Abstract
While multifaceted, a chief aim when designating parks and protected areas is to support the preservation of biological diversity, in part, through representing and conserving the full range of landscape conditions observed throughout a representative area. Parks and protected areas are, however, typically developed using a static interpretation of current biodiversity and landscape conditions. The observed and potential climate change impacts to biodiversity have created a need to also contemplate how parks and protected areas will respond to climate change and how these areas will represent the future range of landscape conditions. To assess change in biodiversity, broad-scale ecosystem information can be sourced from indirect remotely sensed indicators. Quantifying biodiversity through indirect indicators allows characterization of inter-relationships between climate and biodiversity. Such characterizations support the assessment of possible implications of climatic change, as the indicators can be generated using modeled forecasts of future climatic conditions. In this paper we model and map impacts of climate change on British Columbia’s parks and protected areas by quantifying change in a number of remotely sensed indicators of biodiversity. These indicators are based on the measured amount of incoming solar energy used by vegetation and map the overall annual energy utilization, variability (seasonality), and latent or baseline energy. We compare current conditions represented by parks and protected areas, to those forecasted in the year 2065. Our results indicate that parks and protected areas are forecasted to become more productive and less seasonal, due to increased vegetation productivity in higher elevation environments. While increased vegetation productivity may be beneficial for biodiversity overall, these changes will be particularly problematic for sensitive and specialist species. Future gaps in vegetation conditions protected by parks and protected areas are observed in the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains and the central interior region of British Columbia. Protected areas along the Coast Mountains, Vancouver Island highlands, and the Rocky Mountains show the greatest levels of change in the biodiversity indicators, including decreasing seasonality, with the Mountain Hemlock ecozone most at risk. Examples of large parks that are predicted to experience rapid change in vegetation characteristics include Strathcona, Garabaldi, and Kitlope. Our maps of future spatial distributions of indirect biodiversity indicators fill a gap in information products available for adaptive parks management and provide an opportunity for dialogue and further research on the use of future scenarios of landscape conditions in conservation planning.
Highlights
Parks and protected area systems play a key role in conserving biological diversity
To complete this research we initially modeled and mapped future indirect indicators of biodiversity based on a historical archive of remotely sensed and climate data and future climate change scenarios [44]
Minimum cover only gaps were observed in mid-low values stretching the latitudinal length of the province with clusters situated in the eastern edge of the Coastal Mountains and valleys of the Rocky Mountains
Summary
Parks and protected area systems play a key role in conserving biological diversity. Many international and national conservation targets call for between 10–12% protection of every ecosystem or habitat type [1] with a new target of 17% recently set by Aichi Biodiversity Target [2]. As a result, protected areas will rapidly diminish in their intended purpose of preserving natural conditions and representing a particular suite of landscape conditions, indicating a need for a more adaptive planning process and prioritization of appropriate policy and/or management responses [13]. Previous research has predicted that 37–48% of Canada’s protected areas could experience a conversion in ecological classification type due to climate change [8] requiring information to support the prioritization, revision, or expansion of protected areas most expected to be impacted by climate change is required to inform proactive planning and management [14,15,16]
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