A new release of NatureServe’s widely-used Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI) is now available, providing natural-resource managers with a rapid and cost-effective way to evaluate species’ relative vulnerability to climate change in specific geographies. This update is the result of a collaboration between NatureServe and scientists from the Northwest and Midwest CASCs.
The CCVI is largely centered around a three-part climate vulnerability framework that combines a species’ exposure — the rate and magnitude of climatic change experienced by a species — with its sensitivity to changing conditions and its adaptive capacity, or its ability to cope with or adjust to changing conditions. The CCVI is often used by state fish and wildlife agencies to assess the relative vulnerability of species listed in State Wildlife Action Plans. By using the CCVI to understand the relative vulnerability of terrestrial and freshwater species to climate change within an assessment area, resource practitioners can identify which species are in the most urgent need of management actions.
Last updated in 2015, the recently launched CCVI 4.0 reflects advances in scientific understanding over the last decade about how climate change affects plants and animals. While CCVI 4.0 retains the fundamental features of the previous version, it includes some key updates that were guided by a technical advisory committee and targeted at state partners to assist with their State Wildlife Action Plans. CCVI 4.0 features a new online, web-hosted platform to facilitate collaboration and data sharing amongst users (https://ccvi.natureserve.org). For users who prefer the original format, an updated Excel workbook is still available. The new version also features updated climate exposure data for the lower 48 states, for mid-century (2040-2069), and a comparison of vulnerability results across two emissions scenarios — Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) 5. The other key update is the integration of the Thurman et al (2020) adaptive capacity assessment framework.
The Northwest CASC and NatureServe will be testing inclusion of more climate variables over the next year, exploring additional features like uncertainty and sensitivity metrics. They plan to release a next-generation CCVI 4.0 by the end of this year.