Environmental Management (2020) 66:614–628https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01336-y

Navigating Climate Adaptation on Public Lands: How Views onEcosystem Change and Scale Interact with Management Approaches

Katherine R. Clifford 1,2,3● Laurie Yung4

● William R. Travis2,3,5 ● Renee Rondeau6● Betsy Neely7 ●

Imtiaz Rangwala2,3 ● Nina Burkardt1 ● Carina Wyborn4,8

Received: 6 March 2020 / Accepted: 9 July 2020 / Published online: 29 July 2020© The Author(s) 2020

AbstractManagers are increasingly being asked to integrate climate change adaptation into public land management. The literaturediscusses a range of adaptation approaches, including managing for resistance, resilience, and transformation; but manystrategies have not yet been widely tested. This study employed in-depth interviews and scenario-based focus groups in theUpper Gunnison Basin in Colorado to learn how public land managers envision future ecosystem change, and how they planto utilize different management approaches in the context of climate adaptation. While many managers evoked the past inthinking about projected climate impacts and potential responses, most managers in this study acknowledged and evenembraced (if reluctantly) that many ecosystems will experience regime shifts in the face of climate change. However,accepting that future ecosystems will be different from past ecosystems led managers in different directions regarding how torespond and the appropriate role of management intervention. Some felt management actions should assist and even guideecosystems toward future conditions. Others were less confident in projections and argued against transformation. Finally,some suggested that resilience could provide a middle path, allowing managers to help ecosystems adapt to change withoutpredicting future ecosystem states. Scalar challenges and institutional constraints also influenced how managers thoughtabout adaptation. Lack of institutional capacity was believed to constrain adaptation at larger scales. Resistance, inparticular, was considered impractical at almost any scale due to institutional constraints. Managers negotiated scalarchallenges and institutional constraints by nesting different approaches both spatially and temporally.

Keywords Transformation ● Land management ● Environmental change ● Regime shift ● Resilience and active intervention

Introduction

Public lands present an important opportunity for climateadaptation, especially in the United States IntermountainWest, where public lands constitute almost half of the land

area. Public lands provide important ecological, social,cultural, and economic benefits, especially for nearbycommunities, and climate change impacts can increasesocial vulnerability for people who depend on public landresources (Knapp 2011; McNeeley et al. 2017). Public landsare subject to long-term planning and monitoring, requirepublic involvement in decision-making, and serve multiplecommunities and constituencies. However, efforts todevelop and deploy climate adaptation actions on public

* Katherine R. CliffordKatie.clifford@colorado.edu

1 USGS-Fort Collins Science Center, Social and Economic AnalysisBranch, Fort Collins, CO, USA

2 Western Water Assessment, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO,USA

3 North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center, Boulder, CO,USA

4 Department of Society and Conservation, University of Montana,Missoula, MT, USA

5 Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder,Boulder, CO, USA

6 Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA7 Colorado Chapter, The Nature Conservancy, Boulder, CO, USA8 Institute for Water Futures, Fenner School of Environment and

Society, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Supplementary information The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01336-y) contains supplementarymaterial, which is available to authorized users.

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lands face unique challenges (Ellenwood et al. 2012; Bur-kardt and Orth 2018; Peters et al. 2018). Communities,scientists, and managers may disagree about what con-stitutes appropriate and effective adaptation. Land managersstruggle to develop climate adaptation actions that meetcommunity needs, match available science and professionaltraining, and comply with relevant policy and law (Archieet al. 2012).

The Intermountain West is expected to change inimportant ways as a result of climate change. Climatemodels project that the region will become significantlydrier (Overpeck and Udall 2010; Garfin et al. 2014) andexperience more extreme events (Tebaldi et al. 2006), fromincreases in wildfire severity and extent (Westerling et al.2006) to more intense precipitation events (Wuebbles et al.2014). The Intermountain West is already experiencingmany of these changes, including more intense and longerlasting droughts (Gonzalez et al. 2018), increased wildfirefrequency and area burned (Westerling et al. 2006), earliersnowmelt and runoff (Clow 2010; Fritze et al. 2011), anddecreased snowpack (Mote et al. 2018) due to more win-tertime rain (Knowles et al. 2006). Finally, downscalingclimate models and projecting future ecosystem conditionsis challenging, especially in mountainous areas (Cozzettoet al. 2011; Rangwala and Miller 2012), and there areuncertainties regarding the specific ways in which climatechange will manifest at the local level.

Until recently, public land management agencies werecharged with planning for climate change (see e.g.,Executive Order 13514 2009; EO 13653 2013; EO 136932015) and identified climate adaptation as a goal. Eventhough many of the federal policies on climate adaptationwere rescinded in 2017, climate adaptation practices con-tinue to advance in public land management agencies and awide range of approaches have been described in the sci-entific literature. However, many adaptation strategies havenot been widely implemented due to lack of resources, riskaversion, limited understanding of how to operationalizethem, and low confidence in their efficacy (Archie et al.2012; Archie 2014). In this paper, we describe a study thatemployed in-depth interviews and scenario-based focusgroups to learn how managers envision future ecosystemchange, and how they view different management approa-ches in the context of climate adaptation.

Public Lands and Climate ChangeAdaptation

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)defines climate adaptation as adjustments in natural orhuman systems in response to observed or projected climateimpacts (IPCC, C. C. 2001). More recently, adaptation has

been recognized as a social-ecological process that isenabled and constrained by a diversity of physical, biolo-gical, social, and institutional factors (Moser and Ekstrom2010). Thus, climate adaptation on public lands can be bestunderstood in the context of ecological change, manage-ment imperatives, and institutional structure and culture.

Most public land management focuses on current anddesired future conditions, best management practices, theflow of resources, such as timber, water, and wildlife, andthe recreation experiences that users have come to expect(Cortner and Moote 1999). Adapting to climate change mayrequire altering conventional approaches and even some ofthe foundational assumptions and logics that underlie publicland management (Joyce et al. 2009). For example, estab-lished “best practices” maybe no longer be appropriate oreffective when applied to current or future landscapes (Westet al. 2009). Current restoration efforts maybe destined tofail if changing climatic conditions cannot support historicecosystems (see Tahoe National Forest in Littell et al.2012). While management approaches to climate changeoften focus on ecological systems, they also engage withsocial systems because they interact with livelihoods con-nected to resources from public lands, recreational oppor-tunities, and valued species and ecosystems. Thus, thesedecisions not only have ecological consequences; they arealso highly political (Pelling 2010; Eriksen et al. 2015;O’Brien and Selboe 2015).

Given the uncertainty about future climate conditionsand how they will impact local ecosystems, the scientificliterature on adaptation increasingly emphasizes robust andflexible approaches (Walker et al. 2013; Kwakkel et al.2016). Robust adaptation is designed to function over awide range of future conditions and to adjust in response tochange. Since public land managers, especially in theIntermountain West, must contend with varied landscapesthat respond differently to climate, many recommend a“toolbox approach”, utilizing a wide range of approachesthat include both conventional strategies, such as fueltreatments to reduce wildfire severity, and more novelstrategies, such as assisted migration of species (Millar et al.2007). There is no one-size-fits all approach to adaptationthat will work across all ecological and social contexts, somanagers face difficult decisions regarding what mightwork best given uncertain projections, potentially contestedobjectives, and a suite of tested and untested strategies.

While there are many ways to formulate or categorizeadaptation goals, some frameworks emphasize resistance,resilience, and transformation (Millar et al. 2007). Differentscholars variously define these three goals, and the linesbetween them often blur (Walker et al. 2004). Alternateframeworks categorize adaptation according to resistance,resilience, and response options (Millar et al. 2007); per-sistence, directed change, and autonomous change

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(Fisichelli et al. 2016); resilience, transition, and transfor-mation (Pelling 2010); observe, resist, and facilitate change(Aplet and McKinley 2017). While not necessarily agreedupon, the concepts of resistance, resilience, and transfor-mation provide a useful starting point for examining theapproaches that managers emphasize.

The goal of resistance is to slow or stop climate changeimpacts or ecosystem changes, and to preserve historicecosystem states (Parker et al. 2000). In many cases,resistance not only tries to slow changes, but takes on arestoration lens, aiming to return ecosystems to past states(Aplet and Cole 2010). Because resistance is akin toswimming upstream, against the current of climate change,resistance is generally assumed to require intensive, activeintervention in ecosystem processes, and is therefore typi-cally limited to areas that are highly valued, ecologically,economically, or culturally. However, at the same time,some managers are drawn towards resistance because ofsocial norms and policy language that suggest landscapesare more “natural” when they remain in their historic eco-logical state (Cole and Yung 2010). These decisions arealso shaped by policy (Stephenson and Millar 2012) andrisk aversion (Hagerman and Satterfield 2014). Generally,resistance strategies become more labor-intensive and lesseffective over time (Millar et al. 2007).

Resilience is variously defined, but at its core resilienceallows for more change as compared with resistance. Aresilient system can change and adjust in response tostressors or disturbance but does not shift into a funda-mentally different state (Zavaleta and Chapin 2010). Inother words, a resilient system does not irreversibly andfundamentally change states in the face of external pertur-bations (Holling 1973; Gunderson 2000). Further, whileresilient systems are dynamic, they are able to maintain keyfunctions and ecosystem services in the face of change. Asystem can be resilient without management intervention, ormanagers can actively intervene to try to build resilience.Resilience plays an important role in the way the ForestService conceptualizes agency responses to climate change(Timberlake and Schultz 2017). Further, while the ambi-guity of resilience makes it difficult for managers to oper-ationalize, it also provides flexibility that some managersvalue (Timberlake and Schultz 2017). Cross-scale interac-tions, or panarchy, can influence the resilience of a system,as disturbances or management actions at smaller scales canaccumulate and influence larger scales (Chaffin et al. 2016;Gunderson et al. 2017).

In the face of a regime shift, managers can take a hands-off approach and simply observe changes, or they canintervene and assist with transformation (Cole and Yung2010). According to Chaffin et al. (2016), transformationinvolves deliberate, human-driven actions that are intendedto push a system across a threshold and to a new state,

involving shifts in the key processes and structures thatgovern that system. We use the term transformation to referspecifically to management interventions to assist ecosys-tems in transforming to a new state (e.g., a regime shift froma forest to a grassland). Transformation maybe appropriatewhen significant changes to ecosystem processes, organi-zation, or elements are inevitable (West et al. 2009) andwhen anticipated changes might degrade ecosystem func-tions and/or services over the long term. In these cases,managers may choose to actively intervene to retain somesemblance of a functioning system and avoid catastrophicloses (Millar et al. 2007).

An example of a transformation strategy after a cata-strophic wildfire in Pinyon-Juniper woodlands of southwestColorado includes developing a climate-smart seed mix thatallows the site to transform into a functioning grass–shrubecosystem and reduces the establishment of non-nativeinvasive species like cheatgrass (Rondeau et al. 2017a).Transformation represents a significant departure fromconventional management, which typically seeks to pre-serve historic or current conditions (Landres et al. 1999).Further, the strategies employed for transformation are oftennovel and include assisted migration, deploying geneticallymodified organisms, and changing disturbance regimes(Millar et al. 2007). Panarchy is also important to under-standing transformation, as cross-scale interactions affectcapacity for transformation and large-scale transformationmay depend on interventions at smaller scales (Chaffin et al.2016).

Some agency staff maybe resistant to transformation andto novel strategies for climate adaptation. Kemp et al.(2015) found that, in the context of climate change, publicland managers leaned heavily on existing managementstrategies that they had previously utilized for projectsunrelated to climate change. These existing strategies wereperceived to be more feasible and better supported by theagency and the public and were not seen as requiringaccurate projections about future climate change impacts.Interestingly, other studies show that Forest Service staff atthe national forest and regional-level envision climatechange as a new challenge requiring new approaches incontrast to district-level staff who emphasize existingmanagement strategies (Laatsch and Ma 2015). Even non-governmental organizations maybe largely unwilling toconsider transformation and instead focus on resistance topreserve historic species composition (Poiani et al. 2011).Further, because different approaches have different impli-cations for the livelihoods, recreational opportunities, andsocial values associated with public lands, the decisions thatagencies make in response to climate change occur in ahighly politicized context (Archie 2014).

In this study, we envision resistance, resilience, andtransformation as management approaches that can

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sometimes overlap or complement one another. We seeactive intervention and hands-off management (i.e., nointervention) as opposites but emphasize that active inter-vention can be employed in many different ways and usedto support different adaptation approaches (See Table 1). Inthe face of climate change, resistance is only possiblethrough active intervention, but a hands-off approach couldemphasize resilience and might be taken in the face of aregime shift.

Methods

The Gunnison Basin

This research was conducted in the Upper Gunnison RiverBasin, referred to hereafter as the Gunnison Basin, inSouthwest Colorado. In its 3,508 square miles, the basinextends from 7,000 feet to 14,000 feet and encompassessagebrush, montane, sub-alpine, and alpine ecosystems(Neely et al. 2011). Climate processes vary across the basin

with total average annual precipitation differing by a factorof four and a temperature range of up to 120 °F over thecourse of a year (https://wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliGCStT.pl?cogunn). The Gunnison Basin is 85% public lands,including 51% Forest Service, 24% Bureau of Land Man-agement, 8% state and local, and 2% National Park Service,and many local livelihoods rely on public lands. In two ofthe three counties, 12% of jobs are with the Forest Service(Cheng 2006). Basin-wide, agriculture, primarily ranching,accounts for 10% of employment, with livestock grazingoccurring on the vast majority of private (96%) and ForestService (89%) lands (Cheng 2006). In addition, tourismprovides nearly 23% of the jobs (Department of LocalAffairs 2010a; 2010b). Further, previous research in theGunnison Basin found that residents had deep under-standings of local weather and climate (Clifford and Travis2018) and species-specific knowledge useful to conserva-tion efforts (Knapp et al. 2013).

The Gunnison Climate Working Group (GCWG) is apublic–private partnership consisting of agency staff, pri-vate landowners, local government, academics, and non-

Table 1 Types of management intervention

Types of Active InterventionResponses Specifically to Climate Change

Term Active Management Resistance Resilience TransformationDefinition Active management of

specific resources but interventions are notintended to respond specifically to climate change.

Actions that attempt to stop or halt landscape changes and maintain historic and current ranges, species, and ecosystems.

Actions to enhance the ability of the system to withstand climate impacts without fundamentally changingthe ecosystem.

Actions intended toassist with transformation of the ecosystem to a new state.

Scale(s) of Implementation/Influence

Project scale Project scale Actions at the project scale intended to buildresilience at the landscape scale

Actions at the project scale intended to assist in transformation at the landscape scale

Example Timber harvest, mineral development, development of water resources for livestock

Replanting species within their historical range to maintain historic species composition and ecosystem structure

Forest thinning to increase resilience to drought

One-rock dams to improve water infiltration to recharge springs

Moving wildlife species to higher elevations where current and future conditions might be more favorable

Reseeding with species from ecosystems that are warmer and drier

The solid line separates Active Management from approaches that often respond specifically and explicitly to climate change

The dashed lines recognize the blurry boundaries between resistance, resilience, and transformation

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governmental organizations that have been working toge-ther to prepare for climate change since 2009. In 2011, theGCWG, in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy,completed vulnerability assessments for ecological systemsand species of interest (Neely et al. 2011) and humancommunities (Knapp 2011). The Gunnison Basin is similarto many landscapes in the Intermountain West with itsdominance of public lands and ranching, alongside tourismand second homes, but the GCWG and climate adaptationplanning make it distinct from other communities in theregion where this type of planning is in more nascent stages.

The Southwest Colorado Social-Ecological-ClimateResilience (SECR) Project

The research presented here was part of the SouthwestColorado Social-Ecological-Climate Resilience (SECR)Project. SECR is an interdisciplinary, multisite, multi-institutional project working to facilitate climate changeadaptation that contributes to social-ecological resilience,ecosystem and species conservation, and sustainable humancommunities in southwestern Colorado. The SECR teamincludes social, biological, and climate scientists as well asnon-governmental organizations who work in collaborationwith public land management agencies and the GCWG. Inthe Gunnison Basin, SECR activities focused specifically onsagebrush and spruce-fir landscapes, which were selectedby the GCWG based on their social and ecological impor-tance as well as their vulnerability to climate change. TheSECR project included social and biophysical research andparticipatory processes that integrated scientific knowledge,land management decision-making, and local needs. Inaddition to the research described here, the project includedecological vulnerability assessments, social-ecologicalresponse models, and institutional analysis, and culmi-nated in stakeholder workshops to identify specific adap-tation strategies for sagebrush and spruce-fir landscapes.

Narrative Climate Scenarios at the Landscape Scale

Climatologists and ecologists on the SECR team built thenarrative climate scenarios at the landscape scale (referredto here as the Gunnison scenarios) from model data and

existing research on climate impacts to the target systems foruse in the focus groups. The Gunnison scenarios weredesigned to represent a range of plausible futures for theGunnison Basin and thus explicitly account for uncertaintyregarding the local hydrological and ecological impacts ofclimate change. Similar scenarios have been used by theNational Park Service (National Park Service 2013) andelsewhere in Montana and Colorado (Wyborn et al. 2014,Murphy et al. 2017). Seventy-two global climate models andtwo greenhouse gas emissions scenarios (8.5 and 4.5 RCPs-Representative Concentration Pathways) from the CoupledModel Intercomparison Project—Phase 5 (CMIP5) (Tayloret al. 2012) were used to identify three climate scenarios forthe Gunnison Basin for 2035. These scenarios included (i) ahotter, drier future; (ii) a warmer future with increasedannual precipitation; and (iii) a future with high interannualvariability in climate with hot, dry years and warm, wetyears occurring in unpredictable cycles. The scenarios weretitled Hot and Dry, Warm and Wet, and Feast and Famine,respectively (see Table 2 and Appendix 1).

Next, experts in local ecology and a literature review ofclimate niches for dominant plant species described how keyfeatures and systems of the landscape would change inresponse to new climate patterns. This information was usedto connect the climate scenarios with possible landscape-scalechanges. Scenarios were detailed, accessible, and provided innarrative format with quantitative information where appro-priate (Rondeau et al. 2017b; 2017c). They also includedclimate analogs (e.g., by 2035 Gunnison will have the currentclimate of Saguache under a Hot and Dry scenario) andcomparisons to past events (e.g., roughly every fifth year,conditions will be similar to the extreme drought in 2002) tomake future change more tangible (Dunn et al. 2015). The 20-year timeframe was used because it is a timescale that is oftenpreferred by natural resource managers for planning (Murphyet al. 2016). Draft scenarios were reviewed by scientists withrelevant expertise from outside the SECR project and revisedbased on their recommendations.

Interviews and Focus Groups

We utilized in-depth semi-structured interviews and focusgroups to gain insight into agency decision-making and

Table 2 Summary of Gunnison scenarios: three climate scenarios for the Gunnison Basin for 2035, (See Appendix 1 for full scenario text)

Scenario title Climate description

Hot and Dry Sustained and long-duration drought conditions; chronic dry conditions in summer accompanied by heat waves

Warm and Wet Water availability does not change but climate is warmer driving more rain than snow, earlier snowmelt, and a longergrowing season

Feast or Famine High interannual climate variability with hot, dry years followed by warm, wet years, driving more intermittent floods anddroughts

Gunnison scenarios

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management approaches specifically as they related to cli-mate adaptation. Both interviews (n= 20) and focus groups(n= 18)1, draw primarily on the same group of engagedmanagers, including but not limited to members of theGCWG, made up of staff from the Forest Service, Bureau ofLand Management, National Park Service, Colorado StateForest Service, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and NaturalResources Conservation Service (see Appendix 2 for abreakdown of participants by agency). All focus groupparticipants were state and federal land managers. Wefocused specifically on land managers since most of theBasin’s land, especially the higher elevations, is publiclyowned and managed, and because managers are tasked withplanning for climate change. Participants included expertsin forestry, wildlife biology, range management, botany, firemanagement, and hydrology. In addition, participants ran-ged from line-officers to specialists. Focus groups inten-tionally mixed participants so that each group hadrepresentatives from different agencies and disciplines.Each focus group included individuals from differentagencies to better understand the views and practices ofland managers across agencies and allow for dialogueacross different institutional contexts. Three of the focusgroups were conducted in Gunnison; one was held inMontrose.

An interview guide was used in both interviews andfocus groups to ensure comparability while providingflexibility for participants to raise unanticipated topics(Patterson and Williams 2002). Probes were utilized toexplore specific responses in more depth.

In the interviews, participants were asked questionsabout current climate impacts, future conditions, manage-ment approaches, capacity to respond, and decision-makingin the face of uncertainty. In the focus groups, participantsread through each scenario and then answered a series ofquestions about impacts to local resources and livelihoods,potential responses and barriers to responses, opportunities,conflicts, collective action, and decisions in the context ofchange and uncertainty. At the end of the focus groups,participants were asked for feedback on the utility of sce-nario process (see Appendices 3 and 4 for interview andfocus group guides). The interviews and focus groups weredesigned to serve as a standalone social science researchproject as well as to inform subsequent stages of the largerSECR project. Interviews lasted ~1 h and focus groupslasted ~2 h. Both were audio-recorded and transcribedverbatim. Transcripts were coded in NVivo2 using bothdescriptive (water resources, barriers, etc.) and interpretive

(risk, fear, frustration, etc.) codes (Richards 2005) (seeAppendix 5 for codes).

An iterative analytical process was employed to compareempirical findings with theoretical concepts from the lit-erature (Layder 1998). This iterative process comparedexisting research and frameworks on relevant topics, suchas resilience, transformation, risk, and institutional culture,with interview data to produce an understanding of howinterview results aligned with and/or extended current the-ory. To do so, we re-reviewed relevant literature at multiplepoints during the analysis (e.g., while building the initialcoding framework, before coding individual interviews,before comparing across interviews, before writing theresults section of this paper) and then foregrounded thatliterature in the next stage of analysis. While existing theoryinformed coding, the codes were not solely predeterminedbased on the literature. We used a modified grounded theoryapproach to attend to emergent findings, with many codesdrawn from the interview data in addition to the a prioricodes. This iterative process enabled us to systematicallyexamine interview data in light of existing research whilealso allowing for new, emergent findings. The excerptsbelow represent views that were common across the sample(except where explicitly noted).

Results

The Past, the Future, and the Question ofTransformation

The interviews and focus groups were designed to engagemanagers in thinking about how they would respond to arange of local climate change impacts. Below we examinethe ways that managers conceptualize future change and themanagement approaches they support. Some of the differ-ences described below hinge on whether managers werelooking to the past to guide their response to climatechange, relying on historic ecosystem states and tried-and-true management approaches, versus looking to the futuretoward novel ecosystems and innovative strategies.

Managers looked to the past for guidance in the contextof climate change in two main ways. Some managersfocused on resistance, the goal of retaining historic eco-system types in their current locations, as a means to protectvulnerable species or ecosystem features from the impactsof climate change. Exemplifying this view, one managersuggested that resistance was a valuable tool in the contextof adaptation, saying “we need all the tools in the toolbox…in order to respond and to keep a forest there or to keepsagebrush land there. I mean you need to be able to dohuman intervention”. For this manager, active intervention

1 The 18 participants were split among four focus groups, specificallyin groups of 5, 3, 4, and 6 participants.2 https://www.qsrinternational.com/nvivo-qualitative-data-analysis-software/home

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is required to retain an ecosystem from the past in a specificlocation, given the impacts of climate change.

Managers also looked to the past by comparing climatechange to previous disturbances. These managers arguedthat since climate change was just another disturbance,business as usual would be effective. As one managershared, “we expect to deal with disturbances and we have aton of experience dealing with disturbances. Climate changeis just one more disturbance. That is how we view it”. Forthis manager, experience with past disturbance created aconfidence that existing management strategies would beeffective in the context of climate change.

In contrast, other managers had their eyes clearly onthe future, embracing ecosystem change, includingregime shifts, and trying to envision new approaches.Breaking with decades of federal land management lar-gely focused on managing for historic ecosystem states,many managers in this study discussed the need toactively assist ecosystems in transitioning to new states.They believed that climate change impacts would be toodramatic to effectively resist and that regime shiftswould be inevitable. One manager explained that “Ifthere’s a disturbance there, we wouldn’t go back in andtry and recreate that. Let’s adapt it to what it’s movingtowards…If it needs adaptation there, let’s not try to getspruce-fir to grow again. We’re going to fail”. Accordingto this manager, in the context of climate change, resis-tance is futile. For those who saw regime shifts asinevitable, active intervention was often the preferredapproach. This manager described this approach, saying:“We’re trying to adapt hands-on, adapt that system sothat it’s either more resilient or anticipate what’s goingto happen and get it in front of it, maybe steer what mayend up happening as a result of climate change”.

Active intervention was synonymous with assistedmigration for many managers. In response to projectedchanges to the historic range of ponderosa pine, one man-ager suggested “I would see that as more [of] …us artifi-cially migrating that species, because ponderosa pine… theseed doesn’t move very far”. They recognized that pon-derosa pine would not easily adapt without managementintervention, in this case assisted migration. Seeding outsideof historic ranges was often recommended as a transfor-mation strategy to assist with regime shifts and speciesmigration. Another manager suggested mixing in Douglasfir seeds when replanting areas that are currently spruce-fir.A third manager argued that “you’ve got to start gatheringseeds and planting limber pine at 11,000 feet”. In short,these managers recommended that management actions aimfor future ecosystem conditions, presumably using down-scaled climate projections, and that managers activelyintervene to guide ecosystem change toward those futureconditions.

But other managers were less certain about active inter-vention, arguing that it was difficult to determine whichapproach would be best. As one manager asked:

Should we be bumping up an elevation to the nextseed zone in order to have trees that would be a littlebit more well-adjusted to a warmer climate? Espe-cially when you’re dealing with stands that have a300-year rotation on them, it’s difficult to try andfigure out whether it’s an appropriate action.

For this manager, the long rotation of spruce-fir standscalled into question projections about how those stands mightchange over the next few decades. Another manager describeda similar struggle, saying: “I’m in a philosophical quandaryright now…the two schools of thought, the new thinking:maybe we need to be more manipulative and get in front ofthis. And the other that says: what’s wrong with letting it playout and seeing where things go.” In calling it a “philosophicalquandary”, this manager implies that the question is, in part,moral or ethical, rather than just scientific. Thus, for somemanagers, opposition to transformation was grounded in a lackof confidence in climate projections. But for others, it was aphilosophical question of what constitutes appropriate man-agement. This manager weighs the risks of transformationversus waiting and watching, saying:

You don’t know what the situation is so you’re goingto try to manipulate the landscape in ten differentways in case it hits any direction so you’re going tohave at least nine failures and nine damaged creations,if you will. So yeah, that’s a really bad idea in myopinion because the ecosystems that are around are fora long time, and if we do nothing it will come back tosome kind of homeostasis and without us it may notbe the way we like and we may lose some specieslocally or worldwide…but it’d be probably better offthan us trying to manipulate.

For this manager, uncertainty about future conditionsmeant that active intervention could cause harm or damageto ecosystems. They weighed the possible harms fromactive intervention against the possible harms from climatechange (e.g., local extinctions) and determined that theformer was more problematic. They also expressed con-fidence that ecosystems would achieve some sort ofhomeostasis (i.e., equilibrium) over time, despite climatechange. Another manager agreed, saying:

I don’t know that we can adequately predict anychanges in range of spruce-fir or anything else. I thinkwe should be able to expect things to behave differentas we go in…I don’t think we should plan to relocate

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or replant spruce because I think it’s such a longprocess that spruce is going to do its thing on its ownat some point.

Again, a lack of accurate predictions about future eco-system conditions meant that assisted migration is inap-propriate, for this manager. They support an active timberprogram and the kind of stand-level intervention involved intimber management. Thus, they are not expressing opposi-tion to active management, but rather opposition to trans-formation to new ecosystem or vegetation types projected tobe more adaptive under future climates. Here anothermanager argues in favor of active management, but againsttransformation, saying:

Just to let certain things happen and try to adapt yourexpectations, and maybe the movement up ofsagebrush and the conversion in the lower elevationsto grass might actually support [grazing] there, as longas you keep the cheatgrass out.

This manager also accepts that ecosystems will change,but similarly argues that managers should not pursuetransformation. At the same time, they support grazing andweed management, so they are not advocating for a purelyhands-off approach.

Interestingly, some managers saw resilience as a middlepath whereby active intervention could assist ecosystems inadapting to change without presupposing specific futureconditions or ecosystem type. As this manager argues:

Recognizing that there is change afoot and that themore resilient we can make the spruce-fir type, andany of our other forest types, to create an insurancethat whatever happens that we have a more resilientstand out there that can take of what’s ahead of it…Iam not anticipating anybody coming up with a magicbullet that says on that particular acre it’s going to belike this, this is the condition that is going… 500 yearsfrom now. There is no way for us to do that…we haveto create a landscape that deals with whateverconditions. And recognizing that spruce-fir may moveup the hill, and ponderosa pine may move in behind it.Or vice versa. We don’t know. The more resilient thelandscape we make, the more it will be able to adapt.

Interestingly, they are advocating for active interventionto increase adaptability and future resilience, not to guideecosystems toward specific future conditions. While theserecommendations were vague in the sense that they did notspecify how resilience will be increased, they do point to amiddle path where managers actively intervene to assistwith adaptation without presuming to know specifically

how ecosystems will transition. Another manager describedresilience strategies similarly, explaining that “you need tofind what’s an appropriate middle ground and try to sustainthat, adapting for bad years and good years”. This approachrequires acknowledging and accepting that future ecosys-tems will be different from past ecosystems, but does notrequire relying on specific projections about future eco-system conditions. In this sense, resilience is seen as a wayto minimize risk and hedge in the context of uncertainty.

Scalar Challenges and Institutional Constraints toEffective Adaptation

The question of how to manage public lands in the contextof climate change often evoked discussions about temporaland spatial scale. In interviews and focus groups, managersgrappled with both the scale of projected climate impactsand their inability to work at larger scales. As one managerput it, “I think probably the biggest challenge we face isscale”. Below we examine the scalar challenges that man-agers discussed, including specific scalar mismatches andthe institutional constraints that influenced the scale ofmanagement action.

Some managers advocated for large-scale managementintervention because the scale of climate change impactsdemanded a large-scale response. These managers focusedon projected climate impacts, from more intense droughtand wildfire to expanding forest pathogens, arguing thatnone of these could be addressed at a small scale. As in thesection above, managers here acknowledged that the futurewould be different from the past, suggesting that dis-turbance and ecological change would happen at a largerscale. As a result, they concluded that small-scale responsesto large-scale ecosystem changes were insufficient toaddress climate change. This manager articulated this view,arguing for management interventions that matched thescale of the change:

I feel like we don’t address the right scale either…We’re seeing these large-scale responses [referring tothe scale of pine beetle outbreaks] and to think that wecan actively manage it at a scale other than a large-scale sort of misses the point. I think the managementresponse is going to have to match the naturalresponse spatially and temporally.

Managers conveyed that they were hearing “a lotnationally from agency leadership about increasing thescope and scale of landscape restoration”. But many man-agers felt frustrated about their inability to work at therequired scale. This manager described a small-scale projectto build resilience, but concluded that it may not be havingan impact at the scale needed, saying:

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We can’t make it get colder so the tree can continue tosurvive but did what we could. We opened up thecanopy and got rid of the competition for sunlight andthen we came back in over the next few years and ifthere were four trees here you picked the healthiestone and cut the other three and leave the one. We wereactively managing those small groves of trees to tryand keep those species growing there. So you can dothat, but it’s such a small-scale thing that it’s likeyou’re taking care of one small part of a thousand-mile beach. And it’s frustrating because it’s hard tofeel like you’re accomplishing much sometimes.

This manager recognized the need for small-scale inter-ventions to influence larger scales, as theorized by panar-chy, but worried that this particular intervention might notcreate resilience at the landscape scale. Many managersexpressed concerns about the scope of the problem, andtheir inability to address it at scale. This manager sums upthat perspective.

Just the scope and scale of the impacts…whether itwould be the spruce bark beetle or the mountain pinebeetle or cheatgrass or those things that are on such alarge-scale …They’re too big to deal with, to be ableto really make drastic effects. You might be able to doa little thing here or a little thing there, but the grandscale of these impacts are pretty big.

The mismatch between the scale of management actionand the scale of climate impacts was a frequent source offrustration.

For many managers, specific institutional constraintslimited the ability of public land management agencies toimplement large-scale strategies. As this manager put it, “alot of it has to do with the amount of landscape that we’reactually able to manage is very small”. One managerlamented that the Forest Service was bound by managementrules and constrained by limited resources such that “wework at a scale where we couldn’t even stop [climatechange impacts] if we wanted to. For most of this we don’thave a choice”. Some managers connected these constraintsto different management approaches (e.g., resistance, resi-lience, and transformation), arguing that resisting changewould simply be too expensive given the large landscapesthat agencies manage. In the excerpt below, this managersuggests that resistance is not feasible, saying:

[Resistance] in certain places is going to be basicallyfruitless or so expensive that you need to look at whatis it going to become, and just let it do that. Let itconvert. If we’re going to have sagebrush move up a1000 feet, then let it do that and maybe encourage

that, and maybe try to encourage the grasslands downbelow from becoming cheatgrass.

There is an important tension between the desire torespond at a scale that aligns with the scale of ecosystemchange, and practical institutional constraints to marshalingaction at that scale.

In addition to a lack of resources to intervene at largescales, managers also discussed policy requirements andlack of public support as important constraints. Accordingto this manager:

Spruce-fir type, from a long-term landscape approach,doesn’t really do anything in small pieces. It’s a lotlike lodgepole, when it recycles itself, resets, it doesso in really large scales. It doesn’t do it in five-acrepatches. Huge disturbances. That scale is hard forpeople to get their brains around. Both from aregulatory standpoint in terms of what we do or don’tdo, where we have the availability to actively manage,but also from a social acceptability standpoint, folksdon’t like to see 10’s to 100’s of thousands of acres oftheir national forest reset all at once.

Here again, the governance context, specifically policyand public support, is influencing the ability of managers towork at specific scales.

Innovative Ways to Nest Different ApproachesAcross Scales

Some managers solved the scalar dilemma by nesting goalsand approaches across scales, pursuing smaller-scale stra-tegies intended to influence or add up at a landscape scale,as described by panarchy. Looking at these nested approa-ches provides insights into how ideas about the past and thefuture connect to different management approaches (e.g.,resistance, resilience, and transformation) and to concernsabout the uncertainty of projections about future ecosystemconditions.

For example, actively managed “islands” were envi-sioned as a way to work at multiple scales, utilizing acombination of active intervention and hands-off manage-ment. Managers advocated for intensive management ofsmaller patches or islands that could provide habitat for keyspecies or ecosystem types in the context of climate change.One manager described this perspective, saying:

I suspect we’ll have islands of spruce-fir and we canmanage those islands…to try and maintain thosedisturbances, maintain that genetic diversity so thatit’s the locations where these are faded out we’llregenerate spruce-fir, that population then can re-

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establish itself. But I think the days of large thousandsand thousands of acres, of contiguous spruce-fir, arefor the short future, so you won’t have to worry aboutmanaging those, they’ll be something different. We’llhave to figure out what that “different” is and if it willeventually shift back to spruce-fir, which will takequite some time.

They focused on how to manage spruce-fir islands,essentially a relic of the past, at a small scale in ways thatenable future shifts back to widespread spruce-fir ecosys-tems. Thus, resistance at smaller scales can maintain pastpatterns of disturbance and existing genetic diversity topreserve future options across the landscape. This strategyenables managers to employ resource-intensive, resistancestrategies in select locations to preserve future options andbuild resilience at a much larger scale. In another example,managers suggested improving water infiltration and sto-rage to enable water-dependent species to persist in theirhistoric ranges even as precipitation decreased. Again,resisting ecological change at the scale of these patches orislands was envisioned as an active, targeted, smaller-scalestrategy to retain the values of past ecosystems and increaseresilience at a larger scale, both now and into the future.These islands resemble refugia in many ways, but areclearly seen as small-scale and managed through activeinterventions that maintain historic ecosystem character-istics (in contrast to refugia that are larger-scale and main-tain historic conditions without active intervention).

Thinking about combining small-scale interventions wasalso seen as a way to start working at a scale aligned withthe impacts of climate change. According to this manager,these small-scale interventions could add up to larger-scalebenefits:

My point is every little thing we do is important, it hasa cumulative effect, it makes a difference for thatdrainage and that piece of forest and so on and weneed to be doing those things. But it’s reallydiscouraging when you look at the whole deal.

This excerpt illustrates the tension between trying tohave an impact at scale, albeit through smaller actions thatadd up, and overwhelming scale of the problem. Interest-ingly, some managers suggested that, while a single agencymight not have the resources to work at larger scales,agencies could combine resources to work across jurisdic-tional boundaries to coordinate and implement actions thathave an impact at larger spatial scales. For example, onemanager said that under future scenarios “there is going tohave to be even more where agencies are working togetherto accomplish things, so having a cross-boundary strategy”was important as opposed to operating independently.

Managers also explained that smaller-scale experi-mentation would build knowledge necessary to expandinterventions to larger scales. As this manager put it:

Since we’re doing a lot of stuff on small scale, privateland, limited budgets, we feel pretty comfortable. Ifeel pretty comfortable, we do a lot of trial stuff,whether there’s a question of this will work, okay,instead of doing this across the whole 640, let’s do alow 30-acre patch. How does that work, what can wedo differently? So a lot of those adaptive managementtrial and error, we’ve learned a lot from our mistakes.

This manager felt more comfortable with the small-scaleinterventions, which is how they resolved the dilemma ofdoing active intervention on a large-scale with imperfectknowledge of future conditions. Another manager sug-gested something similar, saying:

The other concept that comes to mind is that ofexperimentation. Maybe you don’t do everythingeverywhere. Maybe you try something on BLM land.Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t…a series ofexperiments around the Basin for example and youtry to watch and see which ones work best and you tryand emulate that in different places.

Again, these managers solve some of the challengesrelated to scale and transformation by nesting theirapproaches spatially and temporally. Initial experiments atsmaller scales were characterized as providing knowledgeand support for future interventions at larger scales.

Discussion

This study set out to learn how managers envision futureecosystem change, and how they view different manage-ment approaches in the context of climate adaptation. Somemanagers in this study emphasized the past, arguing thatclimate change impacts were similar to previous dis-turbances and relying on existing management approaches.Other managers framed climate adaptation in terms of anovel future, arguing for transformation, and suggestingmanagement actions to assist and even guide ecosystemstoward future states. But characterizing adaptation as eitherlooking backward to the past or forward to the future maybean oversimplification. Murphy et al. (2017) found that manypeople drew on past experiences to help them conceptualizefuture impacts and potential responses. Dilling et al. (2017)agree, arguing that while the past is not always an accuraterepresentation of the future, it can provide useful insightsinto both the drivers of particular problems and the suite of

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potential solutions. Some adaptation efforts intentionallyutilize analogs from the past to facilitate decisions about thefuture (Ford et al. 2010; Glantz 1991). The past is oftenused, then, to fill in the gaps when our knowledge of thefuture is limited.

However, if we envision future change as different frompast change, looking to the past could be problematic.Kareiva and Fuller (2016) argue that responses to climatechange are “too often business as usual” due to an over-emphasis on historical reference points. In this study man-agers who argued that future climate impacts would besimilar to past disturbance also claimed that conventional,tried-and-true management approaches would work.Opposition to transformation was grounded in the claim thatwe have imperfect knowledge of future climates and whatkinds of ecosystems will be adapted to those climates.However, in the context of imperfect knowledge, Kareivaand Fuller (2016) recommend that managers emphasizeinnovation and experimentation, even if some actions seemrisky. They argue that all courses of action (including noaction) will result in harm. The expectation is that manyexperiments will fail, but that some will succeed and pro-vide important knowledge for adaptation. To account forthis, Joyce et al. (2008) recommend that agencies adopt safeto fail policies to promote just this kind of experimentation.

In this study, ideas about the effectiveness of differentapproaches were very much linked to scale. To date, muchof the research on scale and climate adaptation has focusedon scalar mismatches between climate information anddecision-making (i.e., the spatial scale is too large and/orthe temporal scale too long to be useful to decision-makers)(Mase and Prokopy 2014). Research on scale has alsoexamined the cross-scalar interactions that produce specificvulnerabilities (Leichenko and O’Brien 2008). Someresearchers have suggested that smaller-scale interventionsmight accumulate to promote resilience or transformation atlarger scales, drawing on the concept of panarchy to illus-trate cross-scale interactions (Chaffin et al. 2016, Folkeet al. 2010, Gunderson et al. 2017). Our study highlights theimportant ways that scale impacts climate adaptation, spe-cifically the key role scale plays in the selection of man-agement approaches (e.g., resistance, resilience, ortransformation) and the question of intervention (e.g.,hands-off or active intervention). To the extent that climatechange was seen as driving large-scale ecological change,managers in this study worried that their responses wouldnot match the scale of the impacts anticipated under climatechange and therefore be ineffective.

A range of institutional constraints, from insufficientbudgets to small staff, and from regulations to lack of publicsupport, were cited as reasons that agencies were unable towork at large scales. These are similar barriers other studieshave identified for climate adaptation in land management

contexts (Archie 2014; Hagerman 2016). More specifically,many managers considered resistance impractical due to bothinstitutional and biophysical constraints because of the kind ofongoing intervention required to maintain past ecosystemtypes in the context of future climates. At the same time, somemanagers expressed concerns about the efficacy of large-scaleinterventions given imperfect information about future cli-mates and ecosystems. In sum, scalar challenges and mis-matches left many managers in a quandary regarding how torespond to climate change, reflecting the same dilemmas otherscholars describe (Cole and Yung 2010).

One of the ways that managers resolved these scalardilemmas was by nesting approaches both spatially andtemporally. Managers suggested that small-scale patchescould be actively managed to retain past ecosystem featuresand provide for resilience at larger scales through main-taining the genetic diversity required for future ecosystemchange. In addition, small-scale interventions could provideopportunities for learning about the efficacy of differenttreatments before implementation at larger scales. Duringstakeholder workshops that happened later in the SECRproject, managers also discussed the possibility of com-bining resistance and transformation. For example, in orderto protect habitat for Gunnison sage-grouse, they envisionedresisting juniper invasion of sagebrush landscapes in theshort term while assisting as higher elevation areas shift intosagebrush habitat, and then transitioning away from activeintervention once adequate habitat existed at those higherelevations (Rondeau et al. 2017b).

The innovative strategies designed to nest smaller inter-ventions within larger landscape scale goals demonstrate theways that managers are negotiating the scalar challenges ofadaptation and the institutional constraints that they face,and how they envision cross-scale, social-ecological inter-actions, which aligns with the literature on panarchy(Chaffin et al. 2016; Folke et al. 2010; Gunderson et al.2017). Further, these strategies enable managers to simul-taneously focus on the past (e.g., through small-scale pat-ches where resistance is employed) and the future (e.g.,through large-scale ecosystem transformation). Nestedapproaches also helped resolve some of the uncertaintyabout future ecosystem conditions and the discomfort somemanagers felt about transformation. Small-scale interven-tions were necessary in the context of institutional con-straints, but they also provided the opportunity toexperiment and learn before scaling up. However, thistemporal nesting, small-scale now and larger-scale later,assumed that tensions related to the both institutional con-straints and the scale of transformation would be resolved inthe future.

In addition to nested approaches, resilience was seen as away to resolve some of the dilemmas described above.Some managers argued for active intervention to promote

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resilience, suggesting that resilient ecosystems would havethe capacity to adapt to a range of future climatic condi-tions. In this sense, resilience offered a middle path,enabling managers to assist ecosystems in adapting to futureconditions without predicting specific future ecosystemstates. However, it was not entirely clear what specificmanagement actions these managers wanted to employ toincrease resilience. The vagueness of these statements aboutresilience is consistent with previous research that foundthat while the ambiguity of resilience makes it difficult formanagers to operationalize, it also provides flexibility thatsome managers value (Timberlake and Schultz 2017).Interestingly, during subsequent SECR meetings, managersand the research team co-produced a suite of specific resi-lience strategies, including restoring degraded meadows forhydrologic recharge, creating forest mosaics, and retro-fitting climate-wise culvert replacements, indicating thatmanagers in the area have some capacity to connect theconcept of resilience with specific management actions(Rondeau et al. 2017b; 2017c).

In this study, while some managers resisted transfor-mation, questioning projections about future ecosystemstates and arguing that untested approaches would be toorisky, most managers readily envisioned future ecosys-tems as different from past ecosystems, acknowledgingthe potential for regime shifts (even if they reacheddifferent conclusions regarding appropriate managementactions in the face of these shifts). This future orientationmight have been inspired by the scenarios that wereutilized in the focus groups, since they forced managersto think about specific plausible futures for the GunnisonBasin. However, similar scenario processes in Coloradofound that most participants were reactive and incre-mental, as opposed to proactive and transformative(Wyborn et al. 2014). Thus, managers in the GunnisonBasin appeared to have more capacity to embrace futureecosystem change and consider long temporal scales, ascompared with participants in similar research projectselsewhere. At the same time, during a SECR stakeholdermeeting that occurred after the interviews and focusgroups, managers suggested that transformation wasparticularly challenging because of lack of adequateinformation to determine which sites were transitioningto new states (Rondeau et al. 2017b; 2017c).

Conclusion

With greater attention to climate adaptation on publiclands, it is critical to understand how managers envisionresponding to local impacts. In this study, perceptions ofenvironmental change shaped how managers respondedto climate change, at what scale (patch or landscape),

with which objective (resist or transform), and drawingon what tools (existing or novel management approa-ches). Our findings help explain why climate adaptationvaries according to ecological and institutional context,contributing to a growing body of research on how cli-mate adaptation is implemented on public lands.

Adaptation is inherently political (Pelling 2010;Eriksen et al. 2015; O’Brien and Selboe 2015), involvingnumerous trade-offs and near-certain conflict. But inthese interviews and focus groups, managers frameddecisions about how to respond to climate change pri-marily in ecological terms. However, it is important tonote that framing decisions about climate change adap-tation solely in terms of ecological conditions obscuresthe political nature of these decisions (Eriksen et al.2015). And while transformation is primarily discussedin this paper with regard to regime shifts or disruptionsto ecosystems, this discussion also raises questions aboutanother kind of transformation, the transformation ofinstitutional structures and cultures (as discussed byO’Brien and Sygna 2013). Responding effectively to theecological changes wrought by climate change requiressocial transformations that enable institutions to becomemore nimble, support risk-taking and experimentation(while also ensuring accountability to the public), navi-gate uncertainty and trade-offs, and work across variedtemporal and spatial scales. How public land manage-ment agencies can embrace transformations of ecosys-tems and corresponding institutional transformations isan important question, one that highlights the social-ecological linkages that permeate climate change adap-tation. An improved understanding of how land man-agers approach climate adaptation and the challengesthey face as they respond to change can also provideinsights into the policy and institutional changes that cansupport these decisions.

Acknowledgements The authors wish to acknowledge the collaborationand financial support of USGS North Central Climate Adaptation ScienceCenter, the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, andNOAA’s Western Water Assessment. We also appreciate all of the timeand thoughtfulness of the research participants from the Gunnison Basin inColorado, including the Gunnison Climate Working Group. We thank DrAmy Quandt and the two anonymous reviewers whose comments andfeedback improved our draft. The use of trade, firm, or product namesdoes not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Funding USGS North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center,USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, andNOAA’s Western Water Assessment.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict ofinterest.

Environmental Management (2020) 66:614–628 625

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard tojurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing,adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, aslong as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and thesource, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate ifchanges were made. The images or other third party material in thisarticle are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unlessindicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is notincluded in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intendeduse is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitteduse, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyrightholder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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