Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan for the Lake Tahoe Basin
Client: California Tahoe Conservancy Time Period: 2018-2020 Staff: Ben Pogue, Dan Tormey Service lines: Conservation
Catalyst prepared a Vulnerability Assessment and Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan (CAAP) for the Lake Tahoe Basin for the California Tahoe Conservancy.
Catalyst managed a team of technical experts in the Tahoe Basin’s natural resources and built environment to analyze the impacts of changing conditions. Catalyst coordinated with nearly 100 stakeholders throughout the Tahoe Basin, including federal agencies, state agencies, NGOs, and universities, to prepare a collective vision for the Basin and formulate adaptation action measures that can be incorporated into land management plans. Catalyst organized and facilitated numerous stakeholder workshops to develop a CAAP that will serve as a roadmap to enhance the Tahoe Basin’s ability to adapt to the effects of climate change and protect this area’s world-class natural resources. This approach yielded a comprehensive action-oriented plan that provides the Basin immediate and long-term resilience to the effects of climate change. The objectives of the CAAP were to:
Enhance the Basin’s resilience to climate change – the ability of its communities, resources, assets, and landscape to withstand and adapt to climate-amplified disturbances and extreme events.
Align public and private efforts to take climate change into account in planning and investment decisions.
Inform and increase the awareness of public agencies, stakeholders, and local communities on the anticipated impacts of climate change, and of the public and private actions that will build resilience to future climate impacts.
There were five key documents in the CAAP development process:
Downscaled Basin-Specific Climate Change Projections – The UC-Davis climate laboratory modeled the future conditions of key climate drivers in the Basin.
Vulnerability Assessment – Identifies and discusses the vulnerabilities, threats, and implications from climate change on the Basin’s natural, public, and social resources.
Gaps Analysis of Current Plans/Programs/ Projects – A snapshot of existing plans, projects, and programs in the Basin that may already be managing vulnerable resources/assets efforts.
CAAP – A collaborative road map for integrating climate adaptation actions into the Basin’s planning and investment decision-making process(es). The actions provided in this plan were developed for near-term (next few years) implementation to bolster the Basin’s long-term resilience to the effects of climate change.
Performance Metrics – The CAAP is intended to be a living document, a starting point for the collaborative management of climate change. To monitor the need for additional/modified actions, Performance Metrics were developed to provide a structured approach to measuring the success of adaptation measures.
Contact us today and one of our environmental experts will be happy to provide you with personalized assistance tailored to your unique environmental needs.
Catalyst Environmental Solutions Corporation is a full service environmental consulting firm, specializing in the energy sector, land development and remediation, and water resources.
