Skip to Content

09 February 2024

Climate change adaptation in parks

SANPARKS HAS PRIORITISED PREPARING FOR AND RESPONDING TO THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

There is increasing recognition that as a society we need to act now to reduce the impacts of climate change. SANParks’ Climate Change Preparedness Strategy, which was approved by the Board in December 2022, outlines a vision in which SANParks is resilient and responsible in a rapidly changing world. The actions and approaches outlined in the strategy fall under five pillars, namely to: understand vulnerability to and opportunities from climate change within SANParks; adapt to the inevitable changes; mitigate or reduce our contribution to climate change; build resilience in those relying on the park’s ecosystem services; and communicate the challenges and opportunities that climate change brings, as well as SANParks’ responses to it (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. The five strategic objectives underpinning SANParks’ Climate Change Preparedness Strategy, and the key questions and knowledge needs that they address.

Vulnerability

SANParks researchers, in collaboration with lead researcher Kevin Coldrey, from the University of Cape Town, assessed the vulnerability of biodiversity in parks to climate change. Potential climate change impacts on species, habitats and resource pressure demands were compared with each park’s adaptive capacity. The latter was quantified using measures of management effectiveness, the type of land use around the park and its financial resilience. Recognising SANParks’ reliance on tourism revenue, climate change resilience was calculated as a combination of the likelihood of changes in key tourist features, such as the presence and visibility of attractions, avoidance of climate extremes and avoidance of malaria. In addition, we calculated the value of park infrastructure (e.g. roads and lodges) that is highly exposed to increasing flooding and sea level rise (Fig.2). Examples of parks with relatively high vulnerability include Mapungubwe NP, largely due to increasing demand for resources by communities living close to the park and comparatively low adaptive capacity in terms of land available for park expansion; Mokala NP, due to changes in habitat and low adaptive capacity; and West Coast NP, which has low resilience to extreme events, such as storm surges in combination with rising sea levels. Although broad-scale, the study provided a framework to understand relative climate change vulnerability across national parks, and it provides information to guide decision-making to minimise negative impacts of climate change.

Figure 2. A framework for assessing protected area vulnerability to biodiversity loss from climate change.

Understanding the vulnerability of parks to climate change at the grassroots level, i.e. from the ‘bottom up’, is vital for sound preparedness planning and an essential complement to high-level strategies and assessments. Since 2018, SANParks has been conducting park-level vulnerability assessments using a compilation of available research in conjunction with broad-scale staff and expert consultation.

These assessments consider many potential impacts, including meteorological, socio-economic, biodiversity impacts and adaptive capacity at much finer scales. Although demanding of both scientific expertise and time, they are essential for real-world, on-the-ground adaptation planning. Over the last year, new assessment reports were completed for Kruger and Augrabies Falls, adding to the seven previous reports available for Agulhas, Camdeboo, Garden Route, Golden Gate Highlands, Namaqua, Richtersveld and Tankwa Karoo National Parks. Park adaptation planning for these parks is in preparation and the next important stage is workshops with park managers and scientists to assess adaptation responses and priorities for implementation.

In parallel to the broader adaptation planning, a SANParks-led Table Mountain Fund project is investigating how climate change can be incorporated into spatial planning at a fine scale. This multi-angled assessment of mega-diverse Table Mountain National Park, includes identifying plants and animals that are vulnerable to climate change, exploring risks to people and infrastructure, and assessing the bio-climatic uniqueness of particular areas within the park. While the latter analyses are still in progress, we have already identified several priorities. Several of the park’s reptiles and amphibians are predicted to be highly vulnerable to climate change, including the iconic Table Mountain Ghost Frog, which exists only at the top of Table Mountain and is reliant on cool streams, cloud cover and vulnerable microhabitats. Worryingly, several reptile species listed as least concern are considered highly vulnerable to climate change, suggesting that threat categories of these species may require reevaluation. The identification of ‘hotspot’ areas of highly vulnerable reptiles and amphibians is being used to inform management interventions and visitor site use.

Adaptation

SANParks is collaboratively exploring Naturebased Solutions (NbS), which aim to enhance ecosystem services, such as water provision and carbon sequestration, to help people to prepare for climate change. Research conducted this year quantifies the organisation’s contributions to protecting strategic water source areas and the carbon stocks stored in soil and vegetation, highlighting the organisation’s important role both nationally and internationally.

A US Embassy funded collaboration between SANParks and the United States’ National Park Service began in September 2022, with the objective of knowledge-sharing and co-learning about climate change adaptation. The two-year project enables scientist exchange with the strong 16-person Climate Change Response Programme, participation in the US National Forum, and short fellowships within US institutions focusing on climate change research and management. It has also funded the development of a Specialist Scientist position, filled in February 2023, which is the first SANParks position to focus specifically on climate change. The grant will enable SANParks to offer MSc bursaries to conduct research that contributes to climate change adaptation in parks, to host four climate change assessment workshops for several parks in the coming year, and to begin a range of research and management collaborations.

The iconic Table Mountain Ghost Frog occurs only at the top of Table Mountain where it is highly vulnerable to the impacts of warming streams and reduced cloud cover due to climate change (Photo: Jeremy Shelton).

This article was originally published in the 2022/2023 Research Report.

This article is based on publications in Conservation Biology and Conservation Science and Practice journals

Coldrey KM, Turpie JK, Midgley G, Scheiter S, Hannah L, Roehrdanz PR & Foden WB. 2022. Assessing
protected area vulnerability to climate change in a case study of South African national parks.
Conservation Biology, 36(5), p.e13941.

Harper JR, van Wilgen NJ, Turner AA, Tolley KA, Maritz B, Clusella‐Trullas S, da Silva JM, Cunningham
SJ, Cheney C, de Villiers AL and Measey J & Foden W. 2022. Application of a trait‐based climate change
vulnerability assessment to determine management priorities at protected area scale. Conservation
Science and Practice, 4(8), p.e12756.

Dr Wendy Foden

Dr Wendy Foden

Specialist Scientist: Climate Change

Dr Nicola van Wilgen

Dr Nicola van Wilgen

Global Change Scientist



Share This

Share