Univ. of Arizona – Office for Research and Discovery

Nepal has a long history of irrigation water management by farmers. These farmers take sole responsibility for operating and maintaining the irrigation systems. However, these systems are increasingly under stress due to local-, regional-, and global-level changes such as climatic variability, labor out-migration, market pressures, and watershed degradation. The purpose of this project was to conduct a participatory vulnerability assessment of the irrigation systems under stress from climatic variability and natural disasters and support the farmers with the development of appropriate adaptation strategies. Since beginning this research, Thapa has received external funding from the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development’s to continue this research as his Ph.D. dissertation, and he is working on a booklet outlining the best practices on adaptation in irrigated agriculture.

On March 27, 2015, the Tucson mayor’s office and Tucson Electric Power held a half-day workshop for local organizations to discuss the economic benefits associated with energy efficiency and financing options for energy efficiency projects. The primary purpose of this project was to evaluate the impacts of this workshop.

Specifically, Rountree’s objectives were to gather feedback from participants to improve future workshops, and follow up with participants through surveys and interviews to determine whether attending the workshop led to the implementation of energy efficiency measures among participating organizations.

The purpose of this project was to develop and teach a community course on Climate Change & Poetry, one of the first of its kind anywhere. The course took place at the University of Arizona Poetry Center in fall 2015 and included six two-hour classes. Magrane designed the course around the growing body of contemporary poetry that engages with climate change and alternated readings of poetry with readings on climate change. Community participants left the course with an increased awareness of the science and social impacts of climate change as well as a strong awareness of environmental poetry. Outputs from the course include multiple academic presentations and two academic articles that are in preparation. Additionally, the University of Arizona Poetry Center is now planning a full reading series for fall 2016 around climate change.

California is in its fourth year of an extreme drought. Warm temperatures and lack of rainfall have led to decreased snowpack critical for water use by cities and agriculture. The investigator interviewed different agricultural stakeholders to understand how drought impacts and drought vulnerability are experienced in California’s San Joaquin Valley. These interviews helped outline four main environmental narratives that frame how physical and social factors produce and intensify drought vulnerability for rural farming communities in the valley. While the different narratives identify different drought "villains," such as environmental regulations or farmers, they hold in common an understanding that investment in agriculture and rural communities is necessary to address drought vulnerability for future droughts in the region.

Arizona has experienced significant environmental, economic, and demographic changes over the last 50 years. General trends in climate, along with seasonal decadal variability (e.g., drought, flooding), impose cascading and interrelated impacts across multiple sectors (e.g., business, transportation, energy, infrastructure, etc.). Businesses are already experts at managing risk, but they face new challenges in anticipating these cascading effects linked to future climate-related impacts and associated changes in water availability, more severe/longer heat waves, and higher drought and flood risks.

The Arizona Business Resilience Initiative is developing a methodology for assessing business opportunities and managing risks to operations associated with climate change and climate variability. This research answers two questions:

1. Based on current state-of-knowledge in climate change impacts and vulnerability assessment, what are the most probable impacts on the company’s operations and projections due to climate change, and
2. What are actions that can be taken to anticipate or mitigate these risks, or to position the company to take advantage of new opportunities that anticipate and adapt to climate change?

Stalagmites are incomparable archives of paleoclimate information. Methods to extract past climate information from speleothems are necessarily destructive; sampling occurs along the growth axis. As the popularity of stalagmite paleoclimate science grows, development of sustainable sampling methods for these nonrenewable resources is necessary to balance the needs of science and cave conservation. Here we collect information from scientists and cave managers to develop current "best practice" guidelines for sampling. The final output will be a peer-reviewed methodology assessment, giving managers and scientists a place to start when wanting to sample in a more conservation-friendly way. Additional outputs (interpretive educational products, workshops, a stalagmite sample archive, etc.) will be developed through collaboration with stalagmite paleoclimate labs and cave/karst managers worldwide.

Climate change is profoundly affecting forests throughout the Southwest. Tribal nations are at particular risk to these effects due to their reliance on ecosystem services provided by healthy forests. Tasked with managing over 5 million acres of forests and woodlands, the Navajo Forestry Department has identified the need to assess sensitivities of their forests to drought and climate change. This project involves University of Arizona researchers working with Navajo Forestry Department foresters to quantify the climatic drivers of forest growth in the Chuska Mountains. The study will provide an improved assessment of forest response to climate change that is vital to natural resource planning and management.

This project was partially funded by the Climate and Society Fellows program.