Climate and Sustainability

This website, and all linked websites under the control of the agency, is under review and content may change.

USDA has released the Climate Risk Viewer (Beta versions), a tool to assess climate risks and vulnerabilities on national forests and grasslands. Additional actions to implement the direction from the Executive Order and the Secretary’s memo are forthcoming, including the finalization of a threat analysis on mature and old-growth forests and a proposed new national policy for monitoring the health of national forests and grasslands. The Forest Service will continue to advance strategies and engage critical partners to build resilience and ensure future actions are responsive to the significant climate stressors that forests face.

The Forest Service approach for adapting to climate change encompasses agency-wide, climate-specific strategies and program-by-program efforts to integrate climate-related policies and guidance. This balanced and proactive approach enables the agency to restore and maintain resilient ecosystems through smart policy and forward-thinking management. The map shown displays the Intermountain Regional map with sub-region boundaries and if selected will display larger.

Since fiscal year 2022, the agency has been reporting on climate change accomplishments through the Climate Action Tracker, moving the agency’s focus from being climate ready to climate actionable. It includes elements of climate vulnerability, climate adaptation, monitoring, carbon stewardship, and sustainable operations. An introduction to some of the regional programs may be seen through this Intermountain Climate Action Tracker Story Map.

The Climate Action Tracker is a follow-up to the Climate Change Performance Scorecard and the Sustainability Scorecard. In 2011, each National Forest and Grassland started using a 10-point climate change performance scorecard to report accomplishments and plans for improvement on ten questions in four dimensions – organizational capacity, engagement, adaptation, and mitigation. The expectation was for units to be able to answer yes to at least seven of the scorecard questions, with at least one yes in each dimension. The agency achieved this goal in fiscal year 2016.

Intermountain Adaptation Partners is a Forest Service science-management collaboration with the following goals:

• Increase climate change awareness.
• Assess the vulnerability of natural resources and ecosystem services to climate change; and
• Develop science-based adaptation strategies that can be used by national forests to understand and mitigate the effects of climate change.

The Intermountain Adaptation Partners is an Adaptation Partners Project. The Intermountain Region Sustainability/Climate Coordinator is Natalie Little.

• Climate Adaptation Resources
• Climate Change Resource Center
• Forest Service – Sustainability and Climate
• National Climate Assessment
• National Climate Change website
• United States Drought Monitor

   Intermountain Regional Climate Assessment - General Technical Report (GTR) is Available

• General Technical Report - Part 1
• General Technical Report - Part 2

The citation for the GTR is: “Halofsky, J.E.; Peterson, D.L.; Ho, J.J.; Little, N.J.; Joyce, L.A. (eds.). Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation in the Intermountain Region. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-375. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 2018.”

Roll-out workshop for the Intermountain Adaptation Partners climate assessment

In May of 2018, the Intermountain Region of the Forest Service had a regional climate assessment. The May roll-out workshop was a success and gave Forest Service Specialists and partners opportunities to connect and start using the assessment in land management.

The following items were presented over three days, but they still hold a wealth of information to read.

Presentations

• Intermountain Region's Subregions Climate Assessment
• Introducing the Adaptation Workbook
• Water & Fish in a Climate
• Adapting Recreation to a Changing Climate
• Effects of  Climatic Variability & Change on Forest Vegetation
• Effects of Climate Change on Ecological Disturbances
• Using the Adaptation Workbook: A Project Level Approach to Climate Adaptation
• Delivering Climate Change Information in the Forest Service
• Understanding Forest Carbon and Relevance for Managing NFS Lands

Climate Adaptation Resources

• Climate Change Adaptation Library for the Western United States
• Forest Adaptation Resources: climate change tools and approaches for land managers, 2nd edition
• Adaptation Worksheet - fillable

The following Forest Service key documents help integrate climate change adaptation into agency-wide policies:

• Forest Service Strategic Framework for Responding to Climate Change
• The National Roadmap for Responding to Climate Change)   
• USDA Forest Service Climate Adaptation Plan (2022)   
• USFS 2012 Planning Rule  (219.6 Assessment,  pg. 21263)