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Background of Western Water Assessment
Using multidisciplinary teams of experts in climate, water, law, and economics, the Western Water Assessment provides information about natural climate variability and human-caused climate change. This information – usually in the form of climate forecasts and regional vulnerability assessments -- is designed to assist water-resource decision makers.
The Assessment was created in 1999 and is a joint effort between the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory. Both entities are located in Boulder, Colorado.
WWA is one of seven similar programs funded by the Climate Program Office at NOAA. These programs, called Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA), are designed to provide NOAA with information about how to construct its emerging “National Climate Service,” the climate analog to the existing National Weather Service.
Some recent Western Water Assessment projects have: (1) provided experimental 90-day climate outlooks to the Colorado Water Availability (“Drought”) Task Force; (2) generated 300-year tree-ring based historical stream flows for use by large Front Range water providers to evaluate vulnerability to drought; and (3) improved springtime streamflow runoff forecasts issued by the National Weather Service for use by reservoir managers such as the Bureau of Reclamation.