For the first time, California’s 4th Climate Change Assessment included nine regional reports, providing local and regional governments with information to support adaptation planning and implementation specifically at local/regional scales. The California Nevada Climate Applications Program (CNAP), a CPO Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) team, recently evaluated stakeholder involvement in the development of two regional reports–San Diego and Sierra Nevada–as well as the use and actionability of those reports. Findings provide a better understanding of stakeholder needs for regional climate change and impacts information, offering key insights into how these assessments can best support local-level adaptation and planning.
The evaluation includes the following recommendations:
- Engage stakeholders early and provide more (and varied) opportunities for their involvement to ensure that the reports align with local/regional climate information needs.
- Broaden the intended audience(s) to foster information equity, and diversify Assessment outputs according to audience type.
- Facilitate use of the reports by providing examples of how different organizations have used similar reports in the past; and
- Include information on climate impacts to local/regional populations with an emphasis on public health and social justice.
These recommendations can be applied to improve future regional reports for California and may be applicable to the development of similar reports for other regions in the United States.
