C.4.4. INCORPORATING CLIMATE CHANGE INFORMATION 
Climate change will affect the Lake Champlain Basin and its water resources throughout 
the next decades. The ANS Action Plan should incorporate climate change effects so that 
management activities can better respond to changing conditions and remain effective over time. 
Several of the Strategic Objectives listed in the Management Plan could incorporate climate 
change considerations to adapt management activities in the Lake Champlain Basin. 
C.4.4.1. Leadership and Coordination 
Objective A discusses coordination of plan implementation. Strategies under this 
Objective should include measures to coordinate among states on new ANS and range 
expansions that may be due to climate change. 
C.4.4.2. Prevention 
Objective C calls for ANS staff to determine which ANS and pathways of introduction 
should be targeted for management actions. In this prioritization process, state staff should 
consider species’ colonization potential and ecological impacts and how climate change may 
affect these processes. Increased precipitation, for example, may make habitat more suitable for 
certain ANS, increasing their colonization potential. Increased precipitation could also make the 
habitat less suitable for certain native species, allowing ANS to more easily become established. 
C.4.4.3. Early Detection and Rapid Response, Control, and Management 
Objective D discusses evaluating management alternatives. Strategies under this 
Objective should consider how climate change may alter the efficacy of some management 
strategies. For example, biocontrol agents may be affected by climate change, making them less 
effective or possibly allowing the biocontrol agents themselves to become invasive. 
C.4.4.4. Research 
As part of the Management Plan’s effort to fill information gaps (Objective B), Strategy 
B1 calls for surveys of existing ANS within the Lake Champlain Basin, ANS with the potential 
to enter the basin, and pathways of introduction. Research on species that could enter the basin 
should consider how climate change effects may influence these species and provide 
opportunities for species not yet considered a threat under current climate conditions. 
C-15 
