Climate change is already impacting our national parks. Whether it is the increasing risk of wildland fires, sea level rise that is encroaching on cultural heritage sites, or prolonged droughts that are affecting the makeup of ecosystems, the effects of climate change pose significant challenges to sustainable management of parks resources. How can adaptation to these impacts be incorporated into long-term NPS planning? How can managers consider uncertain climate futures while planning for the future? And how must we rethink our approaches to stewardship as we adapt to the increasing reality of climate change?

Intern Ben harper smiles in front of his computer
Me at my NPS-provided workstation. My remote position allows me to work with park staff around the country. (Photo Credit: Ben Harper)

These are the kinds of questions I am helping to address in my SIP fellowship. My name is Ben Harper and I am currently getting my master’s in Climate and Society from Columbia University, where I study the science of climate change, its impact on social systems, and policy to address it. I am interested in translating scientific knowledge to help decisionmakers ensure effective and equitable adaptation to climate change, and that is why I am excited to be working with the Denver Service Center (DSC) Planning Division this summer. The DSC provides support around the entire national parks system for a variety of planning processes, including natural and cultural resource stewardship and visitor use management. As a planning assistant, my role is to help with the integration of climate change across this spectrum of planning types. I also serve as a liaison with the NPS Climate Change Response Program, which provides research and technical expertise to help parks address climate change. Working with a variety of planners, natural resource specialists, and park managers, I help to identify how climate change impacts park goals, determine the best adaptation options, and develop plans to put them into practice. 

While parks have been adapting to climate change for some time, there is still a long way to go to fully integrate it into planning processes. In 2021, NPS published the report Planning for a Changing Climate (P4CC) that outlined two main principles for addressing climate change in planning processes. First, parks should establish forward-looking goals. Traditional natural resource management uses historical ranges as a baseline for decision making, but climate change creates “changing baselines” that force managers to rethink what is normal, from the extreme temperatures faced by over three-quarters of parks to the dangerous storm surges that threaten coastal park infrastructure and ecosystems. 

A diagram of a forecast planning, represented by a simple path to a set of trees, next to scenario planning, represented by many complex paths to trees burning, in water, and in sunlight
Scenario planning is an approach to climate adaptation planning that incorporates multiple plausible climate futures when considering actions. (Source: NPS –  Planning for a Changing Climate)

Second, parks should consider future climate conditions by using “scenario planning.” There is often a lot of uncertainty in climate projections–we don’t know what future human emissions will look like or the scale of some climate impacts, which means that  managers must consider a range of climate futures. In White Sands National Park, for example, planners had to find strategies that would be sufficient for both a “warm and wet” scenario with moderately increasing temperatures and increasing precipitation, and a “hot and dry” scenario with severely higher temperatures and decreasing precipitation. In my fellowship, my role is to help incorporate this guidance from P4CC into the entire portfolio of parks planning processes.

At the heart of my position is the integration of science into decision making, translating climate information into useful forms to ensure that park planners can make the best decisions possible. I am excited to be using my background and passion for science translation to help protect the incredible natural and cultural resources of our natural parks. My SIP fellowship is a remote position, which provides me with opportunities to work with park managers, planners, and scientists from across the NPS and learn about many possible actions for adapting to climate change. While climate change poses enormous challenges to the diverse services the national parks provide, I am optimistic that with strategic, long-term, informed planning efforts we can make our parks more resilient to these changes. 

Stay tuned for more updates this summer on how NPS is including climate adaptation in its planning strategies!