Conservation planners and practitioners increasingly wonder how they should revise conservation strategies in the face of the unprecedented threat to biodiversity from climate change. One key step is to consider the relatively consistent spatial patterns that characterize the “geography of climate exposure and resilience”. A qualitative understanding of these patterns can help planners craft conservation strategies that are more resilient to uncertainty regarding the future intensity of climate change.

The Climate Resilience Data Explorer is a web application that allows users to view, summarize, and generate reports regarding 10 key metrics related to climate resilience. The goals of this Climate Resilience Data Explorer are to familiarize users with climate resilience concepts, explore information resources that can help conservation practitioners enhance climate resilience and connectivity and address climate change threats in the context of regional planning, and to support conservation management that increases the adaptive capacity of the landscape and its ability to support native species and ecosystems into the future by protecting areas which play a key role in facilitating climate adaptation and mitigation.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE TO OPEN THE APPLICATION

The web application consists of two type of modules. The two explorers allow viewing of data and generation of reports summarizing metrics for North America's watersheds and management areas, respectively (Figure 1 below). The tours, located below the explorers on the app's home page, provide tutorials on how the metrics are generated and how they can be interpreted (Figure 2 below). 

This application works best when viewed through a modern web-browser such as Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Firefox. The application is still being developed and updated. Please check back frequently for the latest version.

Figure 1. Screenshot of application's climate metric explorer which allows viewing and report generation for North America's watersheds.

Figure 2. Screenshot of application's protected area tour which provides a tutorial on how metrics can be interpreted for major protected areas in the Yellowstone-to-Yukon region.

Cite this app and the reports generated from it as: 

Beckers J, Carroll C. 2020. Adaptwest climate resilience data explorer. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3824538

For further information and citation refer to:

Carroll C, Noss RF. 2020. Rewilding in the face of climate change. Conservation Biology (Early View). doi: 10.1111/cobi.13531.

Development of this application was supported by AdaptWest (with support from the Wilburforce Foundation) and the Canadian Forest Service of Natural Resources Canada.