• Start-up
  • Planning
  • Action
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The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in MN, ND, and SD used the grassland menu and the Adaptation Workbook to develop a climate adaptation plan for Samuel H. Ordway Prairie and the broader Leola Hills Conservation Area. 

The Leola Hills region is experiencing increases in temperatures, drought frequency and severity, extreme precipitation events, and conversion of native grasslands to soybean and corn. Using the grassland adaptation menu, the TNC team selected a diversity of approaches and tactics to use at both the local and regional scale to best achieve their management goals.

Project Area

TNC's Samuel H. Ordway preserve (a) is located in the South Dakota portion of the Leola Hills Conservation Area
The Leola Hills Conservation Area crosses the border of North and South Dakota, USA. The Nature Conservancy's Samuel H. Ordway preserve is located within the South Dakota portion of the Leola Hills Conservation Area. The preserve is a largely intact mixed-grass prairie characteristic of the Prairie Potholes Region and provides habitat for grassland birds, wetland-dependent birds, and pollinators, as well as grazing capacity. Samuel H. Ordway served as a case study for the Grassland Adaptation Menu, which was used to aid in creating both local and regional climate adaptation plans for Ordway and the Leola Hills Conservation Area.

Photo by Nate Powazki

Management Goals

The three main conservation priorities for Ordway Prairie and the Leola Hills Conservation Area include:

  1. Managing ecosystems for biodiversity,
  2. Improving and maintaining habitat connectivity, and
  3. Supporting producers in improving rangeland conditions and the economic viability of their operations. 

Climate Change Impacts

For the Leola Hills region, the most important anticipated climate change impacts include:

Increasing annual temperatures over the coming decades with more rapid increases in nighttime and winter temperatures
Increased precipitation in winter and spring
Projected increase in susceptibility to summer drought frequency and severity
Projected increase in extreme precipitation events
High rates of conversion of native grasslands and drainage of wetlands, primarily for corn and soybean production, which is in part an indirect effect of increased temperature and precipitation in the region

Challenges and Opportunities

Climate change will present challenges and opportunities for accomplishing the management objectives of this project both regionally and locally, including:

Challenges

Increased risk of conversion of rangeland to cropland with longer growing seasons
Climate change and land-use changes may threaten water quality through increased agricultural runoff and sediments during extreme precipitation events
Earlier growing seasons may lead to increased dominance of invasive species
Additionally, Farm Bill policies (e.g., crop insurance) have greater impact on producer decisions than climate change
Drier summers may inhibit establishment of native plants in restorations
There may be a loss of forage capacity with increased drought
Fewer burn days during the traditional spring burn season and more extreme weather will make prescribed fire difficult to implement
Precipitation increases may facilitate woody encroachment

Opportunities

Heavy rains in late fall or wetter springs may fill wetlands for waterfowl in the spring
Longer growing seasons may mean more fuel is available for burning in some years/seasons
Occasional drought might reduce cattails in wetlands
May see a lengthening of the grazing season if drought in the summer does not reduce forage

Adaptation Actions

Project participants used the Adaptation Workbook to develop several adaptation actions for this project, including:

Area/Topic
Approach
Tactics
Regional Grassland Considerations
1.2. Address major mechanisms of grassland conversion
Invest in establishing more grassland and wetland easements
8.2. Invest in outreach and support for landowners and producers
Support mentoring programs for ranchers to facilitate learning and adoption of adaptation strategies
3.4. Maintain or restore hydrology
Use freshwater resilience maps and models to prioritize easements and riparian buffers
Local Grassland Considerations
4.1. Maintain or restore genetic diversity of ecological communities
Improve seed-sourcing practices to include greater species and genetic diversity and increase adaptive capacity
6.1. Adjust timing, frequency, and intensity of management actions (such as fire, grazing, and mechanical treatments etc.)
Adopt more flexible burn schedules that extend into other seasons, such as fall in this case
3.3. Emulate natural disturbance processes from natural and indigenous fire
Increase frequency and coverage of burns to better control woody species

Monitoring

Project participants identified several monitoring items that could help inform future management, including:
We will monitor woody encroachment at the landscape scale using the remote sensing tools available through the Rangeland Analysis Platform: https://rangelands.app/.
At a local level we are using an adaptive management monitoring approach to evaluate the effectiveness of our management actions (e.g., fire, grazing).
This involves a standardized plant community monitoring protocol with analysis to evaluate diversity and plant community trends over time.

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Keywords

Grasslands

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