Principal Investigator (s): Mitch McClaran (University of Arizona); Julie Brugger, Michael A. Crimmins, Larry D. Howery, James E. Sprinkle, and Douglas R. Tolleson.
Year Initially Funded: 2014
Sector: Agriculture (CWD)
Locatio: Western United States
Abstract:
This research project uses a co-development process (including advisory group, questionnaires, interviews and workshops) to facilitate these critical interactions among climate tool developers, ranchers, and Forest Service managers to identify 1) the most useful and feasible tools, 2) a process to more regularly apply ADAPT (an adaptive management procedure that can provide flexibility in the application of management practices). and 3) ways to integrate the climate tools with the ADAPT procedure.
Publication:
Annual Project Report: McClaran June 2015 PRpt.pdf
Principal Investigator (s): Marty Ralph, Dan Cayan (Scripps Institution of Oceanography); Mike Dettinger, Lorraine Flint (USGS), Jay Jasperse (SCWA)
Sector: Extreme Events
Locatio: California Russian River (CWD)
The combination of flood risk with sustained drought conditions represents a major challenge to water managers, agriculture, endangered species and tourism in the area and there are worries that such extremes will become more common. The project engages the lead water management agency in the region (SCWA), the Russian River NIDIS Pilot Activity group and a team of scientific experts to provide advances in understanding drought that will meet stakeholder needs for drought preparedness and risk reduction.
Annual Project Report: Ralph June 2015 ProgressRpt.pdf
Principal Investigator (s): Josh Weiss (Hazen and Sawyer); Richard Palmer (University of Massachusetts); John Balay (Susquehanna River Bay Commission); Clark Howells (Baltimore Department of Public Works)
Sector: Coping With Drought
Locatio: Chesapeake Bay Region
The research team will develop a Drought Planning Tool for the Susquehanna River Basin that integrates drought early warning indices, hydrologic forecasts, and a system operations model to inform and guide proactive responses to projected near- and medium-term dry periods. The Tool will serve as a framework for developing and applying quantitative drought predictions for regional-scale drought planning, focused on early warning triggers for proactive drought impact mitigation measures.
Annual Project Report: Weiss June 2015Prpt.docx
Principal Investigator (s): Alexander Petersen (Adaptation International); Gregg Garfin, Mark Shafer, Katharine Hayhoe, Karen MacClune
Sector: Urban (SARP-Water)
Locatio: N/A
The PIs propose to pilot and test a methodology for a participatory process to identify locally relevant critical thresholds for extreme events, and use these thresholds to customize climate projections to community-specific needs.
Annual Project Report: PetersenPRpt (2014).pdf
Principal Investigator (s): Paulina Jaramillo, Kelly Klima, Haibo Zhai (Carnegie Mellon); Bart Nijssen (University of Washington);
Sector: Energy
Locatio: Southeast United States
The PIs seek to improve information on the risks and opportunities that result from changes in climate and weather extremes to the Southeastern US power sector (i.e., the Southern Electric Reliability Council, or SERC). They will: (1) focus on climate, and ask how local hydrology and thus water availability will be affected by climate change and related extreme weather events; (2) examine how these changes in climate and water availability will affect the operations of existing and future power systems; and (3) examine the costs and benefits of technically feasible climate adaptation investments in the power system.
Annual Project Report: Jaramillio April 2015 PRpt.pdf
Principal Investigator (s): Lisa Dilling & Kasprzyk, Rangwala, Gordon, Averyt (University of Colorado; Kaatz, Basdekas (Colorado Springs Utilities)
Sector: Water Resources (SARP-Water)
Locatio: Colorado Front Range
The PIs seek to explore the production and implementation of a promising new multiobjective decision support framework by working with Colorado water utilities to co-produce a testbed tool and decision making experiment. The tool will be used to balance conflicting management objectives for water planning under climate extremes and determine how policy alternatives perform under severe climate uncertainty. By combining innovative search algorithms, simulation models, and interactive visualizations, the proposed decision tool efficiently generates and evaluates new alternatives, promotes managers’ learning about system tradeoffs and vulnerabilities, and can support more informed decisions in anticipation of future extreme events. Working with utilities to design and test the framework will enable researchers to learn about opportunities and barriers to incorporating this new tool, and new information in general, into the water management decision making process.
Annual Project Report: Dilling (6.2015).docx
Principal Investigator (s): Edwin Welles (Deltares USA); Matthijs Lemans (Deltares Netherlands), Laurens Bouwer, Jarl Kind, Marjolein Mens; Tommy Strowd, . Jayantha Obeysekera (South Florida Water Mangement District)
Sector: Urban
Locatio: Florida Everglades and adjoining urbanized areas such as Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beaches
Development of economically efficient and sustainable water management strategies hinges on the assessment of the costs of weather extremes, in particular damages due to floods and droughts and their mitigation, as well as the framework in which the costs for adaptation and the benefits of damage reduction are weighted. A risk-based cost-benefit method will be developed for a portfolio of potential measures brought together in adaptation strategies, focusing on flood and drought impacts in the South Florida region.
Annual Project Report: Welles April 2015 PRpt.pdf
Principal Investigator (s): Meghana Babbar-Sebens (Oregon State University); Kristen Macuga, Senhasis Mukhopadhyay (Indiana University)
Locatio: Central Indiana
The climate-focused WRESTORE tool developed in this project will advance the goals of stakeholders interested in long-term planning for water resources in Indiana, and elsewhere. By allowing individual stakeholders to participate via a web-based interface. The proposed study will also provide valuable insights into how human attitudes and learning can be included in adaptation models.
Annual Project Report: BabberSebens.pdf
Principal Investigator (s): Paul Block (University of Wisconsin); Arun Kumar (NOAA, NWS-CPC), Upmanu Lall
Locatio: Lake Mendota (Madison, WI)
The PIs propose to develop probabilistic season-ahead water quality outlooks by associating large-scale climate variable states and predictions with local watershed conditions. Particular emphasis will be placed on predicting extreme conditions, which typically exemplify poor water quality
Annual Project Report: Block May 2015 PRpt.pdf
Principal Investigator (s): Nalini Chhetri (Arizona State University), Anthony Cox (Arizona Dept. of Emergency & Military Affairs); Nancy Selover, Kenneth Galluppi (ASU)
Locatio: Arid Regions (e.g. Arizona)
The PIs propose to: 1) understand how local and regional emergency management communities function so that climate science knowledge can be effectively infused into their risk management decision processes, and 2) develop a framework for identifying products and services that can deliver needed knowledge about climate extremes threats and impacts, and resulting risk in order to prioritize mitigation and adaptation efforts
Annual Project Report: Chhetri (4.2015).pdf
Americans’ health, security and economic wellbeing are tied to climate and weather. Every day, we see communities grappling with environmental challenges due to unusual or extreme events related to climate and weather.