A convergence research project is uniting land managers, local residents, and scientists to jointly understand how Colorado Front Range ecosystems and public lands are responding to pressures from people and climate change.
Image:听 June 2020. A multidisciplinary team walks the future site of the EcoTram, a moving monitoring platform focused on water, energy, & vegetation.听
The project brings together diverse groups with a stake in the Front Range public lands around the concept of climate-change refugia. Refugia (Latin for refuges), are units of a landscape that can maintain valued characteristics despite pressures such as climate change.
鈥淢any of the things people appreciate and like about public lands and open space are things like shade along trails, or cooler temperatures on hot days,鈥� says听Keith Musselman, lead investigator on the project and a Research Associate at INSTAAR. 鈥淭hese attributes are related to the science of ecosystems, soil, water, climate鈥攂ut scientists often don鈥檛 think of these systems in terms of the experiences they give to people.鈥�
鈥淭he idea is to understand what people value about our public lands; what decision makers think about when they manage these lands; and what scientists consider when they look at the ecosystems, landscape, and climate processes in these same places,鈥� says Musselman.
July 2020. Team members construct elevated track for the future EcoTram. It听will be a 120 meter (394 foot) long moving platform focused on monitoring water, energy, & vegetation gradients to inform climate refugia predictions.
By bringing together such diverse stakeholders, the project is helping identify land management needs and challenges. It will also map places that are buffered from climate change鈥攖he refugia鈥攁s well as places that are at risk, or already altered. That can give land managers information they can use to decide where to invest resources.
鈥淐olorado will face some tough choices in the coming years and decades. We鈥檙e experiencing a growing population, increasing use of public lands, as well as the threats of climate change. It is important for the residents of Colorado to have a voice in how we set priorities as we look into the future,鈥� says co-investigator and social scientist听.
Funding for the project comes from an NSF program called听, which is intended to solve vexing and complex research problems, focusing on social needs, by merging ideas, knowledge, and approaches from different disciplines. The program is one of the NSF鈥檚 ten听, emerging key areas in scientific research.
The NSF grant supports students at three universities and a community college, a postdoctoral scholar, and scientists from five institutions: CU Boulder, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, University of Colorado Denver, University of Wyoming, and Cornell University. CU Boulder researchers on the project include faculty members Peter Blanken, Eve-Lyn Hinckley, John Knowles, Carrico, and Musselman, graduate students Elizabeth Woolner and Nicolas Tarasewicz, and field tech Yang Han.
The researchers prepared to tackle the project by immersing themselves in a convergence workshop facilitated by a specialist in complex leadership. 鈥淲e learned how to communicate when we don鈥檛 work together, but we do work on the same problem,鈥� says Musselman. Carrico says, 鈥淚t helped us all see the big picture and see how our individual pieces fit into that.鈥�
The science portion of the project will adapt an advanced computer model of Earth systems, initially developed for tropical regions, to the environment of the Rocky Mountains. 鈥淭hese models are dynamic, and simulate the growth and death of trees, how groundwater connects to surface water, how trees connect to water and when,鈥� says Musselman.
A measurement campaign on Niwot Ridge will help scientists develop the model and test its performance. A tram system will carry environmental sensors along a track to take measurements through space and time, to better show how parts of the landscape are connected.
Residents gather in a community workshop hosted by the Center for Sustainable Landscapes and Communities (CSLC) at CU Boulder.听 Photo courtesy of CSLC.
At the same time, Carrico will lead efforts to measure values and priorities within the Colorado public about how to manage our public lands. She is conducting open discussions with land managers about how they are making decisions in the face of public pressures and climate change; and if and how they鈥檙e incorporating the values and priorities of the public into their decisions. Those conversations will help shape ongoing project research with land managers and local residents.
鈥淓very community is facing really complicated decisions about land and climate,鈥� says Carrico. 鈥淚n the Front Range, how do we manage our exceptional natural environments that provide our water and other services? Data must be part of that, but science doesn鈥檛 answer what path you take鈥攖hat鈥檚 a values question. I really like that this project prepares and equips scientists to approach values questions, and how values-driven questions can inform and deepen their approaches to ecosystem science and land management. That鈥檚 a really interesting intersectional question for us.鈥�
鈥淲e鈥檙e bringing convergence research, as the NSF thinks of it, and exploring how values align with these efforts in context,鈥� adds Musselman. 鈥淲orking with local institutions on local problems鈥攖hat鈥檚 something we鈥檙e all excited about.鈥�
This story is an update of a news release from October, 2021 with a similar听title: Persistent places: Groups come together to define and map climate change in Colorado鈥檚 public lands
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