Mangrove trees serve as nature's hurricane barriers for places such as Everglades National Park, Biscayne National Park, Virgin Islands National Park, and Big Cypress National Preserve. Plus, they provide valuable habitat for fish and other marine life, and are pretty cool for humans who are fortunate enough to paddle through them. But they could be gone by 2050, victims of sea level rise driven by climate change.

Water is big business, bigger in the Southwest than perhaps anywhere else in the United States, and so where the Colorado River flows, economics and politics closely follow. More than 40 million people downstream depend upon its waters for agriculture, cities and businesses. At Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in southern Utah and northern Arizona, that reality rises in the 710-foot tall Glen Canyon Dam and shimmers in the lake that it has formed, Lake Powell.

A warming climate has been linked to human activity around the world, and has affected the Colorado River System as well. The impacts are substantial, from reduced water flows, threats to indigenous species and the influx of new invasive species along the river system. National Parks Traveler sent Patrick Cone to investigate the impacts on Canyonlands National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. From Moab to Green River, Utah, and Page to Flagstaff Arizona he talked to Park Service personnel, river runners, residents, business owners and other stakeholders who rely on a healthy Colorado River for their existence

Meteorology is being factored into the future of visitation at Big Bend National Park, at least when it comes to finding a room in the rugged and sprawling swath of Chihuahuan ecosystem protected by the park in West Texas.