The North American Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is an expansive region that covers parts of five Midwestern states and three Canadian provinces. The PPR contains millions of wetlands from which 50–80% of the continent's migratory waterfowl originate each year. Previous modeling efforts indicated that climate change would result in a shift of suitable waterfowl breeding habitat from the central PPR to the southeastern PPR, an area where the majority of wetlands have been drained. If this future scenario were to materialize, a significant restoration effort would be needed in the southeastern PPR to support waterfowl production. However, more recent research has revealed that changes in climate are influencing these critical wetland habitats in novel ways, and previous modeling results may no longer be valid. Land and natural-resource managers are in need of more accurate, up-to-date, scientific information in order to make fully informed planning decisions about these important wetlands and waterfowl habitat. Our aim was to improve our understanding of how future climate changes might impact wetland ecosystems and waterfowl habitats of the PPR. We used a newly developed wetland model, PHyLiSS, to simulate hydrologic and chemical conditions of prairie-pothole wetlands under various climate-change scenarios.
Results/Conclusions
We found that by 2099, global circulation models (GCMs) predict as much as 5 ℃ warming during summer months and 7 ℃ warming in winter months. Also, by 2099, GCMs predict between a 45% (19 mm) increase and an 8% (6 mm) decrease in mean annual precipitation. These potential changes in precipitation are much greater than those used in previous modeling efforts. The greatest monthly changes in precipitation as predicted by GCMs for 2099 occur in summer and fall months where large runoff-producing storms can fill wetlands and soil-moisture reservoirs. We are working together with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Habitat and Population Evaluation Team and Chase Lake Wetland Management District in North Dakota to ensure that these results and science products directly inform climate adaptation plans for waterfowl habitat.