NOAA Sectoral Applications Research Program (SARP)

Many communities are already vulnerable to extreme events, and many of these vulnerabilities will increase with climate change. Identifying and better understanding critical thresholds for extreme events is key to developing effective community responses to climate change. In this project, researchers will test a methodology for using a participatory process to define critical thresholds for extreme events and use these thresholds to customize climate projections to community-­‐specific needs. This project brings together Adaptation International, CLIMAS and SCIPP, two of NOAA’s RISA programs, ATMOS Research, and ISET International to address this critical need.

Drought is a complex phenomenon that can vary widely over space to due to precipitation patterns and in time due to lagging impacts in slowly varying systems. These factors are magnified in the semiarid Southwest U.S., where extreme interannual climate variability, topography, and highly localized precipitation patterns (e.g., monsoon season thunderstorms) create highly varying hydroclimatic patterns in both space and time and subsequent drought impacts. Current climate monitoring networks across Arizona and New Mexico struggle to capture this variability and accurately portray potential drought conditions.

Complementary datasets, like remote sensing greenness, used in conjunction with existing climate data, offer the potential to monitor drought conditions across large landscapes with sparse monitoring networks. Several efforts, including online geovisualization tools to access raw normalized-difference vegetation index (NDVI or greenness) data and more formalized remote sensing-based drought monitoring tools like VegDRI, have been developed over the past decade. A new effort supported by a recent NOAA-SARP/NIDIS grant spurred the development of tool called DroughtView, which takes a slightly different approach in combining cutting-edge online geovisualization tools with derived remote sensing products targeted at detecting drought conditions. DroughtView builds on the success of its precursor, RangeView, which was developed with guidance from agriculturists and resource managers who need environmental monitoring data. The tools in DroughtView are used to monitor biweekly changes in land surface greenness conditions as a proxy for drought impacts at very fine spatial scales across the Southwest U.S. More information can be found at http://droughtview.arizona.edu

DroughtView combines geovisualization tools with remote sensing products to detect drought conditions. The DroughtView tool served as a key piece of information to help the National Resources Conservation Service, US Bureau of Land Management, and US Forest Service range managers determine drought conditions and Farm Services Agency drought disaster assistance eligibility. DroughtView is a web-based decision-support tool for computers and mobile devices that combines satellite-derived measures of surface greenness with additional geospatial data so that users can visualize and evaluate vegetation dynamics across space and over time.

The goal of this project is to work with the Hopi Tribe's Dept. of Natural Resources (HDNR) to develop a set of drought indicators and approaches for collecting, analyzing, and utilizing the data needed to support each indicator. In addition to indicators that rely on available temperature and precipitation data, we hope to develop a complementary suite of indicators that utilizes drought impacts information the HDNR has begun to collect. The integrated suite of indicators and processes to support monitoring them will: provide the foundation for revisions to the Hopi Tribe's current drought management and response plan; result in a new stream of locally-derived data and information that could provide input to national drought products like the U.S. Drought Monitor; and be the backbone of a system that would provide local, regional, and national decision makers better insight into developing drought conditions before an event reaches critical levels.

Adaptation in water management is a greatly revered yet poorly understood goal and concept. The U.S. suffers from what's been called an “adaptation deficit”, but there is little comprehensive research on how to advance adaptation. Previous research has found that case studies of how adaptation is actually being delivered, and barriers to effective delivery (e.g., information, capacity, institutions), is a critical missing component of existing adaptation research. This project addresses this gap both theoretically and methodologically in four study sites in the Arizona-Sonora region of the U.S-Mexico border: Tucson, AZ; Yuma, AZ and the Colorado River delta; the Upper Gulf of California (from Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, north); and Hermosillo, Sonora. The key research questions guiding this project include: what is the role of networks in governance and the implications for using climate knowledge; what are the most effective climate services to support efforts to adapt; and how can decision-support tools build institutional adaptive capacity. Researchers examine these questions via interactive semi-structured interviews, a webinar series on the border climate, and a scientist-stakeholder symposium. Project outputs will include pilot development of an institutional adaptive capacity index; presentation of results at professional meetings, papers in peer-reviewed journals, workshop and symposia reports, the Webinar series, quarterly production of the Transborder Climate newsletter, and a project website.

Climate and its impacts extend across the U.S.-Mexico border, affecting many economic activities, including the management of natural resources, agriculture and ranching, and public health. This project aims to (a) provide information on climate and the environment for the binational border region, and (b) assess the effectiveness of social media for building the capacity to convey and us climate information in decision making.

Previously, this project was called Transborder Climate: Adaptation Without Boundaries. Transborder Climate was a newsletter with reports on research and forecasts related to climate and its impacts in the transboundary United States-Mexico border region. Transborder Climate provided information for resource management and policy, with a special emphasis on information relevant to adaptation to climate variations and trends. It was produced in English and Spanish.

Currently, the project is focused on the borderlands within the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo transboundary river basin encompassing the New Mexico, Texas, and Chihuahua borders. The first Rio Grande/Bravo Climate Impacts & Outlook was produced during winter 2013-14. This was the first of multiple experimental quarterly binational/bilingual climate outlooks designed to provide climate information to stakeholders in this region. The product is produced on behalf of the North American Climate Services Partnership, a collaboration between the weather services of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. This is also part of a NIDIS pilot project for the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo transboundary region.
http://drought.gov/media/pgfiles/Rio-Grande-Bravo-Climate-Outlook13.pdf
http://drought.gov/media/pgfiles/Rio-Grande-Bravo-Climate-Outlook-spani…

As the southwestern United States moves into an increasingly different climate than anything we’ve experienced in the modern era, elected officials, city managers, urban sustainability officers, planners, and resource managers are facing decisions that are likely to benefit from insights that emerge from ongoing climate science, impacts research, and promising adaptation practices. In an effort to both inform these decisions and learn from these important stakeholders in Arizona, this project seeks to create a collaborative environment among stakeholders and climate researchers to stimulate and support climate adaptation and resiliency efforts across the state. The project has three goals: 1) provide useful, state-of-the-art climate knowledge to municipal leaders to encourage using climate science in long-range decision processes; 2) work with urban managers and planners to develop tangible products and/or processes that will help planners and decision makers incorporate climate information into their unique planning documents and policies; 3) study the process of engagement and results from the collaboration to contribute to the growing literature about best practices for climate change adaptation.

The Hopi Tribe and Navajo Nation have been experiencing widespread and persistent drought conditions for more than a decade. Drought has impacted vegetation and local water resources in ways that threaten agricultural systems and ecosystems that are critical to supporting the Hopi and Navajo people.

Limited hydroclimatological and ecological monitoring across the region has made it difficult to assess current drought impacts and anticipate future impacts. By working with Navajo and Hopi resource managers to develop better drought monitoring tools and tactics, researchers will help these two communities reduce their vulnerability to drought, cope with unavoidable drought impacts, and plan for long-term sustainability in the region.

The second phase of this project is focused on working with the Hopi Department of Natural Resources to develop drought monitoring and planning processes that are useful for tribal decision making.

Effects of climate change in arid regions include increased variability in water supplies and changes in water demand due to increased temperatures. These effects pose great challenges for water managers and water users in regions already facing water scarcity. Voluntary arrangements between agricultural water users and those seeking more reliable supplies for urban and environmental needs are an important regional adaptation tool. This guidebook series is intended to assist public agencies, non-profit organizations, irrigation districts, cities, and businesses with design and implementation of water acquisition programs to improve water supply reliability during drought and under climate change.

The Arizona-Sonora region along the U.S.-Mexico border has been called the "front line of ongoing climate change" (Harrison 2009). Due to its rapid growth, industrialization, and climate characteristics, it is recognized as a highly vulnerable region in terms of socioeconomic and climate characteristics. Ensuring future water supply is the region’s high­est priority challenge. Climate change projections for reduced precipitation and severe drought. From 2008 to 2011, a binational team of multi-disciplinary researchers led by the University of Arizona and El Colegio de Sonora worked closely with decision-makers, water managers, and disaster relief planners (i.e., stakehold­ers) to conduct urban water vulnerability assessments of the four urban climate change “hotspots” in the Arizona-Sonora region. These assessments focus on the nexus of climate and water variables, with a 5 to 20 year horizon. Project outputs to date include: 1) four linked urban water vulnerability studies (Tucson, AZ; Nogales, AZ., and Nogales, Sonora; Hermosillo and Puerto Peñasco, Sonora) that identify major regional climate-related vulnerabilities and institutional capacity in the water sector; 2) a Binational Climate Summary for Arizona-Sonora region, in English and Spanish; 3) a series of five stakeholder-scientist workshops; and 4) a new Working Paper series on water, vulnerability, and climate in U.S.-Mexico border region.

Persistent drought and climate change affect water and energy costs, and hence choices made by farms, cities and industrial water and energy users, as well as energy and water providers’ operations. This project examines potential climate change and variability adaptation strategies related to water and energy in the Colorado River and Rio Grande Basins, including northwestern Mexico. Researchers are investigating how climate influences the market price of water and developing a menu of water and energy supply reliability tools with guidelines for using these tools.