Before You Begin 

To run Climate Foresight, you must first create a Planning Area in the Map Viewer.

You can create a planning area by:

• Drawing a boundary in the Map Viewer, or

• Uploading a boundary file

Once your planning area is created, you can run Planning Area tools such as Climate Foresight.

Access Climate Foresight

1. Open your Planning Area Overview page.

2. In the Planning Area Tools panel in the bottom left, select Climate Foresight.

You will be taken to the Climate Foresight home page, where you can:

• View existing analyses

• Open previous runs

• Continue working on draft analyses

• Start a new analysis

To begin a new run, click the Start Analysis button in the top-right corner.

Step 1: Select Data Layers 

Select up to 10 data layers to include in your Climate Foresight analysis.

These layers represent current landscape conditions that will then be evaluated relative to future climate vulnerability for the selected metrics. Examples may include vegetation structure, fire behavior metrics, habitat indicators, or other ecological variables. 

Step 2: Assign Favorability

For each data layer, you must indicate whether higher values or lower values represent more favorable conditions.

This step is needed for Climate Foresight to interpret how each dataset relates to climate resilience.

For Example: 

• 0 represents conditions currently in an unfavorable condition

• 100 represents conditions currently in a favorable condition

Climate Foresight uses this information to translate each dataset into a standardized 0–100 scale, where:

• 0 represents conditions most vulnerable to future climate

• 100 represents conditions most resilient to future climate

Step 3: Assign Data Layers to Pillars (Optional)

You may group data layers into Pillars to organize metrics around broader management objectives.

Pillars allow related datasets to be evaluated together and aligned with an assessment of future climate vulnerability specific to that  Pillar. 

To assign layers to pillars, simply drag and drop datasets into the desired pillar group.

This step is optional. If a dataset is not assigned to a pillar, it will still be included in the analysis and evaluated with a generic representation of future climate vulnerability (e.g., average across all future vulnerability Pillar scores).

Run the Analysis

When the analysis is complete, you can open the results page to explore the outputs.

The results page displays:

• Analysis Outputs, which show the results generated by Climate Foresight

• Analysis Inputs, which list the data layers selected for the analysis

You can also download a GeoPackage containing the full set of spatial outputs.

Understanding the Outputs 

Climate Foresight produces several spatial outputs (30-m raster layers) that help interpret how current landscape conditions may be affected by future climate. 

Key outputs include:

• MPAT Matrix

• Adapt–Protect Score

• Integrated Conditions Score

Additional information about these outputs is available in the application through the information tooltips.

How Climate Foresight Interprets Landscape Conditions

Climate Foresight combines current condition metrics with a future climate vulnerability analysis to estimate how resource conditions may change under climate change.

The model evaluates landscapes in relation to four common restoration strategies:

• Monitor - Conditions are favorable now and are expected to remain favorable under future climate.
• Protect - Conditions are favorable today but may decline under future climate.
• Adapt - Conditions are currently unfavorable, but climate change does not prevent improvement through management.
• Transform - Conditions are unfavorable today and are expected to remain unfavorable under future climate conditions.

These categories help planners understand how different areas of the landscape may respond to climate change and where different management strategies may be most appropriate.