News
General Interest
Agreement makes climate research collaboration easier, faster
September 28, 2007
By Stephanie Doster
The Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS) at The University of Arizona is poised to bolster its contributions to resource management and the understanding of climate variability thanks to an agreement that makes it easier for the project to collaborate with the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), a key player in water sustainability issues in the region.
CLIMAS is one of three Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) programs in the Southwest that supports physical, natural, and social science research to analyze how climate science and forecasts can be used to improve resource management and public policy decisions.
The agreement between the California DWR and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the federal agency that oversees the RISA programs, expedites the process for coordinating climate research that is incorporated into the department’s strategy for adapting to climate change.
“The agreement sets a great precedent for NOAA and for the RISA program for building strong partnerships with influential and important stakeholders, such as the Western States Water Council, and making climate science relevant and accessible to them in a very collaborative way,” said Gregg Garfin, deputy director of outreach for the UA’s Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, which houses CLIMAS. “Many water stakeholders in the West will benefit.”
Initiated by Jeanine Jones, California DWR’s interstate resources manager, the agreement “makes it easier and faster for the department to engage us in collaborations and include us in meetings where it is important for them to have timely and accurate climate information,” said Garfin, a former CLIMAS program manager.
The other two RISAs in the region are the California Applications Program at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado.
The California DWR is a behemoth in water management because the population, economy, and water demand in California is so large. The state also is strategically placed; it has a significant stake in its allotment of Colorado River water, and, as one of the four U.S. states that border Mexico, it is drawn into cross-border water issues.
Tackling water management concerns is critical to the Southwest and likely will become more pressing in future decades as the population grows and temperatures increase while precipitation decreases, as climatologists predict.
CLIMAS staff and investigators support research and host or participate in workshops and conferences in which they can share knowledge that is vital to establishing sound public policy in its mission area of Arizona and New Mexico, as well as adjacent states and northern Mexico.
“A lot of our work with California DWR will be focused on the Colorado River and climate change and helping them with everything from model projections to strategies for adaptation,” Garfin said.
Water management adaptation to climate change will be the focus of the Climate Change Water Adaptation Summit on October 3 in Santa Monica, California. For more information about the summit, which is sponsored by the California DWR and the Water Education Foundation, visit http://www.water-ed.org/events.asp?date=10%2F01%2F2007.