Bolstering Climate Resilience on Public Lands Through Data-Driven Solutions

Federal public lands account for more than a quarter of the land area of the US, spanning approximately 640 million acres.¹ From natural wonders like the Grand Canyon to iconic monuments like the Statue of Liberty, public lands make up some of our nation’s most important cultural and natural resources. Beyond their treasured status, America’s public lands are important economic engines and house hundreds of billions of dollars of assets and infrastructure that federal agencies must maintain. The outdoor recreation industry, largely supported by the use of public lands and assets, contributed over $450 billion to the economy in 2021.²

As the economic importance of public lands grows, the threat they face from climate change is increasing as well. Between 2020 and 2022, 90 individual weather and climate events caused more than a billion dollars each, costing the US a combined $456 billion.³ Federal assets and infrastructure often bear the brunt of extreme weather events as well as the increased operations and maintenance costs. The Disaster Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2023 provides more than $6 billion to the US Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency, and US Forest Service to address impacts from natural disasters.⁴

However, impacts from climate-related weather events are compounding faster than federal budgets can increase. With the effects of climate change becoming more pronounced, federal agencies must evaluate how climate-related events impact asset health and maintenance requirements and adjust their portfolio management approaches accordingly. Agencies must identify new tools that will enable them to make forward-looking, risk-based decisions about how to improve the resilience of their asset portfolios.

Understanding the Threat: Climate Resiliency Risk on Public Lands

The following examples highlight a cross-section of noteworthy climate impacts on federal lands and illustrate the importance of acting now to improve asset resilience.

Erosion and Infrastructure Deterioration on Florida’s Coasts

With sea levels expected to rise by 18 to 20 inches in the next century, coastal regions face escalated threats from climate change.⁵ Hurricanes and storm surges are increasing in frequency, severity, and the risk they pose to coastal ecosystems, public and private infrastructure and assets, and the public. In coastal states like Florida, natural disaster preparedness and mitigation are now a primary concern.

The Everglades, among the most vulnerable areas in Florida, cover more than 1.5 million acres of wetland⁶, provide drinking water for more than 8 million Floridians, support a $1.2 billion fishing industry, and generate $150 million in spending through Everglades National Park.⁷ As climate change intensifies, assets that the public relies upon to access this unique ecosystem face growing threats. Natural disasters have deteriorated the marina bulkheads in Flamingo, Florida, and forced the closure of the Everglades Gulf Coast Visitor Center. Beyond these examples, significant federal investment is now needed to protect other historic structures, docks, boat ramps, and the visitor experiences they enable. 

By incorporating satellite imagery and localized climate projections into asset management plans, federal agencies can improve their ability to identify areas most at risk from climate change. With high-risk areas identified, agencies can make strategic decisions about how and where to invest limited resources. In reviewing needs, organizations can strategically identify areas where innovative and nature-based solutions may help reduce risk in the long term. During Hurricane Irma, for example, the use of nature-based solutions paid dividends, as the Florida mangroves are estimated to have helped to prevent more than $1.5 billion in flood damage.⁸

Escalating Water Crisis in the West

Climate-related water shortages present a direct threat to infrastructure and assets throughout the western US, with much of the region already facing longer and harsher drought periods. Among the public land climate concerns garnering the most media attention is the water shortage along the Colorado River basin. 

Flowing through seven states, the Colorado River serves as a vital lifeline for 40 million people,⁹ 30 Tribal Nations,¹⁰ and 11 National Parks that rely on the river for drinking water and to combat the growing number of wildfires. Annually, wildfires consume more than 7.0 million acres of public lands and cost the federal government between $394 and $893 billion, in addition to drawing on the river as a water source.^11,12 Already, the combination of increased demand for water from fast-growing metropolitan areas and agricultural lands, decreased precipitation and snowpack, and higher surface water evaporation rates have pushed water levels on the river to historic lows.¹³

At Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, the impact of the water shortage on federal asset management practices is brought into stark relief. Located on the Colorado River, the Lake Mead National Recreation Area receives more than 5.6 million visitors and generates more than $450 million in economic output annually. However, due to lower water levels at the reservoir, the National Park Service has had to make significant investments to maintain many of the 600+ assets located at the park to provide a safe recreation experience for visitors, accumulating an estimated $506 million dollars in deferred maintenance costs.¹⁴

While tackling the water crisis requires effective policymaking and coordination with public and private stakeholders, specific measures can be taken to increase the amount of water going to the Colorado River and its tributaries via interventions, such as managed aquifer recharging, to compensate for some of the evaporative losses in the basin. By combining innovative data collection methods on groundwater with improved modeling capabilities for evaporative losses, federal agencies can better quantify water supply/demand and the impacts of interventions, such as aquifer recharging and alternative agricultural decisions, on the lands and assets managed.   

A Path to Resilience-Based Solutions on Public Lands 

Federal agencies managing public lands and their structures have an opportunity to shift toward using climate-resilient approaches to asset management. America’s coastal regions and the western states are prime examples of where the nation’s physical and natural assets are at risk. Resilience-based asset management solutions such as wetland restoration, flood-resilient culverts, and strategic divestiture can help federal agencies proactively manage costs from climate-related impacts. 

As governments work to balance land uses on public lands and maintain their asset portfolios in the face of growing climate-related threats, they need new tools and resources to model and respond to risks. New tools can preserve federal and public interests and enable ongoing collaboration with Tribal Nations and private sector organizations. To do this, federal agencies should look to upgrade their data resources now, while also shifting asset management approaches from a legacy operations and maintenance perspective to one of risk-based decision-making.  

One of the keys to improving decision-making in the face of growing climate threats is the use of localized climate projection data that take specific land-use information into account. Access to these data sources allows for targeted decision-making, enabling government agencies to improve the resiliency of their diverse asset portfolios and make strategic decisions about where to divest from particularly high-risk assets.

While some federal and state agencies like the Bureau of Reclamation and the Colorado Water Conservation Board have explored using downscaled climate data from sources like the Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) for the Colorado River basin,^15,16 agencies at all levels of government would benefit from taking steps to develop models suited to their specific asset management and land-use needs. Improved data acquisition and integration, such as pairing downscaled climate data (from sources like the CMIP, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Explorer, and the Argonne National Lab) with high-quality land cover data (available from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Grace Satellite), can help agencies build a better understanding of how factors like groundwater availability or potential natural disaster risks can and should factor into asset portfolio decision-making.¹⁷

Risk-Based Decision-Making

With better data at hand, government agencies can evolve their decision-making processes to make responsive risk-based land-use and asset management plans. Examples of such risk-based approaches to managing assets and land include:

• Determining where to shore up facilities in response to heightened risk of extreme weather events and evolving environmental conditions
• Developing and updating maintenance and divestiture strategies that reflect the current Operations and Maintenance (O&M) realities associated with varied assets
• Identifying opportunities to right-size asset portfolios by strategically divesting from assets that may no longer warrant significant investment based on heightened risk or increased costs stemming from climate impacts
• Building individual and institutional capacity to develop innovative approaches for allocating resources to O&M activities, including nature-based solutions

With programs like the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) enabling significant investments in addressing deferred maintenance on public lands, improved climate data can be used as a factor in identifying assets better suited for investment and where nature-based solutions (such as wetland restoration and living shorelines) may help with flood and drought resilience, as well as where demolition or divestiture from an asset may be a more appropriate strategy to manage risk and future costs. By using future climate data, government agencies can position themselves to use their resources in ways that maximize impact.

The Importance of Acting Now

Recent legislation like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and GAOA provide transformative levels of investment and opportunity for resilient infrastructure, clean energy development, and climate mitigation efforts. Government agencies can take strides to improve the long-term health of their infrastructure and asset portfolios by emphasizing resiliency in their decision-making. By prioritizing efforts to improve and embrace the climate tools available and incorporating risk-based considerations into asset management decisions, government agencies can proactively develop climate adaptive pathways for asset management that bring agency asset management approaches into alignment with climate risks and identify opportunities to strategically divest from assets that may now pose too great a risk to justify further investment. In doing so, government agencies will minimize undue costs and improve long-term asset health to establish our nation’s cultural assets and resources remain available to the public for generations to come. 

This article was coauthored by Michael Elmets, Abby Kincaide, Cristina Valderrama, Aditya Ranade, and Tara Morley.

1. “Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data,” Congressional Research Service, February 21, 2020, Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data (congress.gov).
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