Climate Change Adaptation: Top Goal for NPS

This year's Geography Awareness Week (GAW) is celebrating all things related to parks. One element is understanding how global changes affect the environment in parks. A recent article in Earth & Space Science News identified a top goal for the National Park Service (NPS): Climate change adaptation. The park system, encompassing 412 sites, represents a gigantic area of America's physical landscapes, water bodies, and historic places. With the ongoing problems brought about by climate change, it becomes evermore important for the NPS to prepare and educate its employees and guests about how the changing climate will affect National Parks in various parts of the country. As a result, more interest has been placed on partnering with scientists to gain a better understanding of these environmental problems, in order to provide solutions to mitigate them effectively.

Climate change doesn't just affect National Parks. All types of parks are at risk of extreme weather events, as well as resource depletion and destruction resulting from climate change. Being mindful of this reality is an important point to communicate to students in the classroom.

Photo: Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton National Park. By Charles Peterson, CC BY-NC 2.0.