2011 - Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences ...

stakeholders and decision makers as a trusted source
of climate information by participating in numerous
stakeholder meetings and workshops. Collectively, WWA
researchers gave more than 35 public talks and seminars
since July 1, 2010, and were cited, quoted or interviewed
by the media more than 50 times. The WWA research team
produced 16 articles and book chapters. In addition, WWA
staff served as members of many committees and organizations
and continued efforts to expand climate literacy by
hosting sponsored workshops across the Intermountain
West. WWA staff organized numerous workshops to facilitate
interactions between researchers and stakeholders,
including a December 2010 meeting of Front Range water
providers, an April 2011 science symposium focused on
water-related impacts of bark beetle infestations and the
June 2011 Colorado River Basin workshop on adaptive
capacity. This activity helps fill gaps in science translation
and provides us with additional information on the utility
of WWA interactions and the need for future regionally
based climate services and access to information.
Milestone 2. WWA researchers will, over the next two
years, identify, engage and support research, scientists
and stakeholders affected by decisions made at the
interface of the water-energy nexus. In collaboration with
energy-focused university and governmental researchers
(including those from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
and the National Energy Technology Laboratory)
and WWA’s existing network of water professionals, WWA
plans to identify salient issues and researchers approaching
the energy-water nexus from either sector.
In August 2010, WWA hosted a workshop at NOAA entitled
“Integrated Water-Energy Modeling Efforts & Reconciling
Water Requirements for Electricity Generation.”
The results of the meeting were presented at the American
Geophysical Union 2010 Fall Meeting. The consensus
around the water requirements for energy (which leveraged
WWA efforts to improve the University of California-
Santa Barbara’s database) is reflected in a National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) report released in April
2011. At the workshop, WWA’s parallel effort with NREL
was recognized and subsequently merged into a single
effort led by NREL. WWA will be working with the Union
of Concerned Scientists to host a meeting with a similar
theme, but focused on the collaboration with University of
California-Santa Barbara, in late Summer 2011. In addition,
WWA researchers submitted a manuscript entitled
The Water-Energy Nexus in the Western United States.
This book features contributions from 24 authors drawn
from a network of water-energy-climate change researchers
and decision makers whom we have cultivated over
the past two years. The book is scheduled for publication
in October 2011 by Edward Elgar Publishing.
Product: Averyt, K, D Kenney, R Wilkinson (Ed.) (2010),
The Coal Conundrum, in The Water-Energy Nexus in the
Western US (User input status: In press ).
136 CIRES Annual Report 2011
WWA-04Management
FEDERAL LEAD: ROBIN WEBB
CIRES LEADS: KRISTEN AVERYT, ERIC GORDON
AND BRADLEY UDALL
NOAA Goal 3: Weather and Water
Project Goal: Provide overall guidance to project as well as
day-to-day management.
Milestone 1. WWA will begin a structured review process
for all activities, which will require WWA to listen to its
local stakeholders and regularly reconsider its role within
NOAA and NOAA-administered programs (e.g., NIDIS),
including the emerging National Climate Service. This will
be implemented over the next five years.
Western Water Assessment (WWA) has hired Elizabeth
McNie, an assistant professor at Purdue University whose
dissertation focused on Regional Integrated Sciences and
Assessments (RISA) programs, to conduct an independent
evaluation of WWA’s work. McNie has interviewed WWA
staff, compiled background information on existing and
historic WWA work and is proceeding with semi-structured
interviews of WWA team members and stakeholders.
A preliminary internal report for WWA is expected
later this year, although the overall project will continue
into next year. In addition, in January 2011 WWA conducted
an informal survey of Advisory Board members to help
provide new research ideas and incorporated those ideas
into its 2011-2012 research agenda. WWA will hold its annual
Advisory Board meeting in September 2011 to solicit
further input and help incorporate stakeholders directly
into research activities.
Milestone 2. WWA will co-locate a research liaison with
respective state climatologists in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming
to build stakeholder relationships, identify climate
science critical to the state and integrate locally needed
and locally occurring research with other WWA activities.
These partnerships will also strengthen the relationship
between WWA and National Integrated Drought Information
System (NIDIS) as the state climatologists are
involved in the NIDIS Upper Colorado River Basin Pilot
study. Partners will meet on at least a quarterly basis at
the WWA core office.
At the request of NOAA’s Climate Program Office, the
research liaisons positions were removed from prospective
employment with the Wyoming and Utah state climatologists’
offices and instead became direct CIRES hires. The
Utah Liaison, Tim Bardsley, was hired in December 2010
and placed at the NOAA Colorado Basin River Forecast
Center in Salt Lake City. He has worked to develop a
Utah-based network of stakeholders and scientists; begun
compiling background information for the National Climate
Assessment; and is helping the Salt Lake City Public
Utilities draft an adaptation plan. The Wyoming Liaison
is intended to be housed by the Ruckelshaus Institute at
the University of Wyoming. Our year-long effort to find
a liaison there, however, has not yet yielded a qualified
candidate. After consultation with University and other
contacts in Wyoming, we have decided instead to try to
hire an experienced person connected with the water sector
in the state as a part-time consultant. That process is
ongoing.