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Tribal nations are one of the most vulnerable populations to climate change in the United States, because of their reliance upon the natural environment to sustain traditional ways of life and current lack of training and resources to respond to climate change impacts. This project sought to increase south-central U.S. tribes’ basic knowledge of climate science, connect them with tools to assess their communities’ vulnerabilities, and build their skills to develop adaptation and mitigation strategies. Researchers conducted multiple two-day climate training sessions for Native American tribes in Louisiana and New Mexico. The trainings emphasized regionally specific scientific and social scientific aspects of climate...
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Understanding how to manage scarce water during drought is one of the great challenges we face as a society, particularly for communities in the Rio Grande Basin. Severe drought coupled with human development have profoundly impacted the quantity and quality of water in the basin. Running through Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico, the Rio Grande is a multi-national resource that is managed by many different state, federal, and local authorities and used by diverse stakeholders. Developing the basin-wide responses necessary for drought resilience throughout the Basin can be challenging in such a complex management context. This project seeks to understand how different human and environmental factors affect...
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Most resource managers need to take climate impacts into account when making decisions during the course of their career, whether their work protects native species populations, reduces the impact of extreme storms on infrastructure, or improves water quality in a watershed. Professional training that develops an understanding of the climate system, how it is changing, and what that means for various natural and cultural resources can help improve long-term management outcomes. However, not all agencies or organizations have the capacity to provide this important training, limiting the ability of managers to interpret complex climate data and address climate-related questions. Therefore, this project developed...
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Global climate models (GCMs) are a tool used to model historical climate and project future conditions. In order to apply these global-scale datasets to answer local- and regional-scale climate questions, GCMs undergo a process known as “downscaling”. Since there are many different approaches to downscaling there associated sources of uncertainty; however, downscaled data can be highly valuable for management decision-making if used with a knowledge of its limitations and appropriate applications. In order to use downscaled data appropriately, scientists and managers need to understand how the climate projections made by various downscaling methods are affected by uncertainties in the climate system (such as greenhouse...
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Across the Southern Great Plains, increasing temperatures are expected to alter the hydrological functioning of the region by contributing to severe droughts, more intense rainfall events, and more severe flooding episodes. These changes could adversely affect human and ecological communities. The ability to better predict future changes in precipitation and the response of hydrologic systems in the region could help mitigate their negative impacts. Yet while today’s global climate models provide large-scale projections of future temperature and precipitation patterns that can be broadly useful for large-scale water resource planning, they are often not appropriate for use at a smaller, more local scale. This research...
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Investigating the complex natural and cultural resource management challenges we face today requires building diverse, interdisciplinary research teams. Robust stakeholder engagement is also critical for ensuring that publicly funded science answers questions that are relevant to natural and cultural resource management decisions. Early career scientists who learn how to engage with multi-disciplinary research teams and stakeholders in the early stages of their career have a competitive advantage in the workforce and can help develop actionable science that addresses critical management questions. This project built upon the successes of the 2014 Early Career Training to develop and host a week-long professional...
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Soil moisture is a critical variable for understanding the impacts of drought on ecological, hydrological, and agricultural systems. Yet, key research gaps currently prevent existing soil moisture measurements from being used to assess drought conditions and mitigate drought impacts such as wildfire outbreaks, lost agricultural production, and degraded wildlife habitat. In fact, most scales used to characterize the severity of drought, known as “drought indices”, don’t include soil moisture measurements, relying instead on atmospheric data. Current barriers to the incorporation of soil moisture data include a lack of consensus regarding how to best construct soil moisture-based drought indices, the challenges associated...
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Fire is a natural and necessary component of the South Central Plains ecosystem. However, fire suppression and more frequent droughts in the region have resulted in a build-up of dry fuels loads such as dead wood, resulting in fires that burn hotter and impact the landscape more severely. Uncontrolled wildfires have cost the region several billion dollars over the past five years. Further, fire suppression has resulted in substantial losses in native plant biodiversity and wildlife habitat, which also has costly implications. In Oklahoma alone, it’s estimated that $157 million will be required to restore rangelands to their native conditions. Of further concern is the fact that projected changes in climate indicate...
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The South Central U.S. is home to diverse climates and ecosystems, strong agricultural and energy sectors, and fast-growing urban areas. All share a critical need for water, which is becoming an increasingly scarce resource across the region as aquifers are overdrawn and populations grow. Understanding what brings rain to this region, and how the timing and amount of precipitation may be affected by climate change, is essential for effective water planning and management, yet community planners and managers have indicated that currently available precipitation forecasts for the South Central are insufficient, due largely to the high levels of uncertainty associated with precipitation projections for the region....
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The Rio Grande-Rio Bravo River is the second longest river in the US and is a critical drinking water source for more than 13 million people. It flows south from the snow-capped mountains of Colorado through the New Mexico desert, forms the border between Texas and Mexico, and empties into the Gulf of Mexico at Brownsville, Texas. The multi-national, multi-state, ecologically diverse nature of this river makes management of the resource a complex task, especially in the context of more frequent droughts, changes in land use patterns, and increasing water use needs. The main objective of this project was to assess the state of water resources management policies and planning tools for the Lower Rio Grande-Rio Bravo...
    map background search result map search result map Online Climate Change Impacts Course to Inform Managers about Planning for the Future Climate Training for Native Tribes of Louisiana and New Mexico Developing and Analyzing Statistically Downscaled Climate Projections for the South Central U.S. Quantifying Future Precipitation in the South Central U.S. for Water Resources Planning Soil Moisture-Based Drought Monitoring for the South Central Region Regional Graduate Student and Early Career Researcher Training II Helping Fire Professionals Understand and Manage Changing Fire Regimes Informing Hydrologic Planning in the Red River Valley through Improved Regional Climate Projections Informing the Management and Coordination of Water Resources in the Rio Grande Basin Assessing the State of Water Resource Knowledge and Tools for Future Planning in the Lower Rio Grande-Rio Bravo Basin Soil Moisture-Based Drought Monitoring for the South Central Region Helping Fire Professionals Understand and Manage Changing Fire Regimes Informing the Management and Coordination of Water Resources in the Rio Grande Basin Climate Training for Native Tribes of Louisiana and New Mexico Assessing the State of Water Resource Knowledge and Tools for Future Planning in the Lower Rio Grande-Rio Bravo Basin Online Climate Change Impacts Course to Inform Managers about Planning for the Future Quantifying Future Precipitation in the South Central U.S. for Water Resources Planning Regional Graduate Student and Early Career Researcher Training II Developing and Analyzing Statistically Downscaled Climate Projections for the South Central U.S. Informing Hydrologic Planning in the Red River Valley through Improved Regional Climate Projections