USDA Climate Hubs: Enabling Climate- Informed Decision-Making

Transcription

1 USDA Climate Hubs: Enabling Climate- Informed Decision-Making Emile Elias, Acting Director Caiti Steele, Coordinator Julian Reyes, Fellow USDA Agricultural Research Service Jornada Experimental Range, Las Cruces, NM Great Basin Climate Forum 12 July 2018

2 Mission: Develop and deliver science-based, region-specific information and technologies to agricultural and natural resource managers, and communities, that enable climate-informed decision-making, and to provide assistance to implement those decisions.

3 Rangelands Forests Livestock Crops Communities

4 Functional structure Hubs work at the interface of science and services, and operate in three functional areas: Tool development; technology transfer Stakeholder outreach and education Research; science translation; information synthesis

5 Time horizons Contemporary issues weather, this year, this growing season, the next 5 years Climate change issues historical climate, future climate > mid-century, end of century

6 Understanding regional priorities: Vulnerability Assessments In 2015, all Hubs conducted regional vulnerability assessments Synthesis of major climate related issues in each region and peer-reviewed special issues of Climatic Change. Key partners: All hubs, land grant universities, USDA agencies (FSA, RMA, APHIS, FS, ARS) Southwest Regional Climate Hub and California Subsidiary Hub Assessment of Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies Authors: Emile Elias, USDA SW Hub Deputy Director; Caiti Steele, USDA SW Hub Deputy Director; Kris Havstad, USDA-Agricultural Research Service Jornada Experimental Range Research Leader; Kerri Steenwerth, CA Sub Hub Co-Director; Jeanne Chambers, U.S. Forest Service; Helena Deswood, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Southwest (SW) Hub Coordinator; Amber Kerr, California (CA) Sub Hub Coordinator; Albert Rango, Hub Director; Mark Schwartz, John Muir Institute of the Environment Director; Peter Stine, CA Sub Hub Co-Director; and Rachel Steele, National Climate Hubs Coordinator. Southwest Regional Climate Hub, 2995 Knox Street, Las Cruces, NM California Subsidiary Hub, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA August 2015 Contributors: Our thanks to Shaun McKinney, NRCS; Luana Kiger, NRCS; Robert Tse, RD; Wendy Hall, APHIS; Marlene Cole, APHIS; Ricardo Lopez, USFS; Sharon Hestvik, RMA; Oscar Gonzales, FSA; and Molly Manzanares, FSA. We acknowledge ICF International for its contributions to the Greenhouse Gas Profile.

7 Vulnerability the extent to which a natural or social system is susceptible to sustaining damage from climate change (McCarthy et al., 2001)

8 Input to NCA Key Messages About the Southwest from the National Climate Assessment Declining snowpack and streamflow amounts Impacts on crops Increasing frequency of drought, and insect outbreaks Increasing frequency of flooding and erosion in coastal areas Public health, electricity and water supplies in southwestern cities

9 Regional information to local relevance? Synthesizing science and sharing information at the regional scale gives generalization of what to expect across the region in a given time period But at the local scale state / watershed / county / forest / ranch / farm can these generalizations inform adaptation to climate change?

10 Combining national, regional & local information for local relevance

11 Understanding local needs: partnering with the NDMC Drought workshops for agency personnel, Extension and producers (Clovis, El Paso, Las Cruces, Ogden) History of the drought monitor, data used, ways to contribute to the process, how to submit data / information on drought impacts explaining how the 2014 Farm Bill affected the payment difference between D2 and D3

12 How can historical data inform resilience?

13 What can crop insurance data tell us about weather and climate impacts on agriculture? Provide regionally and locally relevant information Inform future RMA (and other agency) programs Support possible adaptation through policy

14 AgRisk Viewer Interactive data viewer and on-the-fly analysis Spatial unit: county or state Temporal resolution: Monthly Annual Variables of interest: Cause-of-loss Commodity (i.e., crop) Acreage $ amounts

15 Regional overview of cause of loss

16 Pasture, Range and Forage,

17 Ecological Sites to Assess Drought Vulnerability With NRCS Pueblo, created drought vulnerability assessment framework for MLRA 69 (Upper Arkansas Valley) and MLRA 41 (Southeastern Arizona Basin and Range) Used ecological sites and associated state and transition models to build a framework for assessing drought impacts and drought response options MLRAs - millions of acres in size characterized by particular patterns of soils, geology, climate, water resources, and land use Ecological site distinctive kind of land with specific soil and physical characteristics that differ from other kinds of land in its ability to produce a distinctive kind and amount of vegetation and its ability to respond similarly to management actions and natural disturbances State and Transition models describe the various vegetation dynamics and soil states on a specific ecological site and the management decisions that can maintain a site in a desirable ecological site or drive a site to transition to an undesirable ecological state.

18 Cooperative Extension Partnerships Core Hub team is quite small and team members are not actively engaged with stakeholders Cooperative Extension are actively engaged with stakeholders Model: collaborate with CE E.g., non-profit collaboration, community outreach, and survey of CE climate needs (UNR) Extension Climate Workshops (U of A, HI, CNMI, AS, GU) Stakeholder weather and climate workshops (U of A) Climate change videos (USU) SW Extension Climate Network newsletter and website

19 Partnerships USDA Agencies FS, ARS, RMA, RD, FSA, APHIS USDI BLM, Climate Science Adaptation Centers NOAA RISAs, NIDIS DEWS Universities, Extension, and academics Tribes, BIA You?

20 Updated website

21 Questions & Comments Caiti Steele Coordinator, USDA SW Hub