Transcript Needs of Water Resources Decision-Makers for

Needs of water resources
decision-makers for decadal
climate predictions
Andrea J. Ray
NOAA Earth Systems Research Lab & NOAACIRES Western Water Assessment
CLIVAR Science Symposium
Irvine, CA
14 July 2008
Rich arena for applications:
Overview
Decadal scale of many water & natural resource decisions
Who studies these
A couple of examples: Decision and planning processes and use of
information
USBR reservoir management Powell-Mead “Shortage Sharing” EIS
Front Range Municipal Water planning
Types of uses and how this relates to needs
Potential for use in climate risk management ….and adaptation?
Importance of boundary organizations, e.g. RISA’s, IRI, etc for
ongoing interactions with users
Uses of decadal information: needs, users, and uses
Rich arena for applications
Societal impacts in several sectors
water (reservoir management, municipal water supply),
fire management, public health, agriculture -- esp
permaculture, drought mitigation/planning
Management communities who can take advantage
Targets for user-oriented experiments, training/education
Planning, their scenarios, hedging
Interest in climate change, not familiar with decadal
variability
Skill…
Not as simple as threshold “level required to be
societally useful”
Shifts in risks of extreme events vs specific events
forecasted
Decadal scale of many water & natural
resource decisions
• Water -- UCBR/reservoirs & municipal water supply
• Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program
• Forest Management Plans, National Parks
• Endangered species recovery plans
• Upper Colorado endangered fish
• Multi-species conservation plan for the Lower Colorado
• Salmon
• Public health
Heat waves; Air quality; risk of temperature-related diseases
•Many different ongoing planning processes
• Opportunities for 2-way learning and new information in each
new process
Who are the Water Resources “Users” of
information?
• Municipal/residential and industrial water
suppliers & organizations
• Agricultural water users and organizations
• Government managers, regulators,
policymakers, planners (local, state, federal)
• Professional organizations & networks of all
of these
• Scientists and engineers
• Providers of products and services
(govt, pvt, media)
• NGOs (e.g., biodiversity interests)
• Recreation interests, individual and
companies
• Boundary organizations, which work
between scientists and users
• where do these water managers talk to each
other
Regional Integrated Science & Assessments (RISA):
one set of boundary organizations
Eight regional projects, US and border focus, earliest began ~1995;
primarily empirical studies
Mechanisms to elicit and understand user needs
Perception, cognitive, communications studies
Integrate and synthesize needs across groups
Determine what services should be: part of a dialogue about risks
Take advantage of social science studies of cognition, adoption and diffusion of
innovations, and methodologies
Focus on users’ problem orientations: drought, hydropower, multi-purpose
reservoir management; long-term planning; annual planning
Decision studies of water management and agriculture
Characterize decisions and decisionmakers
Institutional/legal
Organizational/behavioral
Experiments in communicating with stakeholders and in creating and
sustaining partnerships over time
Reservoir management, drought task forces, climate change and state
water supply planning
Example of long term planning and climate:
Drought impacts on Lake Powell
•
2007 water year runoff into Lake
Powell was 51%average, part of
long term drought
•
Demands on the river are
increasing
•
Risk of call on the river?
Upper Basin States (CO, WY,
UT, NM) may soon be required
to cease water diversions that
are junior to the 1922 Colorado
Compact in order to meet
obligations to downstream users
•
Years-decades to fill/re-fill:
concern about multi-year
drought
What if climate change reduces
flows on the River?
From Harding, 2006, www.hydrosphere.com
- USBR Long term planning,
evolution of operating criteria
Policy landscape provides
opportunities to incorporate
climate information
- “Shortage sharing agreement,”
Environmental Impact Statement
and EIS for the Aspinall Unit on
the Gunnison River
- Ongoing implementation of
endangered species recovery
plans (MSCP, CRRIP) and Glen
Canyon Adaptive Management
Program
Opportunities
Reservoir Management uses of information
Powell-Mead “Shortage Sharing” EIS
Latest in a series of management
innovations
Most extensive use yet of climate
information
Paleo record to represent richer
range of droughts
“Appendix U” coordinated thru
RISAs
Decadal information is critical to
management scale
Climate risk management ….and
adaptation?
More than just the right products, and
occurs in a dialogue about risks
Understanding the nature of risk and
information/knowledge needed to
manage risk
Managing water in the context of
changing climate -- adaptation
strategies
Front Range Municipalities
Study
Northern
Boulder
Westminster
Denver
Aurora
Colorado Springs
Uses of climate information & forecasts
Factors affecting the use of climate information and forecasts
Six Front Range water providers: Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District,
Boulder, Westminster, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Aurora
Serve about 60% of Colorado’s population
Context:
Interactions with WWA and other climate information providers since 1998
Drought in 2002
Different contexts for growth, water supply reliability; use change, etc
Perspectives from user studies: What do they
want?
Historical data & projections of these at a basin/sub-basin
scale
Snowpack/SWE
Soil moisture
Streamflow current/forecasted
Timing of spring peak; “holes”
in a river (low flows)
Reservoir levels
Ground water
Surface water supply index
(SWSI)
Palmer Drought Index
Temperature
Evapotranspiration,
evaporative losses
Demand metrics, water and
hydropower
Outlooks of these, and how
ppt and temp outlooks relate,
e.g., ppt needed to raise
levels to near-average or
other thresholds
Longer term municipal water planning
Drought as part of longer term planning, beyond drought of
record -- paleo
Assess the potential for future systems to cope with drought:
streamflows from the historic record
Planning for projects to “firm-up” yield
Windy Gap surpluses from early 90’s, but none since -decadal variation
Other supply options
Demand projections: primarily population based
Temperature trend not considered
Several agencies now using paleoclimate reconstructions to
expand the types of drought they evaluate
Interest in assessments: range of potential climate change
scenarios, droughts that have occurred outside the instrumental
record
Perspectives from across user studies: Users
needs:Longer-range questions
• Increasing requests for information on interannual and decadal
time scales (+ 5, 10, 15 years)
• Reservoir inflows over several years (at least 2)
• Drought outlooks over the next decade
• Are the historical droughts of record still a valid planning tool?
• Are return periods for flooding still valid?
• “Can we produce reliable baselines for planning to give the large
amount of year to year and decade to decade variations?”
• “Are the assumptions of planning borne out under projections
of varying and changing climates?”
• e.g. 1906 Rio Grande treaty definition of “extra-ordinary
drought” invoked 14 times over the last 50 years
• “Do present simulations of change adequately represent
modes of variations (ENSO, NAO, PDO etc.) ?”
•How might ENSO change under climate change
Types of “use”
Consult: the product is consulted, e.g., looked up on a web page or received
as a briefing or from other source (type1)
Consider: after consulting the product, it is considered in management
deliberations as a factor potentially influencing decisions, but not necessarily
in operational models (type 2)
Mental models, judgement, experience.
Projections/forecasts may be used in this way when they are not in
appropriate forms for use in operational models
Incorporate: some form of the forecast is incorporated into an operational
model that is utilized in operational decisions (type 3)
May be objective
Dialogue about risks: communication of risk, i.e. the forecast is used to
communicate with other managers and stakeholders about the risk of certain
conditions and about the need to take actions, or to justify actions (type 4)
•
Water resource decisionmakers use climate information (e.g. during
drought) in a dialogue with their stakeholders about the risk of low inflows,
flooding, e.g., and the need to take actions, or to justify actions
• Depends on….
What’s skill got to do with it?*
•The decisions, what’s being forecast
• often concern is about risk of events, and planning to
mitigate, avoid,
• skill of other factors in a decision or planning process
•The level of climate literacy of the user, and how
familiarity with forecasting ()
• High “threshold,” e.g. 75% from Pulwarty & Redmond ‘97
-- true -- but an early stage in understanding for most
users
• Better than climatology
• Improve on historic record as a planning tool for
extremes?
Uses of decadal information I: who, for what,
how
Long range planning by agencies at multiple space and time
scales
Federal: USBR (reservoir plans), USFS (forest management plans),
Drought/NIDIS (mitigation planning)
State water planning
Regional and local govts (e.g. Denver Water)
Support water managers and planners’ dialogues with their own
stakeholders
Dialogue about climate-related risks with policy and planning for 2050 year horizons
long-lived policies likely to encounter multi-year droughts and impacts of
observed trends
Synthesis of research into products & analysis that connect climate
impacts to water management impacts:
Temperature --> evaporation, rain/snow mix, urban demand, length of
growing season
Timing of spring runoff (Dettinger, Cayan) --> water rights, reservoir
reliability
Synchroneity (Hamlet, Jain) --> diversity of supply sources
Interest in these for the Shortage Sharing EIS for Lakes Powell and
Mead
Uses of decadal information II: who, for
what, how
Reducing vulnerability to climate variations requires
consideration of a range of climate scenarios in planning
and policy development
multi-year droughts and the impacts increased temperatures
Support for 20-50 yr planning horizons
Capability to view and compare information from multiple sources
Need user-oriented metadata, descriptions
GIS widely used by resource agencies, state/local planners, but climate
information has not generally provided by NOAA in these formats
Connect types of data and projections
Work with Integrated Assessment groups, including RISAs
connect with specific user groups
elicit and understand detailed user needs and common needs
have long-term partnerships and experiment with communicating
information and aboutrisk
Understand the pathways that are used for information
Decision Support III: Long-range planning and policy
Policy-relevant Science questions
changes in snowpack, accumulation season, timing of spring
runoff,
increases in water demand from temperature increases
changes in the length of the growing season
Impact of temperature trend alone (most skill): ET, drought
indices, soil moisture,
Changes in ENSO with climate change
Changes in the risk of extreme events:
Drought, runs of dry years, food risk, severe storms
Cold air outbreaks, heat waves
Disconnect between the scientific literature and information for
managers: Need for synthesis:
Panel of experts to contribute to the Lower Colorado office of
Reclamation contribute to EIS(other RISAs participating)
Model for use of decadal information: engaging users,
information publically available as a peer-reviewed report,
education of water resources users
Potential for PI-based, peer-reviewed process to produce
information for water management?
Thank you
Andrea J. Ray, Ph.D
NOAA Earth Systems Research Lab
[email protected]
Relationships among current products, potentially
predictable, and needed climate information
What is potentially predictable
Current Forecast Products
Spectrum of User Needs
How drought information might be used:
WWA observations
“Conversation” within water management groups and with their
stakeholders, and with scientists
Mental models of managers for their systems are important as well as
hydrologic and management models
Relationship of information to their triggers, thresholds
As interested in the information behind the Drought Monitor as the DM
itself, in order to make their own assessments
Synthesis of research into products & analysis that connect climate
impacts to water management impacts:
Temperature --> evaporation, rain/snow mix, urban demand, length of
growing season
Timing of spring runoff (Dettinger, Cayan) --> water rights, reservoir
reliability
Synchroneity (Hamlet, Jain) --> diversity of supply sources
Issues for a policy-relevant
“Mountain Hydroclimate” science enterprise
Data needed for management, calibrate, verify, initialize models
Support observations and data management, and a coherent policy for
the multi-agency system that supports hydroclimate data collection
NWS data, USGS streamflow data, and National Resource Conservation
Service snow and soil moisture data among many others
Metadata too!
Policy-relevant science questions require synthesis and
“assessment”
Individual PI-driven science only partly meets needs – need
interconnected projects
Unfortunately, to date, scientific assessments like the IPCC have
focused on the global and continental scale effects of climate change
and hence are of limited use to regionally focused decision-making.
Regional, regional, regional…..
Actually communicating with policymakers is a whole different talk….
Concluding thoughts
Changing context has introduced criticality for water
management of the Colorado Basin
Sensitivity to “drought” increasing even if no change in hydrology
Reducing vulnerability requires consideration of a range of
climate scenarios in planning and policy development
multi-year droughts and the impacts increased temperatures
Support for 20-50 yr planning horizons
Water Providers, Environmentalists, NGOs need to be partners in
creation of science
Embedded researchers; better job on educating these partners
Beyond forecasts to an additional category of services:
connecting climate impacts to water management impacts in a
dialogue with managers to support decisions
“assessments” on science by multiple PIs with policy focus/parter
How does a process-oriented, PI-driven program participate
and contribute to the larger service??
Synthesis projects and X-RISA efforts are a start
Thank you
Andrea J. Ray, Ph.D
NOAA Earth Systems Research Lab
[email protected]
Decadal “needs”
Integrated

Implications of climate change temperature trend

Support use of “scenarios” in water resource planning -- what ifs, and how
resilient is the system, vs prediction

Importance of boundary organizations
Decadal “services”
***
Scales
AOP
Annual Operating Plan
Hydrological decision support model
with climate forecasts
Water and other
Agencies, State and Federal
Multi-Resource Coordination
& Management Working Groups
Forecast, hydrological assessment
Resource Assessment
Individual agency
responsibilities
Hydrologic Scenarios
[Issues]
1. Likely April-July inflow volume
2. Monthly release schedules for
hydropower and irrigation planning
3.
4. Flood control
5. Minimum flows
6. Other resource conditions
1. Recreational trout spawning
2. Recreation management, on and
around reservoir
3. Irrigation planning
4. In stream flow conditions
5. Maintenance scheduling
6. Legal obligations, I.e., interstate
compacts
7. Other resource conditions
Current method:
hydrologic decision
support model
Next steps: 1) process of
negotiation to develop
better operational
products;
Method: Institutional
analysis: who’s making
decisions about
resource allocation
Interaction of primary focus
with other issues
[Scenarios]
1. Peak flow enhancement
opportunities
2. Time since last target peak flows
3. Effects of hydrologic scenario on
other resource conditions
4.
5. Political issues
Method: use HDSS and
climate info to discover
how diff climate
scenarios are stressors
on the evolving system
New Water Managers’ criteria
 Operational Forecast criteria:
Value
 Consistency
 Quality
 Murphy, 1993
 Decision making criteria:
Credibility of provider and reliability of information
Accessibility of information, compatibility, complexity
Legitimacy
 Participation of water managers’ stakeholders in plans and
decisions about operations, and decisions influenced by
acknowledgement of interdependence
Thank you!
Andrea J. Ray
NOAA Earth Systems Research Lab;
Western Water Assessment,
Andrea.ray @ noaa.gov
What’s needed for decision support
Beyond forecasts --> “Services”
Dialogue about climate-related risks with policy and planning for 2050 year horizons
Not forecasting for these horizons, but long-lived policies likely to
encounter multi-year droughts and impacts of observed trends
Synthesis of research into products & analysis that connect climate
impacts to water management impacts:
Temperature --> evaporation, rain/snow mix, urban demand, length of
growing season
Timing of spring runoff (Dettinger, Cayan) --> water rights, reservoir
reliability
Synchroneity (Hamlet, Jain) --> diversity of supply sources
Interest in these for the Shortage Sharing EIS
Decision Support II
Support year to year decisions on efficient management of storage
and releases
More important for Lower Colorado below Lake Mead and reservoirs
above Lake Powell
Seasonal and sub-seasonal forecasts
Office of Hydrology (Schaake talk Thurs. p.m.)
U.Washington group (Lettenmaier, Hamlet, Wood)
Potential improved subseasonal streamflow forecasting
Educate and support USBR and other water managers about these
new products as they become available
Partner to ensure that these products are compatible with USBR
decision support models and frameworks
Conclusions
Changing context has introduced criticality for water
management of the Colorado Basin
Increased risk of shortages due to increasing demand
Shortages related to climate variability and change likely to
have greater impact -- increased vulnerability in the system
Points of vulnerability similar to SSD conclusions
Reducing vulnerability requires consideration of a
range of climate scenarios in planning and policy
development
multi-year droughts and the impacts increased temperatures
Support for 20-50 yr planning horizons
Services beyond forecasts as an additional category of
services: connecting climate impacts to water
management impacts in a dialogue with managers to
support decisions
What do they want? Longer-range questions
• Increasing requests for information on interannual and
decadal time scales (5, 10, 15 years into the future)
• Reservoir inflows over several years (at least 2)
• Drought outlooks over the next decade
• “Can we produce reliable baselines for planning to give the
large amount of year to year and decade to decade
variations?”
•“Are the assumptions of planning borne out under
projections of varying and changing climates?”
• e.g. 1906 Rio Grande treaty definition of “extra-ordinary
drought” invoked 14 times over the last 50 years
•“Do present simulations of change adequately represent
modes of variations (ENSO, NAO, PDO etc.) ?”
Blank slide e
Spatial National
Crop
Regional
Requesting
WWA timeline
1997-98
1999
2000-1
2002
2005-6
Climate context
El Nino
La Nina
2002 Drought
Climate Change Interest
<-------------Extended Drought------------>
Differences in perspective:
scientists and managers
Factor
Scientist’s perspective
Water Manager’s Perspective
Identifying a critical
issue
Based on a broad understanding of the nature of water management
Based on experience of a particular system
Time frame
Variable
Immediate (operations)
Long-term (infrastructure)
Spatial resolution
Defined by data availability or funding
Defined by institutional boundaries or authorities
Goals
Prediction
Explanation
Understanding of natural system
Optimization of multiple conditions and
minimization of risk
Basis for Decisions
Generalizing multiple facts and observations
Use of scientific procedures and methods
Availability of research funding
Disciplinary perspective
Tradition; Procedure
Professional judgment; Training
Economics; Politics
Job risks
Expectation
Understanding
Prediction
Ongoing improvement (project is never actually complete)
Statistical significance of results
Innovations in methods/theory
Accuracy of information
Appropriate methodology
Save money and time; Protect the public;
Protect their jobs, agendas or institutions
Product
Characteristics
Complex
Scientifically defensible
As simple as possible without losing accuracy
Importance of context
Frame
Physical (atmospheric, hydrologic, etc.) conditions as drivers
Dependent on scientific discipline
Safety and well being
Profit
Consistency with institutional culture, policy, etc.
Nature of Use
Conceptual
Applied
•
Some conclusions from across user-studies
projects:
for with
water-related
decisionmaking?
Scientists needneeds
to collaborate
these sophisticated,
but
non-climate experts in a common language
• Variables and indices
• flexible formats, areas, time scales
• tools to relate observations, historical data, and forecasts to water
managers perspectives, e.g. to their problems
• Ways to evaluate climate scenarios in their management scenarios
• Tools for managers to talk to their stakeholders
• Benchmarks beyond “idealized value”
• Partnerships
• Interactions maintained over time
• Influence of scientists on the drought planning process and of water
managers on science done
• Innovation in both science and management from interaction
• Fora for communication, learning, bringing perspectives together
Current uses of climate information in
municipal water management
Use of the instrumental record of hydro-climate variables in
planning and operations models
The use of climate influenced hydro-climate parameters to
generate projections of streamflow, reservoir contents, or water
supply
SWE, historic records of streamflow, water year precipitation
Use of paleoclimate data, e.g. reconstructions of SWE or
streamflow
Use of forecasts of climate variables, e.g., precipitation or
temperature, such as the NOAA/CPC Monthly and Seasonal
Climate Forecasts, or medium-range weather forecasts
 Climate variability reflected in annual and longer term operations
in ways other than use of forecasts
• USBR Long term planning, evolution
of operating criteria
However, in the event of a shortage,
vague and often contradictory laws and
policy mandates
Non-allocated uses, e.g. recreational
and environmental are particularly
sensitive, yet these have increased in
economic importance
2007 policy landscape provides
opportunities to incorporate climate
information:
Ongoing implementation of endangered
species recovery plans (MSCP, CRRIP)
and Glen Canyon Adaptive Management
Program
Shortage sharing agreement,” EIS and
the Environmental Impact Statement for
the Aspinall Unit on the Gunnison River
Opportunities