Workshop: Is Global Climate Change Research Relevant to Day-to-Day Water Resources Management?

Southern Illinois University At Carbondale, Carbondale IL

Investigators

Abstract

0226515 Lant The huge temporal and spatial differences in water availability and use, the economic inefficiency of trading water long distances, and differences in institutions and ecosystems across the United States, have traditionally placed water management decisions at a local level. To reduce drought and flood risks, local managers have relied upon infrastructure (e.g. dams and levees). As human understanding of the world's climate variation is enhanced, there is the possibility that the extremes of climate can predicted with sufficient reliability to make local water resource management decision less risky. Models and information products of global climate change research are becoming increasingly available and are being put in forms related to water research management decisions. But how willing and able are local decision-makers to incorporate this new knowledge? Are water management decision calendars understood well enough to know how to infuse climate change information, in the right form and at the right time, and with sufficient reliability to be of use to local water managers? UCOWR is proposing to organize a workshop at its 2002 annual meeting in Traverse City, Michigan to examine the current state of climate change research and its interface with water resources management decision-making, from national, to regional, to state, local levels. The results of the workshop will be published as a Water Resources Update issue in 2003. Workshop participants include: Robert Ward, Colorado State University Richard Lawford, Program Manager, Office of Global Programs, NOAA Tom N. Chase, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences R. A Eugene Stakhiv, Chief, Planning and Policy Studies Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Institute for Water Resources. Peter Roger Division of A lied Sciences Harvard University