Watershed Resilience

Predicted changes in climate have major implications for the distribution of water. In order to develop adaptation strategies for watersheds in the state of Washington, scientists investigated 26 watersheds in the Olympic Peninsula and Northern Cascades regions.

The team considered two main approaches:

• Identify areas for protection that are most resistant to the effects of climate change.
• Develop ways to increase resilience of places that are either resistant or simply important despite their vulnerability to climate change.

These strategies are not mutually exclusive and both can play an important role in a comprehensive adaptation plan. The initial approach to developing a climate change adaptation strategy for the watersheds of this region focused on identifying the most resilient watersheds.

Based on nine parameters four watersheds were ranked by the available data as having greater inherent resilience;

• Willapa Bay
• Upper Chehalis
• Deschutes
• Upper Skagit

Following identification of the four watersheds, there was interest in what could be done to improve the odds for other rivers in the region. The same vulnerability data was used to identify where there was opportunity to increase resilience through management and planning actions.

For the purposes of exploring management strategies in a watershed, this group focused on the Stillaguamish River. The major identified vulnerabilities included: transition to rain from snow by 2020, decreasing run-off, increasing temperature of stream water, and increased winter flooding. For each of these vulnerabilities the participants generated an array of possible actions to increase resilience to climate change.

Climate Adaptation Actions

A climate adaptation planning exercise conduced by EcoAdapt, American Rivers, Sierra Club, and National Center for Conservation Science and Policy generated the following list of climate change effects and possible actions to increase resilience to climate change based on regional risks (e.g. Stillaguamish River watershed, Washington). Read more>>