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Aquatic Ecological Flows Team
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The emergence of hydraulic fracturing has led to the rapid expansion of natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale deposit in portions of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Millions of gallons of water are needed per fracturing event and will likely put a substantial strain on regional surface and ground water supplies, as well as lead to changes in stream flow that may alter available habitat for freshwater biodiversity and other ecological processes in adjacent freshwater ecosystems. There is a great need for the development of region-wide flow policies to protect stream ecosystems and enhance long-term management of aquatic resources. To that end, this project will develop model(s) that predict ecological responses to flow alteration within the Marcellus Shale region of the Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC).
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LP Members
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Workspaces
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Are conservation organizations configured for effective adaptation to global change?
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Conservation organizations must adapt to respond to the ecological impacts of global change. Numerous
changes to conservation actions (eg facilitated ecological transitions, managed relocations, or increased corridordevelopment) have been recommended, but some institutional restructuring within organizations may also be needed. Here we discuss the capacity of conservation organizations to adapt to changing environmental
conditions, focusing primarily on public agencies and nonprofits active in land protection and management
in the US. After first reviewing how these organizations anticipate and detect impacts affecting target
species and ecosystems, we then discuss whether they are sufficiently flexible to prepare and respond by reallocating funding, staff, or other resources. We raise new hypotheses about how the configuration of different
organizations enables them to protect particular conservation targets and manage for particular biophysical
changes that require coordinated management actions over different spatial and temporal scales. Finally, we
provide a discussion resource to help conservation organizations assess their capacity to adapt.
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Resources
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Climate Science Documents
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Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide?
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Here, it is shown both theoretically and observationally how the evolution of the human system can be considered from a surprisingly simple thermodynamic perspective in which it is unnecessary to explicitly model two of the emissions drivers: population and standard of living. Specifically, the human system grows through a self-perpetuating feedback loop in which the consumption rate of primary energy resources stays tied to the historical accumulation of global economic production—or p × g—through a time-independent factor of 9.7 ± 0.3 mW per inflation-adjusted 1990 US dollar. This important constraint, and the fact that f and c have historically varied rather slowly, points towards substantially narrowed visions of future emissions scenarios for implementation in GCMs.
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Resources
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Climate Science Documents
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Assessing Forest Fragmentation from Marcellus Shale Gas Development
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Expansion of drilling sites and associated infrastructure to extract natural gas from the Marcellus shale deposits has the potential to significantly reduce existing forest cover across the Marcellus field and leave what remains in a fragmented state.
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Research
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Assessing Future Energy Development Fact Sheet
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Provides a general overview of the need for the Energy Assessment research, the major products and findings that came out of the project, and the relevance of the study, models, and tools to the resource management community.
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Resources
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How-To Guides and Handouts
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Assessing Future Energy Development across the Appalachian LCC. Final Report
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In this study funded by the Appalachian LCC, The Nature Conservancy assessed current and future energy development across the entire region. The research combined multiple layers of data on energy development trends and important natural resource and ecosystem services to give a comprehensive picture of what future energy development could look like in the Appalachians. It also shows where likely energy development areas will intersect with other significant values like intact forests, important streams, and vital ecological services such as drinking water supplies.
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Tools & Resources
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Assessing Future Energy Development
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Assessing Future Energy Development across the Appalachians
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The Nature Conservancy - with support from the Appalachian LCC - has completed a study to assist policy makers, land management agencies, and industry in assessing potential future energy development and how that may overlap with biological and ecological values.
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Tools
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Assessing Future Energy Development across the Appalachians
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The Nature Conservancy - with support from the FWS - has completed a study to assist policy makers, land management agencies, and industry in assessing potential future energy development and how that may overlap with biological and ecological values.
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Tools & Resources
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Assessing Future Energy Development Across the Appalachians
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The rapid pace of new energy development coupled with more aggressive methods for extracting traditional fuels pose substantial risks to some of the Appalachians most cherished lands, waterways, and wildlife. Currently, little effort has been paid to the effect of energy development on the swaths of relatively intact, recovering forest habitat that define the Central Appalachian Region. This project employs land use change build-out scenarios from future energy development demand to quantify future impacts on forest habitats across the Appalachian LCC.
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Research
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Assessing Future Energy Development Across the Appalachians
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Assessing Future Energy Development across the Appalachian LCC used models that combined data on energy development trends and identified where these may intersect with important natural resource and ecosystem services to give a more comprehensive picture of what potential energy development could look like in the Appalachians. Ultimately this information is intended to support dialogue and conservation on how to effectively avoid, minimize, and offset impacts from energy development to important natural areas and the valuable services they provide.
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