Heterogeneous changes to North America prairie pothole wetlands under
future climate
Abstract
Numerous wetlands in North America’s Prairie Pothole Region (PPR)
provide important ecosystem services to surrounding areas, yet are
threatened by climate and land-use changes. Understanding the impacts of
climate change on prairie wetlands is critical to effective conservation
planning. In this paper, we construct a wetland model with surface water
balance (soil water content) and ecoregions and apply it to predict
future wetland distribution under a climate change scenario. The future
climate forcing is from a dynamical downscaling approach of a
high-resolution convection-permitting regional climate model. The
results show that the impacts of climate change on wetland extent are
spatially heterogeneous and seasonally varied. The future wetter climate
in the western PPR will favor increased wetland abundance in both spring
and summer. In the eastern PPR, particularly in the moist mixed
grassland and aspen parkland, the wetland area will increase in spring
but experience enhanced declines in the summer due to strong
evapotranspiration. When combined with historical patterns of
anthropogenic drainage, results suggest that diverse conservation and
restoration strategies will be needed. The outcomes of this study will
be useful to conservation agencies to ensure that current investments
will continue to provide good conservation returns in the future.