Coastal Habitat Conservation in a Changing Climate: Strategies and Tools for the Great Lakes Region

Workshop Goals

• Increase understanding of the current state of the climate science for the Great Lakes region and examine vulnerabilities of Great Lakes coastal habitats and species to climate change
• Provide habitat managers and ecological restoration experts with the tools and information necessary to incorporate climate change into their projects
• Connect federal agencies, states, tribal nations and non-governmental organizations in the Great Lakes region to identify potential strategies and opportunities for collaboration related to climate change adaptation, and identify information gaps
• Initiate or codify development of strategies for incorporating climate change into the conservation of freshwater coastal habitats

Outcomes

Workshop participants will:

1. 1. Examine issues of temporal scale for scientific modeling, regional planning and ecosystem health (e.g. adapting for 10 years, 50 years, 100 years). Identify some potential scenarios for scenario planning.
   2. Examine specific examples for assessing vulnerability of freshwater coastal habitats to a changing climate.
   3. Share knowledge of adaption tactics, strategies and metrics for freshwater habitats to identify best practices.
   4. Identify possible solutions for improving conservation of freshwater coastal habitats in a changing climate and initiate development of collaborative conservation strategies for freshwater coastal habitats that incorporate climate change information.
   5. Increase understanding of the climate related information needs of habitat managers to inform the development of NOAA's climate service efforts.