Climate Profile for the Quad Cities Region of Arizona

In early 2021, a group of citizens of the Quad Cities region sought to commission a study that would help our communities to better understand and prepare for the challenges posed by climate change in our area. Led by the Yavapai Climate Change Coalition (YCCC), the PROTECT campaign coordinated with the Prescott City Council and approached CLIMAS (Climate Assessment for the Southwest; https://www.climas.arizona.edu/), a team of social, physical, and natural scientists at the University of Arizona and New Mexico State University that works with partners across the Southwest to increase resilience to regional climate change. On 24 May 2022, the Prescott City Council voted unanimously to commission the study, and in response to this local interest and support, CLIMAS offered to prepare the report. The report is funded, through CLIMAS, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program through grant NA12OAR4310124. Over the next several months, a broad-based working group of local stakeholders coordinated with CLIMAS to ensure that the Quad Cities’ particular strengths and vulnerabilities to climate change were considered in the report, and this thoughtful input and review was vital to the report’s final publication. The Working Group also contributed to the production of a companion document, Local Climate Action Options, hosted on the YCCC website, the Quad Cities Climate Action Hub (https://yavapaiclimatecoalition.org/climate-action-hub). This companion document is intended for use by Quad Cities communities, businesses, and individual citizens as a springboard to local climate actions across the region.