Project Profile: Publish Monitoring and Inventory Data for Climate Vulnerability Analysis and Adaption Planning

Researchers organize mussels by species to see how many of each are present at each site.

NPS / Scott Sharaga

Inflation Reduction Act
Resilience | FY24-25 $2,995,000

The National Park Service (NPS) will advance the publication of discoverable, accessible, actionable, and rigorous data for use in climate vulnerability analysis and adaptation planning across nearly 300 NPS units nationwide. The project will deliver and visualize data from natural resource inventories and vital signs monitoring in several categories, including Coastal and Marine Resources, Plant and Animal Communities, Freshwater and Freshwater-dependent Ecosystems, and Alpine and Arctic Resources.

Why? Vital signs monitoring conducted by IMD offers empirical estimates of trends in the ecological health of park ecosystems through long-term measurements. The monitoring data, developed in the context of reference conditions, can influence management actions based on trends from these conditions. The data contain valuable information on natural resource sensitivity and resilience to year-to-year fluctuations in climate, assisting in the identification of ecosystem resilience and vulnerability to changing conditions.

What Else? This project is part of a broader effort to prepare and analyze monitoring data in open formats for use by the NPS and the public in climate resilience and adaptation planning. The data will be disseminated through NPS repositories, Data.Gov, and visualization and communication of vital signs data on NPS.gov. Collaboration with the NPS Climate Change Response Program and other divisions ensures that the data are ready for use in vulnerability analyses and adaptation planning to inform park management decisions.

About the Inflation Reduction Act

The Inflation Reduction Act provides the National Park Service with an historic opportunity to address critical ecosystem resilience, restoration, and environmental planning needs. Projects funded in national parks represent broad-scale and impactful resource investments across every corner of our nation—from Alaska to Florida to Maine.