Climate Change Adaptation in Public Land Management

Climate change adaptation in public land management encompasses a suite of strategies and tools designed to reduce vulnerability and enhance the capacity of landscapes and institutions to respond to shifting climatic conditions. Public land managers—across forests, parks, rangelands and water catchments—face rising temperatures, altered precipitation regimes and more frequent extreme events such as drought and wildfire. Adaptation actions range from fine-scale interventions, such as assisted migration of tree species, to landscape-scale planning that accommodates likely regime shifts in ecosystem composition. Institutional dimensions—including governance structures, cross-agency collaboration and community engagement—play a critical role in determining whether scientific insights translate into on-the-ground change. Emerging approaches emphasise co-production of knowledge, iterative vulnerability assessments and flexible decision-making under uncertainty. By integrating scenario planning, modelling tools and participatory processes, managers can develop robust strategies that balance objectives of conservation, resource use and social well-being. The global significance of this work lies in its potential to sustain ecosystem services, protect biodiversity and safeguard human communities dependent on public lands.

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Climate Change Adaptation in Public Land Management publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in climate change adaptation in public land management across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Adaptive capacity: The ability of systems, institutions or communities to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities or to respond to consequences of climate change.

Vulnerability assessment: A systematic evaluation of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity that identifies which resources or populations are most at risk under climate change.

Scenario planning: A structured method for envisioning a range of plausible future conditions, used to test and refine management strategies under uncertainty.

Resilience: The capacity of an ecosystem or institution to absorb disturbance, reorganise and retain essential functions, structures and feedbacks.

Regime shift: A substantial, often abrupt change in an ecosystem’s structure and function, leading to a new set of prevailing conditions.

References

1. Adapting to extreme events: small drinking water system manager perspectives on the 2012–2016 California Drought. Climatic Change (2022).
2. Navigating Climate Adaptation on Public Lands: How Views on Ecosystem Change and Scale Interact with Management Approaches. Environmental Management (2020).
3. Conservation under uncertainty: Innovations in participatory climate change scenario planning from U.S. national parks. Conservation Science and Practice (2022).