Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation on CONUS Military Installations

Abstract

Military installations must be maintained and managed to provide appropriate training and testing opportunities. As climate changes, natural areas on installations may shift, and the costs to maintain training and testing areas may change. This chapter looks across continental U.S. (CONUS) installations with respect to the habitat and erosion consequences associated with climate forecasts from four Global Climate Models (GCMs). Habitat is important from two perspectives: its ability to support training and testing, and its capacity to meet federal requirements regarding the maintenance of listed threatened and endangered species. That capacity can change due to shifts in weather patterns, flooding, drought potential, and annual temperature patterns. With substantial change, species can be directly affected by invasive species, loss and fragmentation of habitat, or increased disease and predation. Population losses for these species can result in loss of training lands and/or time. Additionally, climate change might result in changes in erosion patterns and intensity, which can also directly affect training. This chapter begins an exploration of how climate change forecasts can be converted to forecasts regarding potential challenges to habitats and species and potential impacts on erosion at each of about 130 CONUS installations. The chapter concludes with recommendations on how to adapt to these changes.