Relative Vulnerability of US National Parks to Cumulative and Transformational Climate Impacts

Citation

Michalak, J. L., Littlefield, C. E., Gross, J. E., Mozelewski, T. G., & Lawler, J. J. (2026). Relative Vulnerability of US National Parks to Cumulative and Transformational Climate Impacts. Conservation Letters, 19(1), e70020. doi.org/10.1111/con4.70020

Link to file

National Parks across the country are facing growing risks from climate change. Rising temperatures, stronger storms, drought, wildfires, sea-level rise, and outbreaks of insects and diseases are already changing many of these protected places.

In this study, researchers looked at many different types of climate risks at the same time to see which parks are most in danger. They found that about two-thirds of all National Parks are highly exposed to at least one serious climate threat that could permanently change their landscapes.

Parks in the Midwest and the eastern United States face the greatest overall risk. This is because they are dealing not only with climate change, but also with heavy development and other existing pressures nearby.

Parks in the western United States generally face less overall pressure from surrounding development and have more varied landscapes that can sometimes provide natural shelter from climate shifts. However, many western parks are especially at risk from major threats like large wildfires, long droughts, and insect outbreaks.

These findings show that climate change is creating widespread and varied challenges for National Parks. Park managers will need to plan carefully for changes that may permanently alter the natural features and wildlife these parks were created to protect.

Abstract

National Parks are under threat from multiple interacting climatic changes, which have already triggered transformations in these protected landscapes. We conducted a multidimensional analysis of climate‐change vulnerability for National Parks to identify which parks are most at risk of climate‐change impacts and therefore in the greatest need of targeted climate‐change vulnerability assessment and planning. We identified 174 (67%) parks as most exposed to one or more potentially transformative climate impacts including fire, drought, sea‐level rise, and forest pests and diseases. Cumulative vulnerability across multiple dimensions was the highest for parks in the Midwest and eastern United States due to high physical exposures, the exacerbation of existing stressors, and high surrounding land‐use intensity. Western parks exhibited lower cumulative vulnerability due to less intense land use and topography that may provide climatic refugia. However, western parks tended to be most exposed to multiple transformative impacts. These widespread, diverse threats highlight not only the need for coordinated evaluation of vulnerabilities from multiple perspectives, but also the need for park managers to evaluate and plan for potentially irreversible ecological changes to the landscapes and resources that parks are intended to preserve.