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Experts in Northwest Indiana Create an Adaptation Plan to Protect the Indiana Dunes

Experts in Northwest Indiana Create an Adaptation Plan to Protect the Indiana Dunes

Project Summary

The dunes on the South Shore of Lake Michigan are beginning to show climate change impacts. The Indiana Dunes Climate Change Adaptation Plan, finalized in May 2018, lists anticipated changes to the dunes and includes strategies for adapting to those changes. National and state park managers, state and university scientists and researchers contributed their expertise to the plan. The plan focuses on localized climate change projections with conclusions and recommendations identified by experts through collaboration and discussion. The plan is used as a tool for initiating climate change adaptation strategies on public lands and in communities along the South Shore of Lake Michigan.

How did they do it?
Action	Applicable Resources
Convene relevant partners and raise necessary funds. The Field Museum and Save the Dunes convened webinars and meetings to create an engagement plan. The partnership obtained funding from regional and federal resources.	Great Lakes Coastal Resilience Planning Guide offers case studies to illustrate how local planners and practitioners are helping to make their communities more resilient.
Conduct scenario planning and engage stakeholders to identify potential goals and strategies. The Field Museum and Save the Dunes hosted workshops focused on scientific climate change concepts, climate impacts to the dunes, and developing adaptation strategies.	The Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool is a risk assessment tool that helps utilities to adapt to extreme weather events by better understanding current and long-term weather conditions.
Set adaptation and mitigation goals, and develop a resilience plan The partnership drafted the plan and finalized through electronic collaboration.	Indiana Dunes Climate Change Adaptation Plan is an action-oriented plan that will help increase regional preparedness in climate change adaptation and promote resiliency in the Indiana dunes.

Background

Save the Dunes is a nonprofit organization that protects the Indiana dunes. Save the Dunes staff noticed that the dunes began showing signs of climate change impact toward the end of the twentieth century. In more recent years, the National Park Service determined that climate change will continue to affect park management’s ability to protect the dunes. In response, Save the Dunes formed The Indiana Dunes Ecosystem Alliance, consisting of representatives from the U.S. National Park Service, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Geological Survey, The Nature Conservancy, Shirley Heinze Land Trust and National Parks Conservation Association. In addition to researching land use development and pollution, the Alliance began investigating the effects of climate change on the dunes under the facilitation of the Field Museum and provided the information needed to develop the adaptation plan.

The political geography of the Indiana dunes is unique to other parks because the Indiana Dunes State Park is embedded within the Indiana Dunes National Park. State and national parks adhere to strict jurisdictional guidelines that frequently contain contradictory procedures. Furthermore, the Indiana Dunes State Park and National Park are embedded within and fragmented by a variety of land uses, including industry, agriculture and residential areas. This disparity in management within the interdependent ecosystem prompted the Alliance to collaborate with The Field Museum in Chicago to create a comprehensive climate change adaptation plan to encompass the entirety of the nearshore Indiana dunes landscape. The Field Museum provided staff with experience in developing climate change action plans and an abundance of researchers, organizations and information. The Alliance provided much of the research focused on the Indiana dunes’ — climate change observations, anticipated local effects, restoration projects and expenditures. The collaboration between Save the Dunes and The Field Museum led to the creation of the Indiana Dunes Climate Change Adaptation Plan.

Implementation

The Indiana Dunes State Park is located within the Indiana Dunes National Park. This unique and protected area forms a narrow strip of land on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. Photo Credit: Jessica Colaluca

The creation of the plan was directed by The Field Museum and Save the Dunes by hosting workshops, webinars and meetings to bring together regional nonprofit organizations and government officials. Participants synthesized data compiled by their respective organizations, identified environmental impacts and extrapolated the extent of the changes anticipated. The events provided dedicated time to compare the status quo with possible changes in light of recent climate change findings. The plan evolved as the comprehensive organization of these discussions.

What is an adaptation plan?

An adaptation plan is a document that outlines strategies and priorities for adapting to climate change, a tool decision-makers use when building resilient communities. It is useful when planning for a future when environmental conditions are expected to differ from those of the past and present.

The first workshop began with a presentation rooted in scientific climate change concepts. During this workshop, participants examined climate stressors in northwest Indiana, the Indiana dunes and Great Lakes region. The information assembled during this workshop was organized into the “Threats” section of the action plan. By articulating the necessity of an adaptation plan, this workshop secured the support of a range of contributors and an advisory committee including the National Park Service, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Geological Survey, The Nature Conservancy, Purdue Climate Change Research Center and the Northwest Regional Planning Commission.

In the second workshop, participants focused on climate change impacts to the Indiana dunes and future action plans for dune maintenance. The information compiled during this workshop was organized into the “Goals” and “Vulnerabilities” sections of the action plan.

During the third workshop, participants developed adaptation strategies organized into the “Adaptations” section of the action plan.

The adaptation plan largely depended on having accurate predictions to anticipate the future effects of climate change. The projections were extrapolated from the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment developed by the Purdue Climate Change Research Center.

Funding

Save the Dunes obtained a grant for $46,950 from the Lake Michigan Coastal Program, which is administered by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources using funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Field Museum contributed $47,530 to the plan’s development. The groups dedicated the total amount - $94,480 - to developing the adaptation plan.

Timeframe

It took about one year to develop the plan.

Outcomes and Conclusions

The plan identifies expected impacts to the Indiana dunes due to climate change. The main impact concerns were to ecology, landscape connectivity, hydrology, prescribed fire procedures and infrastructure and park management. These concerns included expected changes to the profile of the shoreline, native competition with invasive species, land fragmentation that decreases biodiversity and human health risks in the form of disease, excess heat exposure and more frequent and costly park maintenance demands.

The plan offers numerous options for adapting to the impacts of climate change, including strategies for implementation. One ecology adaptation option suggests storing seeds of vulnerable plant species. One hydrology adaptation option suggests filling ditches to redirect water over the land to promote infiltration. One adaptation option concerning park management and infrastructure is to hire more staff to manage increased park maintenance demands.

Identifying specific local problem areas made the plan more useful to local governments. For example, it can be used by local governments considering changes to existing ordinances and zoning. It is important to local government that development is environmentally resilient and safe from climate change impacts such as flooding, already a major concern in northwest Indiana. If zoning ordinances are not updated to reflect the changing environment, infrastructure may be at greater risk of flood damage. Local officials can embed climate resilience into zoning by updating flood zones or preserving open space that helps absorb flood waters. Regulating land usage in proximity to the lakes and creating incentives for low impact development (LID) and reducing chemical inputs from nearby agriculture will reduce lake pollution, which in turn will increase biodiversity. Updating zoning ordinances to reflect the changing environment is particularly helpful when the South Shore of Lake Michigan is expecting an increase in development due to the expansion of a high speed railroad to Chicago in Northern Indiana.

Challenges

The groups working on the plan wished they could have included an analysis of social and cultural issues. Funding was not immediately available for these pieces of analysis, and locating funding would have delayed the publication of the findings in the current plan. The inclusion of a social/cultural scientist in the plan development process would have helped to address questions such as, “How are parks employees affected by working in hotter temperatures and the greater prevalence of ticks?”

Future revisions of the adaptation plan would benefit from collaboration with more local government officials, experts in their local ordinances. Government officials may have local climate change adaptation strategies that could be incorporated into the adaptation plan.

Save the Dunes and The Field Museum found it challenging to corral all of the participants to attend workshops. This necessitated a great deal of time outside of the workshops to communicate with contributors.

Lessons Learned

Cathy Martin of Save the Dunes said, “If I had to do it all over again, I would start earlier and have a fourth workshop in which we discuss a draft of the adaptation plan. Contributors would then have an opportunity to make changes during group discussion, rather than electronically.”

Project Resources

Read the Indiana Dunes Climate Change Adaptation Plan.
Visit the Save the Dunes website to learn more about their work in northwest Indiana.
Visit The Field Museum website to learn more about their research.

For more information about the Indiana Dunes adaptation plan, contact:

Cathy Martin
Program Manager
Save the Dunes
cathy@savedunes.org
219-879-3564

Katherine Moore Powell
Climate Change Ecologist
Field Museum
kmoorepowell@fieldmuseum.org
312-665-7462

Environmental Resilience Institute

Experts in Northwest Indiana Create an Adaptation Plan to Protect the Indiana Dunes