Examination of Climate-Related Threats to Water Resources in the National Wildlife Refuge System

The Water Resource Inventory and Assessment (WRIA) project was initiated in 2011 based on recommendations made in 2008 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) national Water Resources Team. The primary purpose of the WRIA project is to gather information about the National Wildlife Refuge System’s (NWRS) water resources and provide assessments regarding status and water-related threats and needs. These assessments are used to identify and prioritize issues related to all aspects of water resource management in the NWRS and are the agency’s most comprehensive effort to date to inform management at all levels of the organization, about these issues.
A major component of the WRIA project was the collection of water-related threats and needs data for each NWRS management unit into a WRIA National Database Application. These threats and needs assessments were developed to ensure that regional assessments were similar enough to compare across the nation. A key aspect of this effort was the use of a standard classification scheme to consistently capture these threats and needs. Threat classifications can be identified and filtered where the threat is caused by a factor that is related to a climatic driver, which offers an opportunity to understand threats to the NWRS with climate-related influences.
The FWS recently adopted the Climate Change Action Program (CCAP, USFWS 2021), which guides agency response to climate change and provides a unified approach to implement climate adaptation actions across programs and regions. The CCAP is a living framework designed to evolve over time and is comprised of seven elements. This report was created to specifically address the second element, which identifies the need to provide further information about climate change impacts on water resources and related knowledge gaps.
This report is a summary and analysis of climate related threats and needs information entered as of July 25, 2022, for 471 refuge units (national wildlife refuges and wetland management districts). The report presents a set of recommendations on next steps as informed by results regarding water resources issues and needs facing the NWRS. This 2023 updated report focuses more specifically on climate, builds upon results from the 2019 report, and includes an additional 32 NWRS units. Although results represent the first comprehensive assessment of climate change effects on NWRS water resources, there are the usual caveats associated with survey data such as potential subjectivity of staff entering the data.

Key questions addressed include the following:

•  What are the most common refuge threats with climate-related cause?
   
• Are there significant differences in threats with climate-related causes in different areas of the country?
   
• What are the most common needs at stations facing climate-related threats?