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Chequamegon-‐Nicolet National Forest Watershed Vulnerability Assessment, Eastern Region (R9) data is available for 14 global circulation models (GCMs) and three future scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions (A2, A1B, B1). It was developed by downscaling the coarse-scale climate projections of the GCMs. The ideal approach for climate change analyses would be to model the effects for all 14 GCMs and all three scenarios to evaluate the full range of potential climate change impacts. Given limited time and resources, this assessment used just one GCM, the GFDL-CM2.0, and one scenario for one pixel of data located on the Park Falls unit of the CNNF. The A1B scenario was selected because it provides an intermediate level of greenhouse gas emissions relative to the other scenarios. Wetlands Potential changes in wetland hydrology were determined using the Peatland Hydrologic Impact Model (PHIM) (Guertin et al. 1987; Brooks et al. 1995). PHIM is a physically-based, continuous simulation model for predicting water yield and streamflow from peatland and upland watersheds typical of the northern Great Lakes region. The PHIM was run with 40 years of historic climate data (1961-2000) and 20 years of projected climate data (2046-2065). The potential effect of climate change on bog hydrology was evaluated by determining differences in average annual and seasonal runoff and evaporation from the upland-peatland complex, and average annual and seasonal water level in the bog. The results were extrapolated to all HUC-6 watersheds encompassing the National Forest based on the proportion of total wetland and acid wetland in each HUC-6 watershed. Groundwater Recharge The groundwater recharge portion of the analysis focused on the Park Falls unit of the Forest to take advantage of a recently initiated project characterizing groundwater resources on this portion of the Forest. This project is being conducted by the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey (WGNHS) and United States Geological Survey (USGS). Potential changes in groundwater recharge were determined for the Park Falls unit using the Soil Water Balance Model (SWBM) (Westenbroek et al. 2010; Dripps and Bradbury 2007). The SWBM estimates recharge using gridded watershed data and tabular climatic data. The watershed data include soil water capacity, hydrologic soil group (HSG), flow direction, and land use. The results of the Park Falls modeling were extrapolated to all HUC-6s encompassing the National Forest based on the proportion of HSG in each HUC-6. Watersheds with no or reduced recharge were considered most vulnerable while those with increases in recharge were considered least vulnerable or most resilient. Infrastructure-Culverts The analysis included four primary steps: (1) evaluating climate change projections to determine the potential for increases in flood magnitudes, (2) reviewing culvert sizing criteria and hydraulic modeling results, (3) determining road-stream crossing density and runoff potential for HUC-6s within the CNNF, and (4) characterizing the vulnerability of HUC-6s to increased flood flows and failure of culvert infrastructure based on steps 1-3. WICCI summary data were evaluated for evidence that flood flows may increase in the future. Key data used for this evaluation were projections for the frequency of 1-, 2-, and 3-inch rainstorms and for annual and seasonal precipitation and air temperatures. 238 Assessing the Vulnerability of Watersheds to Climate Change
Chequamegon-‐Nicolet National Forest Watershed Vulnerability Assessment, Eastern Region (R9) Culvert sizing criteria were obtained from the CNNF Forest Plan (USDA Forest Service 2004) and Stream Simulation (USDA Forest Service 2008) guidelines. The results of hydraulic modeling for a select number of recent culvert replacements on the CNNF were reviewed and compared to the culvert sizing criteria. These included several sites with low to moderate runoff potential and one with high runoff potential. The number of road-stream crossings and their density (#/sq mi) within the CNNF boundary were determined from an inventory conducted by the CNNF. The watersheds were placed into one of four classes based on road-stream crossing density. Runoff potential was estimated from hydrologic soil groups. Watersheds were placed into one of four classes based on their average HSG rating. The vulnerability of individual HUC-6s to increased flood flows and failure of culvert infrastructure was estimated by combining the road-stream crossing density and runoff potential classes. The ratings for these two parameters were combined to classify the vulnerability of each HUC-6 as either very low, low, moderate, or high. In this classification, HSG ratings were given twice the weight of crossing density ratings because HUC-6s with high runoff potential were expected to experience higher increases in flow, making infrastructure in those watersheds more vulnerable than watersheds with low runoff potential, regardless of the crossing density. Stream Fishes The analysis included two primary steps: (1) evaluating statewide modeling of the potential impacts of climate warming on stream fish distributions at the Forest level, and (2) summarizing those results to characterize the vulnerability of cold and cool-transitional stream fishes to climate change at the watershed scale. Lyons et al. (2010) analyzed the potential effects of climate change on water temperature and 50 stream fishes in Wisconsin. They utilized habitat models developed from the Wisconsin aquatic gap program to estimate existing and future distributions of each fish. These models were applied to 86,898 km of stream (at the 1:100,000 scale) in Wisconsin under four different climate scenarios, including current conditions, minor warming (summer air temperature increases 1 °C and water 0.8 o C), moderate warming (air 3 o C and water 2.4 o C) and major warming (air 5 o C and water 4.0 o C). The water temperature increase of 0.8 o C for each 1.0 o C increase in air temperature used in their study was an oversimplification necessitated by the statewide study that did not take into account how groundwater input, land uses, or changes in flow might alter the response of streams to air temperature increases. For the CNNF analysis, the GIS layers of predicted fish distributions developed by Lyons et al. (2010) were obtained for 15 fish species from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) and USGS. The selected species included 2 cold water fishes (brook trout and mottled sculpin), 8 cool or transitional water fishes (blacknose dace, brook stickleback, creek chub, longnose dace, northern hogsucker, northern redbelly dace, walleye, white sucker) and 5 warm water fishes (black crappie, hornyhead chub, logperch, smallmouth bass, and stonecat). The distributions for each climate scenario and species were intersected with CNNF HUC-6 delineations. The amount of predicted habitat for the current climate and moderate warming was determined for each species by HUC-6 and for all HUC-6s combined. One additional cold water species, brown trout, was modeled but not carried through the analysis. The vulnerability of individual HUC-6s was estimated by determining the percentage change in habitat for each species in the watershed. That percentage was based on the total habitat for all HUC-6s for that species. Within each HUC-6, cold and cool water species were combined by calculating a simple arithmetic average. Each HUC-6 was then classified according to its vulnerability to climate change 239 Assessing the Vulnerability of Watersheds to Climate Change
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AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS Authors* M
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ASSESSSING THE VULNERABILITY OF WAT
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staff; the task group included repr
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Figure 2. Conceptual model for asse
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Figure 3. Density of springs and sm
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Using Historic Data One finding con
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NF (Region 8) relied on information
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level of uncertainty. Though there
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climate (Casola et al. 2005). Only
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sensitivity. Most were derived from
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The sensitivity evaluation typicall
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in exposure. The result of combinin
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highest priority for management act
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to information affected the assessm
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with and rely on in many resource d
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Pilot National Forest Reports Conte
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Assessment of Watershed Vulnerabili
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Gallatin National Forest Watershed
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Helena National Forest Watershed Vu
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