Landscape to regional strategies for dryland climate adaptationproject dates: 7 2 2025 through 7 1 2028AWARD purpose: in the context of drought and invasive species, conservation and restoration…

Award Details: Northern Arizona University received a $219,337 Cooperative Agreement from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Research and Data Collection program (CFDA 15.808) on July 2, 2025, for a three-year performance period concluding July 1, 2028. The award supports research on landscape to regional strategies for dryland climate adaptation in sagebrush ecosystems.

Products and Services: The project will deliver spatially explicit mapping and management strategy recommendations to support conservation and restoration efforts in sagebrush regions facing drought and invasive species threats. Primary research products include predictive models estimating future sagebrush habitat quality and resistance-resilience (R-R) conditions under projected climate scenarios, culminating in maps showing all future combinations of habitat quality and R-R across multiple climate models and emissions scenarios. Following model development, the project team will engage the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) Conservation Design Team to identify and validate appropriate land management strategies and tactics aligned with the Resist-Accept-Direct climate adaptation framework. The research directly supports U.S. House Natural Resources Committee priorities including grazing management, natural climate solutions, and wildlife agency empowerment, providing decision-makers with science-based tools for sustaining sagebrush ecosystems in changing climatic conditions.

Activities

This project will use results from ongoing research to create models that estimate future sagebrush habitat quality and future r r conditions under projected climate conditions. The full set of results will be used to generate maps of future habitat quality x r r for each climate model and RCP combination. The results will be used to identify the most likely future condition as well and the uncertainty in that projection. Following the creation of maps showing all future combinations of habitat quality and r r, project staff will engage the broader western association of fish and wildlife agencies (wafwa) conservation design team to identify and VET appropriate strategies and tactics for managing land in those conditions.deliverables and expected outcomes: this project has two major categories of research products. First, the project will generate spatially explicit datasets representing the combination of potential future conditions of big sagebrush habitat quality and ecological resistance resilience. Second, publications and reports will be developed that identify and describe climate adaptation strategies and tactics for all abundant combinations of habitat quality and r r across the sagebrush region. In combination, these products will help resource managers (1) recognize the current and future status of their areas in terms of both habitat quality and r r, and (2) identify potential management strategies for resisting transformation, accepting changes, or directing their resources toward new conditions that are more sustainable under future conditions.intended beneficiary(IES): the research results and datasets generated by this work will benefit land managers across the rural western U.S. These managers include federal, state, and tribal land management agencies as well as private land managers and ranchers.

Subrecipient activities

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