Climate change is increasing the severity and extent of extreme droughts events, posing a critical threat to freshwater ecosystems, particularly with increasing human demands for diminishing water supplies. Despite the importance of drought as a significant driver of ecological and evolutionary dynamics, current understanding of drought consequences for freshwater biodiversity is very limited. We describe key barriers that hinder integrative drought research and monitoring across riverscapes. The primary constraint limiting understanding of ecological drought is an existing monitoring framework focused on human water consumption and flood risk in mainstem rivers. This approach is misaligned with escalating needs for research and data collection that illuminate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity (i.e., vulnerability) of biota to drought across entire riverscapes. We present a hierarchical framework for integrated ecological drought monitoring and research that addresses drought vulnerability across riverscapes and describe how this approach can directly inform natural-resource management.
1.US Geol Survey, Northern Rocky Mt Sci Ctr, Missoula, MT 59812 USA 2.US Geol Survey, Forest & Rangeland Ecosystem Sci Ctr, Corvallis, OR USA 3.US Geol Survey, Northern Rocky Mt Sci Ctr, Bozeman, MT USA 4.US Geol Survey, Leetown Sci Ctr, Kearneysville, WV USA 5.US Geol Survey, Leetown Sci Ctr, SO Conte Anadromous Fish Res Lab, Turners Falls, MA USA 6.US Geol Survey, Leetown Sci Ctr Kearneysville, Kearneysville, WV USA 7.US Geol Survey, Northern Rocky Mt Sci Ctr, Bozeman, MT USA 8.US Geol Survey, Northern Rocky Mt Sci Ctr, Bozeman, MT USA 9.US Geol Survey, Natl Climate Adaptat Sci Ctr, Reston, VA USA 10.US Geol Survey, Leetown Sci Ctr, Kearneysville, WV USA 11.US Geol Survey, Washington Water Sci Ctr, Tacoma, WA USA 12.US Geol Survey, Washington Water Sci Ctr, Tacoma, WA USA 13.US Geol Survey, Natl Geospatial Program, Boise, ID USA 14.US Geol Survey, Northern Rocky Mt Sci Ctr, Bozeman, MT USA 15.US Geol Survey, Denver, CO USA 16.US Geol Survey, Natl Geospatial Program, Reston, VA USA 17.US Geol Survey, Northern Rocky Mt Sci Ctr, Glacier Natl Pk, West Glacier, MT USA
Recommended Citation:
Kovach, Ryan P.,Dunham, Jason B.,Al-Chokhachy, Robert,et al. An Integrated Framework for Ecological Drought across Riverscapes of North America[J]. BIOSCIENCE,2019-01-01,69(6):418-431