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Recent Submissions

Stand 57: a stand-level climate adaptation silviculture demonstration
(2026-01) Gill, Kyle G; Windmuller-Campione, Marcella
Stand 57 is a 12-acre FDn33 forest community located at the UMN Cloquet Forestry Center. This treatment was established to demonstrate putting climate adaptation silviculture theories into action at a stand level. It was primarily occupied by 75+ year old even-aged and even-structured red pine of mixed natural and planted origin. The climate adaptation goals were to diversify structure and composition to support both tree- and community-level resilience and adaptability to modeled and unknown future weather and tree growth conditions. To diversify structure, we conducted an early-winter timber harvest in 2016 that created six half-acre clearcut gaps and thinned the matrix. This created growing space for extant and new trees and a range of understory light conditions. For tree composition, we used assisted natural regeneration. For natural regeneration, we retained red and white pine in the canopy and relied on paper birch, red maple, and balsam fir seed from surrounding stands. In 2020 we planted white and jack pine, tamarack, northern red and bur oak, and paper birch at a total rate of 450 trees per acre (tpa). We used a mix of individual and group herbivory protection at half-acre plot levels across light conditions. In 2022, we found an average of 2929 tpa for all tree species. Red maple had 789 tpa, followed closely by red pine and paper birch at 643 tpa. Seedling stocking was 79% for all species. Red pine had the highest stocking at 43%. All planted species were present but not as well represented as natural regeneration species. In 2023, we did a planted-species only survey and found an average of 767 tpa. Paper birch, jack pine, and white pine had natural regeneration on top of planted regeneration. Except for jack pine, all species preferred matrix to gap growing conditions. Resources used for climate adaptation treatment planning were the adaptation workbook and Tree Atlas models. They were both useful and clunky.
Knowledge‐Guided Machine Learning for Operational Flood Forecasting
(2025-11-13) McEachran, Zac; Ghosh, Rahul; Renganathan, Arvind; Sharma, Somya; Lindsay, Kelly; Steinbach, Michael; Nieber, John; Duffy, Christopher; Kumar, Vipin
We present a knowledge-guided machine learning framework for operational hydrologic forecasting at the catchment scale. Our approach, a Factorized Hierarchical Neural Network (FHNN), has two main components: inverse and forward models. The inverse model uses observed precipitation, temperature, and streamflow data to generate a representation of the current underlying catchment state. The forward model predicts streamflow using the learned catchment state. The FHNN architecture is designed to model multi-scale processes and capture their interactions, a critical ability for flood modeling. FHNN also improves forecasts based on real-time data through an inference-based data integration approach using inverse modeling. FHNN's data integration approach improves forecasts in response to observed data more efficiently than data assimilation methods that require computationally intensive optimization. We compare the FHNN to a leading deep learning alternative (autoregressive LSTM) on the large-sample CAMELS-US data set, and operational flood forecast data from the US National Weather Service (NWS). Official NWS flood forecasts are generated by expert human forecasters using a physics-based model, in a human-in-the-loop process. Thus, we assess the flood forecast ability of FHNN by directly comparing its performance against these NWS expert-derived forecasts. The human forecaster creates a more accurate forecast within the first 12–18 hr of a forecast's issuance, but FHNN has significantly better predictions thereafter. This research lays the groundwork for leveraging the predictive performance of AI-based models with the expertise in forecasting agencies to produce better river forecasts.
Future Weather Trends + Infrastructure
(2025) Institute on the Environment (IonE); Center for Sustainable Building Research (CSBR); University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership (MCAP)
Climate data and observations show that Minnesota is experiencing consistent changes in weather patterns. This report explores how projections of future weather trends may exacerbate conditions, including but not limited to drought, elevated temperatures and flooding for the design and evaluation of infrastructure and buildings constructed by the state of Minnesota and local governments. In addition, the report assesses the potential of future weather events to weaken existing systems creating the need for intervention to maintain and increase the amount and quality of food and wood production, reduce fire risk on forested land, maintain and enhance water quality, and maintain and enhance natural habitats. Because the relationships between infrastructure, future weather trends and the human-natural systems of agriculture, water, forests, and built environments are complicated, the research team developed a framework to analyze the Social, Ecological and Technological (SETs) relationships within each system, creating a common “language” to analyze potential interactions between multiple complex systems (Chapters 3 and 4). This approach is crucial for decision makers to be effective at mitigating costs and avoiding maladaptation or making things worse from some resilience strategies.
Managing for Tomorrow—A Climate Adaptation Decision Framework
(USGS, 2025) Bouska, Kristen L.; Booker, Joshua; Clark, Suzi; Delaney, John; Eash, Josh; Post van der Burg, Max; Roop, Heidi
Climate change presents new and compounding challenges to natural resource management. With changing climate patterns, managers are confronted with difficult decisions on how to minimize climate effects on habitats, infrastructure, and wildlife populations. To support climate adaptation decision making, we first conceptualized an approach that integrates the principles of the resist–accept– direct framework, climate scenario planning, and decision analysis into a general framework to support adaptation planning. This framework was implemented and refined by working with three National Wildlife Refuge System refuges within the Midwest Region. The objectives of this report are to describe the climate adaptation decision framework and provide guidance for how to apply the framework to support transparent, consistent, and decision-focused adaptation planning. We include a workbook to support the application of each step of the framework as well as lessons learned from our experiences developing the framework. The climate adaptation decision framework has wide applicability to aid adaptation planning within natural resource management and underscores the important role of engaging interest groups in climate adaptation decisions.
An assessment of the Midwest climate adaptation network: A call for improved coordination and collaboration
(Journal of Environmental Management, 2024) Clark, Suzanna; Roop, Heidi A.; Meyer, Nathan J.; Farris, Amanda
Climate adaptation and the management of climate impacts require cross-sectoral and regional coordination and collaboration, but presently there is no thorough assessment of the adaptation network in the Midwest United States to evaluate how well it achieves such collaboration. We investigated the climate adaptation network across the Midwest to inform the strategic agenda for a climate adaptation boundary organization in Minnesota - the University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership (MCAP). We identified 150 organizations and more than 500 unique connections between them. About ten organizations with more than 25 connections each link the existing Midwest climate adaptation network, but most organizations have fewer than five connections. This asymmetry can affect the flow of resources such as information, technical assistance, and financial support. It can also hinder coordination and collaboration as called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC et al., 2019). The Midwest adaptation network is not well-balanced with respect to the adaptation cycle: many organizations focus on understanding or planning for climate change, with few organizations focused on problem identification, plan implementation, or monitoring. The gaps identified here suggest that MCAP and other regional adaptation organizations can (1) improve cross-sectoral and intraregional coordination and collaboration, and (2) fill gaps in the adaptation cycle, particularly implementation and monitoring. As more communities and jurisdictions move beyond climate planning toward adaptation implementation and management, and as an increasing number of state, federal and private sector funds become available to support implementation, climate service providers such as MCAP should evaluate their services and capacities and adapt alongside the communities they support.