Creating Useful and Useable Climate Tools for Sagebrush Land Management Through Scientist and Manager Collaboration

CBI Senior Climate Change Scientist Dr. Dominique Bachelet and Oregon State University undergraduate student Melanie Brown surveyed land managers from eastern Oregon and western Idaho working in sagebrush country. Their goal was to gather information “to create a blueprint for a practical, nimble, accessible computer tool” to help sagebrush managers prepare for climate change. This work was funded by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Brown conducted a series of phone interviews with land managers to gather feedback. First managers were asked to explore a variety of web pages (e.g. from NOAA and USGS) that provide climate information. To view the Data Basin gallery Brown created for her interviews, please click here. They were asked to provide feedback so Brown and Bachelet could better understand the kind of climate information they needed and design an efficient way to deliver this information to them. In a second phase, managers were asked to give more focused feedback on one of CBI’s early climate console (climateconsole.org/drecp) and on a blueprint displaying climate change impacts created by Melanie based on managers’ feeback.

Based on this second set of recommendations, Bachelet and Brown have been working with Mike Gough, GIS analyst and web developer, and Taylor Mutch, 3D visualization expert, to refine a series of web tools they are creating to inform managers about climate change projections. The first result was a new climate console specifically focused on the Great Basin sagebrush domain (climateconsole.org/sagebrush) and the second is a landscape simulator using state and transition models to simulate future landcover given natural and human disturbances as well as various management strategies to enhance sagebrush resilience and restoration. That second tool is still in development.

CBI and other webinars

1. Creating Useful and Usable Climate Tools for Sagebrush Land Management Through Scientist and Manager Collaboration, Melanie Brown, April 2015
2. Packaging Usable Climate Change Information for Sagebrush Country, Melanie Brown, Nov 2015
3. Usable Climate tools for Land Management, Melanie Brown, Nov 2015
4. Is this what you need? Direct feedback helps climate change information exchange, Dominique Bachelet, June 2016

Presentations at National Meetings

Brown, M., D. Bachelet and T. Sheehan. Developing Usable Climate Tools For Sagebrush Land Managers. Great Basin Consortium Conference: “Climate Programs, Water Limitations, and Geospaces in the Great Basin”, Boise, ID, 17-19 Feb 2015.

Bachelet, D. Developing Usable Climate Tools for Land Managers. North Central CSC Open Science Conference, “Integrating Research and Management of Change from the Mountains to the Plains”, Fort Collins, CO, 20-22 May 2015.

Bachelet, D., M. Brown, M. Gough, T. Sheehan, K. Ferschweiler. So you have data, now what? Sixth Annual Northwest Climate Conference, Coeur D’Alene Nov 3-5, 2015.

Funding: 

The Bureau of Land Management is funding this effort.

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