As climate change and other stressors increasingly threaten ecosystem health, natural-resource agencies and their partners and stakeholders are wrestling with similar management challenges and seeking common, coordinated solutions. Called for by both Congress and the Executive Branch, the National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy (NFWPCAS or Strategy) was developed collectively by diverse teams of experts from Federal, state, and tribal conservation agencies and through an extensive national...

In April 2016, USGCRP released The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment (Climate and Health Assessment), a significant advancement in understanding of the impacts of climate change on human health. It strengthens the finding in previous literature that climate change increases health risks for all Americans, that certain populations are particularly vulnerable, and that these threats are likely to increase as climate change progresses. In particular, an annual...

Scenarios are plausible alternative futures, each describing what might happen under a range of possible assumptions about policy decisions and the behavior of the Earth system. By illustrating possible future conditions, scenarios provide a basis for analyzing the potential impacts of and responses to global change. USGCRP is working to develop scenarios of change for the United States that can feed into the sustained-assessment process and support the needs of both scientists and stakeholders, focused on population, demographics, land-use change, sea-level rise and coastal flood risk,...

Recognizing the value of a wide range of expertise and experience in building its decision-support capacity, USGCRP has built engagement into the sustained-assessment process at multiple levels. Public comment periods, town-hall events, and calls for technical contributions encourage input from state, local, and tribal governments; academic institutions; the private sector; and the interested public. NCAnet, a network of organizations involved in the National Climate Assessment (NCA) and its communication, has grown to include more...