Project Information

Project Timeline: This project is complete.
Principal Investigator(s): Adam J Terando, USGS National CASC

Co-Investigator(s):

• Murali Haran, Penn State University
• Nathan Urban, Penn State University
• Klaus Keller, Penn State University
• Katharine Hayhoe, Texas Tech University
• Van Wilson, USGS Mississippi Water Science Center
• Glenn R Guntenspergen, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
• Scott Wilson, USGS National Wetlands Center
• Nathaniel G Plant, USGS Coastal Geology Science Center
• Alexa McKerrow, USGS Biogeographic Characterization
• Jennifer Costanza, North Carolina State University
• Jaime A Collazo, USGS North Carolina Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
• Barry Grand, USGS Alabama Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
• Max Post van der Burg, USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
• Jim Peterson, USGS Oregon Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
• Lauren E. Hay, USGS Branch of Regional Research, Central Region
• Steven L. Markstrom, USGS Branch of Regional Research, Central Region
• Roland Viger, USGS Branch of Regional Research, Central Region
• Nathaniel L. Booth, USGS Office of Water Information
• Robert B Jacobson, USGS Columbia Environmental Research Center
• Caroline M Elliott, USGS Columbia Environmental Research Center
• John W. Jones, USGS Eastern Region Geography
• Mary C Freeman, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Key Points

• Supported subprojects researching a range of topics with results helping to understand the long-term sustainability of wildlife and habitats.
• Changes the standard of using current environmental conditions to assess conservation value and incorporated climate change impacts into assessments
• Created a suite of climate and ecological projections for both coastal and terrestrial habitats, species, and communities

Overview

The Southeast US has a wide range of ecosystems, flora, and fauna. But, human development and climate change threatens many of these ecosystems. Resource managers need to adapt their current conservation efforts. Increasing ecosystem resilience is a new focus for conservation.

Climate change challenges many strategies used by conservation planners and managers. Decisions assumed management actions, not climate, would change the conditions of the land. But, climate change will likely change important factors like temperature and precipitation. This makes it very hard to maintain conditions in conservation lands. We need to make new strategies that consider the effects of climate and land-use change.

The Southeast Regional Assessment Project (SERAP) provides data and outreach to support resource managers. SERAP’s goal is to help managers adapt to challenges faced by climate change. SERAP included several subprojects, listed below.

SERAP: Assessment of Climate and Land Use Change Impacts on Terrestrial Species

This project combined urbanization and vegetation models with regional climate models. This assessed how landscape change could impact priority species like North American land birds. These models project locations where climate change impacts are most likely to occur. This helps resource managers understand the long-term sustainability of bird populations.

​​SERAP: Assessment of Shoreline Retreat in Response to Sea Level Rise

Many complex factors influence coastal systems. This creates large uncertainties in predicting long-term sea-level rise impacts. This project used a Bayesian network (BN) to predict long-term shoreline change associated with sea-level rise. A BN is a probabilistic model that is useful when considering many factors and impacts at once. This project made probabilistic predictions of shoreline retreat in response to different future sea level rise rates.

SERAP: Comprehensive Web-based Climate Change Projections: Downscaled Maps and Data

This project made a collection of downscaled climate change projections. These projections can be used at local and regional scales. This lets scientists and decision-makers better assess climate related ecosystem impacts. Users are able to freely access the data via an interactive interface.

SERAP: Modeling of Global and Land Use Change Impacts

Many urban growth models are very local, and aren’t useful for mapping large regions. This project used the USGS SLEUTH urban growth model to create urbanization scenarios across larger areas. These areas include several Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) in the Southeast US. These models help LCCs understand the impacts of urban growth on conservation.

SERAP: The Effects of Climate Change on Aquatic Species and Habitat in the Southeast

This project studied how climate change can affect land cover and flow in river systems. Results help project future conditions of aquatic habitats and species.

SERAP: Decision Support for Stakeholders and Managers

This project worked with stakeholders and managers in the Southeast to identify landscape-level conservation strategies. These strategies use projections from downscaled climate models and other ecological models.

More Information

Read USGS Fact Sheet and USGS Open File Report (2010) detailing SERAP project plans.
Link to the USGS Geo Data Portal