About
Forest managers need robust examples of how to integrate climate change adaptation into silvicultural planning and on-the-ground actions. The Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) project is a collaborative effort to establish a series of experimental silvicultural trials across a network of different forest ecosystem types throughout the United States and Canada.
Scientists, land managers, and a variety of partners have developed fourteen trial sites as part of this multi-region study to research long-term ecosystem responses to a range of climate change adaptation actions.
Each trial is focused on understanding and evaluating management options designed to enable forests to respond to a changing climate. Site-specific treatments were developed according to local conditions and tailored to meet site-specific management objectives, while at the same time aligned under a common framework for answering questions about how different forest types will respond to future climate.
In using this two-tiered design, ASCC provides a means for evaluating adaptive management strategies across distinct forest types, allowing researchers to ask broad questions about climate change adaptation across all study sites, while also addressing on-the-ground management needs specific to individual sites
The ASCC Impact
The Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change Network is the largest experimental silviculture program focused on climate adaptation in the country and provides crucial information on how to manage forests for changing conditions. The Network currently maintains 14 statistically robust, operational, and diverse experimental sites, with 15 years of existing data at our oldest site.
ASCC provides training to agency staff through multiple venues. Over 500 natural resource professionals have been directly trained in applying climate-adaptive silviculture using ASCC site examples through the Forest Service’s National Advanced Silviculture Program. Training encompasses everything from project inception, site inventory, tree marking for harvest, and monitoring effectiveness, including regeneration and timber stand improvement practices.
Over 200 management and science collaborators are sharing lessons learned from ASCC to train and advise FS staff and partners on climate-informed management. More than 500 adaptation demonstration projects have been developed using the same toolkit of adaptation resources, applying climate adaptation lessons learned in all kinds of ecosystems across the country.
The ASCC installations demonstrate and evaluate management actions for resistance, resilience, and transition using a cohesive framework. This approach directly informs larger-scale land management policies and implementation (e.g., FS Adaptation Plan, reforestation and assisted migration plans, adaptation guidance for NEPA).