Lisa Micheli and Morgan Kennedy of Pepperwood Preserve gave a recent presentation entitled, “Downscaling future climate scenarios to the watershed scale: a North San Francisco Bay Estuary case study” at the California Department of Fish and Game’s recent workshop entitled, “Bridging the Gap: Downscaling Climate Models to Inform Management Actions.”
 

Summary of the presentation:

Analyses from fine-scale modeling on the basis of 4 scenarios indicate:
• Air temperature will increase, precipitation is variable
• Ecosystems will become more stressed due to increased CWD
• Impacts are variable across the region
• Water availability is uncertain across the region
• Local “resilient” areas may maintain vegetation populations despite stresses and declines

Next steps in research include evaluating the effects on:
• Water quantity: human supply, streams, riparian and uplands
• Habitat conversion
• Sediment transport
• Water quality