Landscape Analysis and Climate Change

(2008)
Preparer

Rebecca S.H. Kennedy, Research Ecologist, PNW Research Station

The current versions of this paper (2014) are available at

www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/landscape-analysis

Issue
Landscape analysis involves the assessment of features of a landscape in
relation to any of a group of factors such as land use change; shifts in hydrology,
forest harvest, or other disturbance; topography; historical vegetation conditions;
past and potential future climate change; and other factors. A landscape may be
considered as an area larger than a forest stand and smaller than a region, but
for practical purposes in forest management, a landscape is a level of analysis
that may be of any size, depending on the question of interest. As such, the
scope of landscape analysis may encompass multiple disciplines, such as other
topic areas in this climate change impacts assessment, but the questions asked
are typically at a scale that is relevant to forest management and planning. The
key issue is that landscape analysis must incorporate climate change if it is to
accurately represent potential future conditions in landscapes.

Landscapes bridge the gap between stands with microclimate and regions with
macroclimate. The scaling of climate and its potential effects on vegetation and
other landscape elements is a key problem in current landscape analysis
research. Landscape analysis involves the evaluation of vegetation patterns and
linkage of patterns to underlying processes, as well as the interaction of pattern
and process (such as vegetation patterns vs. fire and climate processes). How
might vegetation communities change in areas of high topographic relief in the
Western United States, where the influences of macro- and microclimate may be
complex and potentially contradictory? How might climate change, vegetation,
and disturbances such as fire, forest management, insects, disease, and invasive
species, interact over time to modify landscape patterns of vegetation, carbon
sequestration, and biodiversity?
Expected Changes
Projected climate change will probably have direct effects on site productivity and
biogeography, but also indirect effects on vegetation through changes in fire,
insect, and disease disturbances (Carroll et al. 2003, Dale et al. 2001, Parry et al.
2007). For example, the distribution of cool coniferous forests (e.g., Abies
amabilis) in the western Cascade Range may shrink, whereas dry mixed-conifer
forests dominated by ponderosa pine may expand (Shafer et al. 2001).

Wildfire frequency and duration in landscapes of the Western United States have
increased since the mid-1980s, resulting from subregional responses to changes
in climate. The Northern Rockies have seen the greatest increases, followed by
the Sierra Nevada, southern Cascade Range, and northern California and
southern Oregon Coast Ranges (Westerling et al. 2006). In northern California,
land use changes may also be involved. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change's projected warming (1.5 to 5.8 °C by the end of the 21st century) is far
greater than that observed (0.9 °C) in recent decades in the West. These
conditions compound the increased fire risk resulting from fire suppression and
resulting fuel buildup during the 20th century (Keeton et al. 2007).

It should be noted that model results reflect the current status of our knowledge
about a topic. Parameters are typically set and input data prepared based on a
combination of the best scientific information available and the modeling
environment (e.g., technical constraints). As our information about both the
ecological systems and the pertinent elements of climate change grow, so will
our ability to more precisely and accurately estimate projected changes to
forested landscapes. Given that, the climate changes listed below are likely and
relevant to landscapes of the Western United States.

● Variability in fire regimes in California is projected to increase as

interspersed wet and dry years lead to a cycle of wetter years, promoting
more biomass growth, which leads to more and higher severity fires during
dry years (Lenihan et al. 2003).
● Climate change appears to cause major shifts in landscape vegetation
dynamics, which is exacerbated if fire regimes change independently of
biophysical conditions; this was established by simulating potential future
landscape conditions and assessing the departure of simulated future
landscape composition from reference conditions (Keane et al. 2008).
 ● The area burned in wildfires is expected to increase under both
warmer/wetter and warmer/drier climate change scenarios (3.6 °C added
to maximum and minimum daily temperatures, daily rainfall amount
multiplied by 1.2 [wetter] or 0.8 [drier]), with a larger increase in area
burned under the warmer/drier scenario, according to a set of landscape
fire succession models applied to a simulation landscape (Cary et al.
2006).
● In the Western United States and at the continental scale (1 km), long-term
satellite data show consistently earlier onsets of spring greening and
corresponding increases in length of growing season (Schwartz et al.
2002). Wildfire responses to an earlier spring differ across the West and by
elevation, with the northern Rockies and Northern California being the
most vulnerable, and with higher elevations buffered somewhat from the
effects of increased temperature by the relatively short dry season and the
available moisture there (Westerling et al. 2006).

Considerations for Management

Increased disturbance and other surprises are likely; behaviors that lead to
ecosystem resilience may be more likely to achieve management objectives.

Variability in the response of attributes within and among landscapes is likely:

individuality of place may be highly relevant to local ecosystem response.
Responses to climate change are likely to differ locally depending on a variety of
environmental and other factors. Generalizations about response could easily be
erroneous because of local conditions.

Landscapes are dynamic and the range of conditions over time in one place in
the landscape or across the landscape at one time may vary. Managers may
build resiliency if they do not apply the same approach everywhere. Likewise,
building redundancy into the system, which may involve increasing the total area
of critical habitat in order to mitigate disturbance effects on biodiversity, may also
be of key importance as disturbance-climate change interactions are projected.

Key Questions
Are there interactions among climate change, fire, and insect outbreaks in
western forests? If so, do the relationships vary by topographic position and
forest type?

What might be the change in habitat available for the northern spotted owl and
other late-successional and old-growth-associated species under a fire regime
modified by climate change?

What might be the shift in vegetation conditions, such as species mixtures, size
and structure classes, patch sizes, and related fire risk, in the dry forests of the
intermountain West, under various climate change scenarios?

How might forest management in the wildland-urban interface be designed to

mitigate the effects of climate change on forest vegetation?