment. For ex-
ample, we may choose to focus on a subset of divergent
futures that are most relevant for a particular park,
such as by comparing the “Warm Wet” with the “Hot
Dry” climate future in a park where water scarcity is,
or may become, a key issue. We may also define cli-
mate futures using climate variables tailored to specific
resources, particularly when developing more targeted
FIGURE . Forecast-based approaches to planning (top panel) use predictions of a
single future within a (typically relatively narrow) range of probability (gray shading).
Scenarios (bottom panel) characterize a (typically wide) range of distinct future
conditions that are all plausible (dashed lines), and provide a framework to support
decisionmaking under conditions that are uncertain and uncontrollable. Graphics
adapted from Global Business Network (GBN).

PSF 36/1 | 2020 100
or detailed scenarios. Furthermore,
for some applications it may be
more appropriate to consider indi-
vidual projections representing the
“most extreme” futures as opposed
to considering (less divergent)
multi-projection averages. Select-
ing individual projections requires
expert assessment of model
suitability for a particular planning
purpose, geographic location, and
climate variable.
Although the CCRP approach is
standardized, it is not static—cli-
mate change science continues to
advance and parks continue to present new manage-
ment concerns and climate vulnerabilities. We there-
fore iteratively improve our methods for calculating
climate variables (e.g., in response to improved down-
scaling and bias correction methodologies) and expand
our set of derived climate variables (e.g., number of
freeze–thaw cycles/year, which is relevant to historical
structures; Schuurman et al. 2019). Updating methods
for calculating variables enhances our ability to address
new vulnerabilities and enrich scenario relevance to
park concerns.
FIGURE . Full process of using climate-resource scenarios to support climate
change adaptation. The process includes the development of climate futures,
addition of resource implications to create climate-resource scenarios, and,
ultimately, application in decisionmaking. An example from the Devils Tower National
Monument scenario planning process illustrates steps in the process (gray box; also
see case study below).
FIGURE . Climate futures plot demonstrating divergence among projections of average annual precipitation and temperature, relative to a historical baseline. Dashed lines
indicate the mean value of all projections for each axis and the box indicates a central tendency, in that it includes projections inside of the 25th and 75th percentiles for both axes.
For each climate future, the average of all projections in those quadrants is represented by a star, and the most extreme projection in the quadrant (i.e., that with the greatest
change in precipitation or temperature relative to the average of all projections) is indicated by a black circle.

PSF 36/1 | 2020 101
In the case studies below we describe a flexible ap-
proach to climate future and scenario development
that can be tailored to address park managers’ needs.
Scenario-based vulnerability assessment for
Big Bend National Park
On one end of the spectrum is a scenario planning
activity focused on a specific location, resource issue,
and management question. Responding to a technical
assistance request from staff at Big Bend National Park
(BIBE), CCRP evaluated changing climate conditions
to provide supporting information for water develop-
ment decisions in the Chisos Basin. The basin is one of
the most visited areas of BIBE, given that its high eleva-
tion offers milder temperatures and the developed area
there contains a visitor center, general store, lodge, and
the only restaurant in the park. Over the past 10 years,
Oak Spring, the current (and sole) water source for the
basin, experienced intermittent drought-related re-
ductions in flow, which in turn led to a need for water
conservation measures by concession operators and
visitors. Infrastructure supporting the acquisition and
delivery of water from Oak Spring to the basin is also
aging and BIBE plans to replace/repair this 1950s-era
drinking water system in fiscal year 2022 at an estimat-
ed cost of $8–10 million. Before proceeding with the re-
development of Oak Spring, park staff contacted CCRP
to evaluate the implications of a changing climate on it.
Park staff wished to analyze how changing climate con-
ditions could affect the reliability of this water source,
which depends in large part on annual precipitation for
recharge.
Using a statistical model relating local precipitation
to Oak Spring discharge, we developed quantitative
projections of Oak Spring flow intended to bracket
the plausible range of conditions from “best-case”
to “worst-case” climate projections. Flows below a
threshold of 20 gallons per minute (gpm) challenge
BIBE operations in the Chisos developed area, and
may invoke a drought conservation plan. We analyzed
climate projections against this threshold, focused on
two extreme projections of plausible climate futures
(i.e., a Warm Wet and Hot Dry future). These two pro-
jections met our overall scenario selection criteria (i.e.,
plausible, relevant, divergent), essentially providing
a “no surprises” examination of potential conditions
that may affect water availability at Oak Spring. Using
the model relating precipitation to Oak Spring flow,
we examined how precipitation projections under each
climate future may change the spring’s flows. We cen-
tered the analysis on the 2060s (2050–2080) because
park staff identified this period as most relevant to
their decisions.
Under the (best-case) Warm Wet scenario, climate pro-
jections for the 2060s indicate that both annual precip-
itation and the extremes of precipitation increase (i.e.,
the highs will be higher, and the lows generally lower).
Although the total amount of precipitation increases
under the Warm Wet scenario, the average number
of months per decade where Oak Spring falls below
20 gpm remains similar to the historical (1950–2000)
average. This is due to the increasing precipitation vari-
ability projected under this scenario, which oscillates
between years with high annual precipitation relative
to the historical period followed by relatively low-pre-
cipitation years.
Under the (worst-case) Hot Dry scenario, 2060s pro-
jections indicate the number of months per decade in
which Oak Spring flows fall below 20 gpm is more than
double the historical average (a statistically signifi-
cant increase from 14 months per decade to 33 months
per decade). For reference, Oak Spring fell below the
20-gpm threshold during 35 months over the observed
period from 2007–2017, in large part reflecting the
hydrological drought of 2012. Under this scenario, the
reliability of Oak Spring as a water source may be espe-
cially compromised.
This evaluation explored plausible scenarios of climate
change to assess implications for the future projected
discharge of a critical water supply in BIBE. Accurately
forecasting the most probable climate future is im-
possible, thus the tool of scenario development and
analysis assists decisionmaking: by evaluating differ-
ent scenarios of plausible and divergent conditions
suggested in climate change scenarios, managers can
stress-test water development decisions related to Oak
Spring, while considering how climatic changes influ-
ence long-term reliability of this water source.
Considering the scenario information in concert with
other factors, park management decided to undertake
measures to proactively enhance reliability of Oak
Spring as a water source into the future (B. Krume-
naker, BIBE superintendent, personal communication).
These measures include work to (1) use water more ef-
ficiently; (2) improve infrastructure to decrease water
loss due to leaks; and (3) increase the storage capacity
of water tanks that temporarily store Oak Spring water,
so that it is available in drought periods. A full report is
being prepared (Lawrence and Runyon 2019).
Informing resource stewardship planning
with climate futures
Our “scenario-light” approach is the most basic appli-
cation of climate change scenarios to support adapta-

PSF 36/1 | 2020 102
tion in resource management, where implications for
a broad set of resources are considered in relation to
general climate futures, as described above. We use
this approach to help NPS meet an ambitious goal
to produce a new or updated Resource Stewardship
Strategy (RSS) for managing natural and cultural re-
sources for over 200 national parks. An RSS is intended
to help park managers achieve and maintain desired
natural and cultural resource conditions over time.
For each RSS, we present information on historical
(observed) and projected climate trends, park-specific
impacts, and climate change adaptation. For such a
large number of plans and workshops, a streamlined,
scenario-light approach is practical and effective in
introducing the concept of divergent climate futures.
This is a good starting point for those new to climate
change scenario planning who seek to develop and use
climate futures to inform and support decisionmaking.
Presenting climate futures allows us to introduce the
concept of scenarios without the full effort required to
build them into climate–resource scenarios (Figure 2).
Climate futures are central to the support we provide
to park plans in addressing climate change. For most
RSSs, we analyze the two most relevant climate futures
in detail. For example, where fire or water scarcity is
important, we may select Warm Wet (best-case) and
Hot Dry (worst-case) futures to examine in depth.
At a minimum, these climate futures include projected
changes in annual and seasonal temperature and pre-
cipitation, as well as extremes of these variables (e.g.,
days per year >100F, days per year >32F). Because it can
be difficult to infer resource impacts from temperature
and precipitation changes alone, especially where both
increase simultaneously, we also model water balance.
Changes in water availability, which reflect changes in
both precipitation and temperature, are almost always
important to park resources. We therefore integrate
temperature and precipitation using a simple water
balance model that estimates changes in soil mois-
ture, evapotranspiration, and ecological water deficit
(Lutz et al. 2010), where water deficit is the difference
between the amount of water available to plants and
the amount of water that plants could use if it were
available. Depending on a park’s circumstances (wet
or dry climate, etc.), changes in water balance can have
implications for surface and/or groundwater flows, fire
hazards, plant distribution and growth, forage availabil-
ity, and other processes important to park management
(Bonan 2008). Furthermore, water deficit may also
serve as a measure of drought.
The scenario-light approach is useful for reducing
the daunting volume of climate change information
into two or three credible, easily understood stories
about future climates. Using this approach, we can
compare historical observations to projections for
best- and worst-case futures. As an example, for the
Bandelier National Monument RSS, we used our sim-
ple water balance model to calculate changes in soil
moisture and drought. Model projections showed that
plant-available moisture would remain about the same
only under the best-case climate future. In contrast,
plant-available moisture under the worst-case future
is greatly reduced, with “good years” under this future
being equivalent to historical drought years. In this
worst-case climate future, droughts are projected to be
more severe and more frequent in just a few decades,
far exceeding anything experienced in the 20th century.
These results, which emerged from a streamlined sce-
nario-light approach, portend important changes to the
park’s ecosystems and challenges to the management
of vegetation, fire, and critical cultural resources. The
climate futures presented helped Bandelier National
Monument managers develop climate-informed goals
and strategies.
Integrating scenarios into strategic planning
at Devils Tower National Monument
The Devils Tower National Monument (DETO) 2017–
2019 RSS development process—a “scenario-heavy”
process—illustrates application of climate change
scenario planning for the same spectrum of resources
as the scenario-light RSS case study above, but with
greater depth in terms of: (1) generating resource-spe-
cific climate futures; (2) developing climate–resource
scenarios; and (3) integrating scenarios into the RSS
process to inform decisionmaking; encompassing all
activities in Figure 2. The scenario-heavy approach
emphasizes understanding climate sensitivities of
priority resources—i.e., the climate variables for which
a change would be most consequential for the park
and its management priorities—in more detail and
therefore yields climate futures expressed in terms
of specific aspects of climate that are tightly linked to
those climate sensitivities (for details, see Schuurman
et al. 2019). The scenario-heavy process also included
park staff, resource experts, and climate adaptation
specialists in a workshop where they developed the
climate futures into robust climate–resource scenarios
that included resource impacts and identified potential
management responses.
By including climate–resource scenarios in the RSS
process, DETO managers developed climate change-in-
formed goals and activities that address implications

PSF 36/1 | 2020 103
(resource responses) common to all or most scenarios,
as well as highly consequential implications unique to
specific scenarios (referred to as “red flag” implica-
tions). For example, three of the four climate–resource
scenarios would result in loss or severe decline of
riparian forests due to changes in flooding regimes and
streamflow, and managers responded to this impli-
cation by modifying their goal of improving riparian
habitat to acknowledge likely changes to woodlands,
including accepting the loss of cottonwoods. In con-
trast, under just one scenario—the wettest—woody
encroachment into culturally significant meadows
was anticipated, but this is a “red flag” implication
because this change would be highly consequential for
ethnographic resources. Therefore, DETO resource
managers modified their current actions by updating
their vegetation monitoring to focus more strongly on
early detection of woody encroachments and shifts in
the woodland–meadow boundary (for more details, see
Schuurman et al. 2019).
Using variables relevant to key park resources also
helps vulnerability assessments identify a broad range
of ways that climate change may affect management.
Although more precise analyses may be warranted for
particularly high-value resources, this approach gave
DETO an integrated understanding of resource vulner-
ability to strategically plan most management activi-
ties.
Conclusion
CCRP has supported and led numerous scenario plan-
ning efforts to help parks prepare for future conditions
under climate change. As evidenced by case studies
reported here, climate change scenario planning spans
a range of complexity and effort, supporting analysis of
multiple plausible, divergent futures in order to devel-
op adaptation strategies. As a result, parks may identify
robust management approaches that work under any
future scenario (i.e., “no regrets” options), manage-
ment approaches likely to be ineffective under any sce-
nario (i.e., “no gainers”), as well as proactive approach-
es that specifically respond to a subset of scenarios that
are highly consequential to achieving parks’ goals.
Partnerships are a key element in the success of
scenario planning efforts. Scenario development is a
process of iterative engagement among CCRP, park re-
source and facility managers and superintendents, NPS
regional staff, climatologists, US Geological Survey
regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers, sub-
ject-matter experts, and professional planners.
Through sustained collaborations over the past decade,
CCRP developed and refined the use of climate futures
and climate–resource scenarios to support repeat-
able, science-based climate adaptation in parks. As the
program moves into its next decade, scenario planning
will continue to support robust resource and facility
management planning and decisions for climate change
adaptation.
For more examples of CCRP scenario planning work,
visit https://www.nps.gov/subjects/climatechange/sce-
narioplanning.htm.
Acknowledgments
We thank and acknowledge Nicholas Fisichelli, Aman-
da Hardy, Cat Hawkins Hoffman, the North Central
Climate Adaptation Science Center, the NPS Denver
Service Center, Brian Miller, Imtiaz Rangwala, Jonathan
Star, Amy Symstad, Don Weeks, and Leigh Welling,
among other numerous colleagues and partners for
their contributions to the development and evolution
of using climate change scenarios to foster adaptation
in national parks.
Endnotes
1. NPS management concerns include natural and
cultural resources, facilities, and the visitor experience,
and climate change scenario planning can be effective
in helping managers address all of them. For brevity,
we use the term “resources” throughout.
2. RCPs are often referred to as “pathways” and “sce-
narios” interchangeably. To avoid confusion with
climate–resource scenarios, here we refer to them
exclusively as “pathways.”
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