Objective

Climate change - via sea-level rise and altered weather patterns - is expected to significantly alter low-lying coastal and intertidal areas, which provide seasonal habitat for a variety of shoreline-dependent organisms, including threatened, endangered, and at-risk (TER-S) bird species. Many coastal military installations in Florida have significant coastal habitat for TER-S birds, including piping plover (Charadrius melodus) and snowy plover (Charadrius alexandrinus). Shoreline-dependent bird survey data for these installations strongly illustrate their seasonal importance for these birds. Potential land use changes and human population increases, coupled with uncertain predictions for sea-level rise and storm frequency and intensity, have created a significant planning challenge for natural resource managers in coastal areas.

The overall objective of this project is to integrate multiscale climate, land use, and ecosystem information into a systematic tool set to explore how climate variability and change effects may affect habitat and population dynamics for TER-S birds, particularly for the snowy plover, on selected coastal Florida military sites. Simplified habitat effects on the piping plover and red knot (Calidris canutus) also will be assessed. Specific objectives include: (1) assessing current vulnerability scenarios and information on selected Florida bases by documenting and reviewing Florida-specific climate and land-use databases and information; (2) developing a set of habitat- and species-based models for selected TER-S; (3) assessing the current prediction level and assumptions of selected categories of TER-S models for use in benchmarking model performance and uncertainty levels; and (4) integrating the scientific data, modeling, and uncertainty results into a risk-informed, multicriteria decision analysis system to enable systematic analysis of potential management options.