Chapter 5 Threats
5.12 Climate Change
Long-term climatic changes that may be linked to global warming or other severe climatic or weather events outside the natural range of variation are the focus of this threat category. Related concerns are habitat shifts and alterations such as sea-level rise, coral bleaching, and desertification; droughts and sustained periods where rainfall falls below normal ranges; temperature extremes such as heat waves, cold spells, and oceanic temperature changes; and extreme weather events and shifts in seasonality of storms that cause flooding, damage, and can impact wildlife (Salafsky et al. 2008) . Climate shapes the structure and function of natural ecosystems, and increased variability and weather extremes such as drought, heavy rain, and storm events are expected to have greater impacts than temperature alone (Vose et al. 2014) . Changes to forests due to dieback, insect outbreaks, and large wildfires may be signals that rapidly changing climate conditions are amplifying ecosystem changes (Vose et al. 2014) . Climate change and the severe weather patterns associated with it can impact hydrologic processes and water resources directly by altering precipitation, evapotranspiration, groundwater table, soil moisture, or streamflow, and indirectly by degrading water quality or reducing the water available for irrigation. Climate change also directly affects biodiversity; for example, when environmental conditions change too quickly for species to adapt to them or migrate to areas with more suitable conditions if such areas still exist (Bellard et al. 2012) . 5.12.1 Incorporating Climate Change The USFWS has provided state fish and wildlife agencies with guidance and best practices for review and revision of SWAPs (USFWS 2017) . Additional revision guidance has been provided by the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA) for evaluating climate change as an impact to fish and wildlife species during revision of SWAPs (AFWA 2022) . The recommendations outlined in its report Voluntary Guidance for States to Incorporate Climate Change into State Wildlife Action Plans and Other Management Plans are correlated to each of the eight elements required by USFWS for state SWAPs (AFWA 2022) . The NCWRC incorporated the voluntary guidance through the first climate change assessment report, Understanding the Impacts of Climate Change on Fish and Wildlife in North Carolina , published in 2010 and included in the 2015 SWAP (DeWan et al. 2010) . Most, if not all, of the information in this report remains relevant. The Executive Summary for this report is provided in Appendix 5 as Reference Document 5-1. NCWRC staff continue to work collaboratively with climate scientists and biologists to evaluate how climate change may affect North Carolina’s wildlife and habitats. For this 2025 revision, the NCWRC worked with Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) staff to develop a
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2025 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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