Climate Impact Mitigation and Adaptation Overview References

Nature-Based Solutions

UN Global Compact in the 2019 Climate Action Summit: https://www.unglobalcompact.org/take-action/events/climate-action-summit-2019

Carbon Sequestration

U.S. Forest Carbon Storage, Carbon On Line Estimator (COLE): https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/carbon/tools/#cole

Where does carbon go?  http://changingclimate.osu.edu/assets/pubs/articles/accounting-for-carbon.pdf

Marc G. Kramer, Kate Lajtha, Anthony Audfenkampe. Depth trends of soil organic matter C:N and 15N natural abundance controlled by association with minerals. Biogeochemistry, 2017; DOI: 10.1007/s10533-017-0378-x

Soil and the Carbon Cycle (figure):  https://serc.carleton.edu/eslabs/carbon/5a.html#:~:text=Soil%20Carbon%20Storage%3A%20Carbon%20balance,and%20carbon%20losses%20by%20respiration.&text=Humus%20is%20formed%20when%20soil,that%20reside%20in%20the%20soil.

Forest Carbon: An essential natural solution to climate change:  https://masswoods.org/caring-your-land/forest-carbon

Climate Change Response Network, Forest Adaptation Webinar Series (January 16, 2020 – August 13, 2020): https://forestadaptation.org/learn/forest-adaptation-webinar-series

Mitigating Impacts of Climate Change

Although far reaching and sometimes severe climate-related impacts in our watershed are increasing, many actions can be taken by individuals, municipalities, conservation groups, and businesses to mitigate the hydrologic and ecologic impacts of climate change. Such actions will make our environment more resilient, mitigate impacts, help to reduce overall climate change, and even improve the quality of our watershed for generations to come.

Primary strategies to mitigate hydrologic impacts include reducing stormwater flows and creating groundwater reserves to feed wetlands and small streams during drought periods. The primary strategies to address ecological issues include creating corridors for species migration and protecting important habitat areas.

Primary large-scale strategies to mitigate ecological impacts focus on ensuring resilient and connected areas as well as connections within and across the watershed to regional corridors that allow migration of wildlife and plants into and out of the watershed.

The Nashua, Squannacook, and Nissitissit Rivers, together with the other rivers and streams throughout the watershed, create connections for migration among numerous small protected areas. These separated but interconnected areas function in many ways as larger protected areas having ecological corridors. Since many of the most vulnerable species, such as vernal pool species, are not able to migrate, the protection of targeted areas for the preservation of those species is also critical. There are evolving adaptation strategies, such as assisted migration of more southern species being planted or moved further north along and above their current range, that continue to be investigated and researched.

The specific strategies outlined here range in scale from those that are within the scope of individuals and small landowners to those that require coordinated efforts by conservation groups, municipalities, and regional and state authorities. Many strategies simultaneously address both hydrologic and ecologic issues.

Mitigating Impacts Through Carbon Sequestration

New England has one of the most extensive forested landscapes in the United States, storing a tremendous amount of carbon. By sequestering and storing carbon, forests can be one of the main ways we can mitigate against the adverse impacts of climate change, if we conserve and manage them well.

Where Does Carbon Go? A forest’s carbon pool, whether in the Great Lakes or the Northeast, is distributed with slightly more stored belowground in roots and the soil than aboveground in trunks, branches, and leaves. (Kramer et al. 2017)

In addition to direct storage of carbon in trunks and roots of trees and other vegetation, natural systems can sequester large amounts of carbon in the soil. According to a 2017 study at  Washington State University, the uppermost three feet of soil holds three times as much organic carbon as the total amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Studies indicate that, since the beginning of the industrial revolution, land use change and poor soil management have released more than a hundred billion tons of carbon from the soil, a major contribution to total atmospheric carbon.

Up to twenty percent of carbon fixed by photosynthesis in plants is exuded into the soil through roots. Fungi, including mycorrhiza, bacteria, and other organisms in healthy soil are essential to the process of transforming and storing carbon, mostly as organic matter, in the soil. Trees, shrubs, and meadow grasses can all be effective at sequestering and storing carbon in the soil.

Carbon balance in soil. Carbon balance within the soil (brown box) is controlled by carbon inputs from photosynthesis and carbon losses by respiration.  Decomposition of roots and root products by soil fauna and microbes produces humus, a long-lived store of soil organic carbon.  © 2012 Nature Education. All rights reserved.

Watershed Impact References

Water Impacts

Climate Impacts in the Northeast, incl. increases in rainfall: https://archive.epa.gov/epa/climate-impacts/climate-impacts-northeast.html

Ecology Impacts

2009 National Climate Assessment “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States”: https://nca2009.globalchange.gov/

Declining Species

https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/DECLINE-OF-NORTH-AMERICAN-AVIFAUNA-SCIENCE-2019.pdf