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Analysis and Visualization of Climate Information to Support USFWS Species Status Assessments

Project Information

Proposed Project Completion: September 2023
Principal Investigator(s) Kathie Dello, State Climate Office of North Carolina, North Carolina State University
Co-Investigator(s):
Jennifer Costanza, North Carolina State University
Rebecca Ward, State Climate Office of North Carolina
Darrian Bertrand, State Climate Office of North Carolina
Corey Davis, State Climate Office of North Carolina
John McGuire, State Climate Office of North Carolina
Cooperator(s):
Karen McNeal, Auburn University
Alexa McKerrow, USGS Core Science Systems
Jaime Collazo, USGS NC Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
Adam Terando, USGS Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center
Implements Science Plan Theme: Impacts

Key Points

  • Created a tool to support state and local resource managers with SSAs
  • Increased availability of data to make SSAs more accurate
  • Better understanding of how climate change will impact a range of endangered species

Overview

The Endangered Species Act requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to evaluate the status of at-risk plants and animals. A Species Status Assessment (SSA) is a scientific report made by USFWS for each at-risk species. SSAs are currently needed for hundreds of species, many of which are in the Southeast region. To write an SSA, teams must understand risks to species or their habitat due to changes in climate, hydrology, and land use. Several stressors threaten these species, like urbanization, habitat loss, and climate change. 

This project created a web-based tool to help USFWS biologists include climate information in SSAs. The tool, CAnVAS, maps projections of climate metrics known to impact endangered species. Users can apply each risk to the map as a data layer. Maps focus on the most relevant climate and ecological metrics that may impact a species. 

We tested CAnVAS by eye-tracking users to make sure the maps were useful for USFWS scientists. CAnVAS aims to help these scientists access and apply the climate information they need. Thus, the accuracy and quality of SSAs can advance.

Use the tool here: https://products.climate.ncsu.edu/canvas/

How to Use the Tool