September 2011
Running the Climate Rapids
Greetings!
Great news—the second phase of the Carpe Diem West Academy is off and running thanks to the generous support of the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation. Since launching the website this spring, the Academy has been providing western water managers with a logical framework and vetted tools to help make smarter choices in this era of uncertainty. The second phase adds more user-friendly bells and whistles to the website, and, starting this month, we're launching an interactive learning community and webinar series. The Academy is a one-stop site to access climate assessment tools and resources for any stage in the decision-making process, and at any management level.
For this month’s Confluence we talked with Dr. Kristen Averyt, at Western Water Assessment, about decision-making challenges facing western water managers, and with David Behar of the San Francisco PUC and the Water Utilities Climate Alliance on his perspective from a municipal utility seat.
Regards,
Kimery
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Kimery Wiltshire |
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Perspectives With Kristen Averyt
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges facing western water managers seeking to incorporate climate change into their work? KA: What I see is that climate change isn’t the only problem - water managers are also dealing with a host of other factors. Population growth. Changing demand regimes. It’s not so much that climate change constitutes a separate problem, but that it enhances all of these problems. For example, in the Colorado Basin we’re expecting to see flows decline between 5 and 20 percent due to climate change. But if, say, demand increases by 50 percent in the same time frame, which issue might be more urgent to address? Climate change makes it all the more urgent that we get better at efficiently using and managing water.
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Perspectives With David Behar
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges western water managers face in incorporating climate change into their work? DB: Water managers face three major challenges. The first challenge is finding partners to help us understand the nature of climate change and what the science says it will do in our local geography. The second challenge is dealing with the uncertainties embedded in these answers, because we’re not going to get clear predictions - instead, we’re going to get wide ranges of possible effects. In some cases, particularly in the West, these ranges will fall on either side of zero - for example, in many areas, we aren’t certain whether precipitation will increase or decrease. |
WEBINAR:
Running the Climate Rapids - Using the Iterative Risk Management Road Map
with
Dr. Holly Hartmann, Carpe Diem
West Academy Director and Dr. Kiyomi Morino, University of Arizona. September 27th 1:00pm (Pacific)
Register Now
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