Natural Resource Navigator

The Natural Resource Navigator is an online tool designed to help natural resource managers make climate smart decisions to sustain natural resources. With adaptation decision support functions, the Natural Resource Navigator can facilitate the development of actionable site-specific strategies. Decision makers get concrete recommendations for where and under what circumstances particular adaption strategies should be used. By synthesizing spatial data on resource conditions, non-climate threats, climate change exposure and sensitivity, the tool provides a structured process for managers to select the most appropriate climate adaptation options for their particular area or target.

Who can use the Navigator?

The Natural Resource Navigator is useful for natural resource decision making by:

• State and federal agencies
• Municipal planners
• Floodplain and forest managers
• Land trusts
• Watershed groups
• Not-for-profit organizations

In addition, land use and land use change can significantly contribute to climate change. Decision makers who are causing land use changes can use the Natural Resource Navigator with an eye towards climate change and minimizing impacts.

How was it developed?

The Natural Resource Navigator is an initiative of The Nature Conservancy in New York. It builds on and is informed by the Conservancy’s experience creating other toolkits that help to improve decisions around natural resources, specifically, improving coastal resilience in the U.S. and abroad, visualizing climate change impacts globally, and managing invasive species.

The Natural Resource Navigator was made possible with funding from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority as well as support from private donors.

Input from a Project Advisory Committee (PAC) helped to guide the development and ensure the usefulness of the Natural Resource Navigator. Members of the PAC included representatives from:

• Audubon New York
• County Conservation Districts
• Cornell University
• New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
• New York State Department of Transportation
• New York State Department of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation
• U.S. Geological Services
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services
• Wildlife Conservation Society’s Adirondack Program

The Natural Resource Navigator project team would also like to extend its appreciation to the following individuals and organizations for their contributions to the development of the Natural Resource Navigator.

• Timothy Howard and Matthew Schlesinger, New York Natural Heritage Program
• Myrna Hall and Fenqing Weng, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
• Northeast Regional Climate Center
• U.S. Forest Service, Sustaining Forests Unit
• U.S. Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis Unit
• Brad Compton, University of Massachusetts Amherst
• iMapInvasives
• Scenic Hudson