In January 2012, TRIG released Toward a Resilient Watershed: Addressing Climate Change Planning in Watershed Assessments. This guidebook is intended to complement or supplement a watershed assessment process by posing questions of how climate change will impact the structure and function of the watershed. The guidebook helps watershed managers understand how future climate scenarios could affect their management decisions and identifies proactive measures to improve the resilience of stream habitat and water quality.
The guidebook includes the following components:
- Section I covers key watershed fundamentals and provides an overview of potential climate risks to watersheds;
- Section II describes a process for developing future climate scenarios and identifying consequences to a watershed;
- Section III provides questions to address and sample activities for key components of the watershed assessment process (following the Oregon Watershed Assessment Manual technical chapters); and
- Section IV provides an overview on the benefits of monitoring and sample indicators for evaluating a watershed’s level of resilience.
The authors developed the guidebook using results and input from an eighteen-month climate and watershed project, funded by the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board. While the information is based on studying Oregon’s watersheds, the authors intended for the recommendations to be applicable to other regions across the country.
For more information, please contact: Stacy Vynne stacy@trig-cli.org 541-654-4048