This project is intended to provide a basis for adaptation and resilience planning in 7 million acres across 8 counties that contain California’s primary (most productive) watersheds. This region’s exceptional biodiversity, diversity of geophysical characteristics and ownership pattern, combined with the higher probability of habitat type persistence, means that it will likely provide quality habitats for a wide range of California species in the future if higher functionality and resilience can be restored and connectivity of protected habitats can be achieved. We propose to develop an integrated model combining spatially explicit climate risk maps with target plant and wildlife species and habitat climate vulnerability rankings, and then align these with specific restoration and conservation actions to promote habitat and watershed function and resilience. We will combine these with data that represents fire risk, such as fire return interval and output models of fire risk from the Fourth California Climate Vulnerability Assessment, to develop landscape-scale maps that show the relative climate risks and resilience within each of the five watersheds. This project will provide a decision support tool for prioritizing conservation and restoration investment as well as other land use management decisions by a range of user audiences from agencies to counties to landowners and non-profits. The model outputs will help gauge potential success and ecological returns of conservation and restoration investments for climate adaptation purposes in a vitally important climate refugium.

This watershed area circling California’s northern Sacramento Valley is rich in biodiversity, habitats and water resources. Home to the most biodiverse conifer forests globally, as well as many threatened, endangered, and endemic species, they are the location of California’s most important watersheds and reservoirs, serving as the backbone of the state’s water system. Climate change analyses show the region has been cooler and wetter than the rest of the state over the past hundred years, and projections (Thorne et al. 2017, 2016) indicate that the region will remain cooler and wetter than much of the rest of the state as climate change progresses. There is significant likelihood that habitats present today will persist under climate change, and further that the region will be a significant climate refugium for species which must migrate due to changing conditions elsewhere in the state (Michilak et al. 2018). This project will provide a critical decision support tool for making decisions on priority investments to meet the state’s adaptation goals.

Climate Smart Biodiversity Conservation in California: A model approach in the Sacramento River Headwaters Region – Briefing on Final Findings (2/24/2021)

Read the final report here.