The North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NC CASC) supports and produces science that informs climate adaptation planning for natural and cultural resource managers in the seven-state region consisting of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. 

The NC CASC’s 2023-2028 Strategic Science Plan was generated based on a series of activities intended to elicit information on the climate adaptation needs of partners in the region. It identifies four major ecosystems that will be the focus of the work, and six cross-cutting management issues that apply in all or most of these systems. 

“The NC CASC- with regular input from partners - plans to strategically and iteratively concentrate investment of staff time and financial resources based on the 5-year Science Plan. The NC CASC intends to implement a portfolio of collaboratively developed projects with consortium or USGS scientists to directly respond to identified stakeholder needs.” 

To ensure that NC CASC-funded work maximizes available resources and leverages additional efforts, the Center supports: 

• Collaborative actionable science projects that inform climate adaptation issues of high priority to Department of the Interior bureaus, state fish and wildlife agencies, Tribes and inter-Tribal organizations, and other partners; 
• Partnerships with regional stakeholders and rights holders that enable the NC CASC to respond to high priority natural and cultural resource management challenges and to facilitate substantive, sustained engagement between scientists and managers; 
• Capacity building that creates a community of skilled researchers and managers and fosters their leadership in science-based resource management; 
• Development of climate tools and technical assistance to advance scientific understanding and support sound resource management and adaptation; and 
• Communication of NC CASC science to inform a variety of audiences in an accessible, relevant, and usable manner.