Guide to Vulnerability Assessment

Understanding how our changing climate will affect our wildlife species and the habitats on which they depend is key to designing and carrying out effective adaptation strategies to counter the impacts of climate change.

Plant and animal species vary widely in how they are likely to respond to change in temperature, precipitation, and other factors brought about by global warming. "Vulnerability to climate change" refers to the likelihood that these climate-induced shifts will have an adverse impact on a given species, habitat, or ecosystem.

A User's Guide to Vulnerability Assessment

The National Wildlife Federation led an effort to provide conservationists and resource managers with guidance and tools to help them conduct vulnerability assessments as part of broader climate change adaptation planning efforts.

This working group, which won the Department of Interior's Partners in Conservation Award for their collaboration, consisted of leading experts from federal and state agencies, universities, and non-profit conservation groups.

The group's efforts resulted in a user's guide to vulnerability assessment and training curriculum. Titled Scanning the Conservation Horizon: A Guide to Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment, this guide focuses on the key components of vulnerability—sensitivity and exposure—and reviews best practices for conducting assessments focusing on species, habitats, or ecosystems. (Download the executive summary.)

Helping Resource Managers Help Wildlife

Vulnerability assessments are a key step in adaptation planning by enabling managers to:

• Identify those species and systems most likely to be in need of conservation actions as a result of climate change.
• Develop adaptation strategies tailored for managing species and habitats in greatest need.
• Foster collaboration at statewide and regional scales by providing a shared understanding of impacts and management options.
• Allow scarce resources for wildlife conservation to be allocated efficiently in the face of climate change.