New tool helps foresters and landowners assess forest climate change impacts and options

The “Template for Accessing Climate Change Impact and Management Options” (TACCIMO) provides excellent research-based information that can help professional foresters and landowners.

There is a lot of climate change information available – some reliable and accurate, some not. The gold standard, if you will, for highest quality climate change information is peer-reviewed research – studies that have been reviewed and validated by other scientists.

A relatively new web-based tool gives forestry professionals, landowners and educators an excellent way to access natural resources climate change research and connect that information to forest planning. Called the Template for Assessing Climate Change Impacts and Management Options (TACCIMO), this site includes a searchable library of current research, a mapping application and tools for creating customized reports. The site also includes US Forest Service land and resource management plans.

New scientific knowledge about climate change and forest ecosystem is becoming available almost daily. TACCIMO is constantly updated to include new research studies from around the United States. The site includes more than 2,800 quotations from research describing climate change effects, 700 adaptive management options and 700 peer-reviewed research papers. This information is easily searchable by topic and region.

The mapping portions of the site let users generate climate projections and historical maps for the whole U.S., down to the county level. These maps offer future temperature and precipitation predictions based on three global climate change models.

TACCIMO was developed by the US Forest Service for national application. Although not a substitute for local information, the site is very relevant for Michigan and can help forestry professionals, local officials, and in some cases landowners, plan for the future.

There are many uses for TACCIMO, for example:

  • A public land or private forest industry planner could use the information to connect the effects of climate change with specific management recommendations.
  • A consulting forester and landowner could use TACCIMO to learn about emerging climate change threats and use that information to develop a plan that maintains healthy forests.
  • A teacher could use TACCIMO maps to help students understand climate change models.

For more information about TACCIMO, visit its website.

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