As communities in the Mountain West become increasingly aware of climate change risks (e.g., droughts, wildfires), they hope to share and seek opportunities to enhance climate adaptation, tasks that often need expert advice.
With this in mind, on May 11 at 2pm ET CPO’s Coastal and Ocean Climate Applications (COCA) Program and Sectoral Applications Research Program (SARP) are hosting the webinar “Building partnerships for holistic climate change preparedness across the Mountain West.” The webinar is the fourth in a series that explores relevant research and applications topics for the “Managing Water Resources Along the Coast” community of practice sponsored jointly by COCA and SARP.
The speakers will include:
- James Arnott, Executive Director of the Aspen Global Change Institute;
- Benét Duncan, Managing Director of the Western Water Assessment;
- Missy Stults, Sustainability and Innovations Manager for the City of Ann Arbor; and
- Julie Vano, Research Director at the Aspen Global Change Institute.
In 2018, boundary spanners and researchers from the Aspen Global Change Institute, Western Water Assessment (a CPO RISA team) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research came together to accomplish various objectives with those vulnerable Mountain West communities in mind. The groups collaborated to support peer learning and expand access to and usage of tools and services that can support climate-resilient planning and implementation across the Mountain West region.
The first in-person gathering was planned for March 25-27, 2020, but the pandemic and other fissures across society not only altered these plans, but substantially changed the collaboration’s sense of what constitutes an extreme event. This has resulted in a widened field of view to understand preparedness to climate change and how we co-produce and deliver climate services for the water sector and beyond.
In this webinar, the panelists will share their journey and their “aha” moments—lessons that are relevant to climate preparedness whether you are in the mountains, along the coast, or elsewhere.