Champlain Basin: Tackling Global Climate Change Locally

Much of the discussion around global climate change looks at worldwide or national approaches. Now a report published this week not only lists the threats facing the Lake Champlain region, it also offers concrete steps that can help mitigate the damage.

Titled “Climate Change in the Champlain Basin: What Natural Resources Managers Can Expect and Do,” the 42-page report pubished by the Nature Conservancy is one of the first to study the problem of climate change on a watershed scale, in this case the 8,234-square mile Lake Champlain Basin that encompasses parts of northern New York, Vermont, and Quebec. The findings are grim, and there is an air of resignation that major changes are coming. The difference between this report and a plethora of other doomsday studies is that it offers some hope if the people in a particular region decide to take a more proactive approach rather than waiting while governments dither over what needs to be done. Included in their findings are such details as the mean temperature of the Champlain Basin has risen 2 degrees in the 30-year period 1976-2005, slightly faster than the global average; the average water level of Lake Champlain is 1 foot higher than it was before the 1970s; and the ice cover lasts two weeks less than it did in the recent past, with parts of the lake not freezing up at all. The authors of the report expect these trends to continue, along with a host of other problems threatening the ecosystem of the lake. They recommend several steps that will help lessen the impact of these changes, including maintaining buffers of vegetation along the shoreline; controlling runoff from farms, developments, and roadways; identifying habitats that are vulnerable as well as those that are resilient, and developing conservation plans; and taking steps to prevent further incursions by invasive species.