News and Spotlights

NOAA recently announced seven multi-year awards to its RISA programs to encourage collaboration with federal and non-federal partners on climate adaptation. WWA received $100,000 to connect the climate expertise at WWA and sister program CLIMAS (U. of Arizona) with regional conservation planners and decisionmakers, through The Nature Conservancy-led Southwest Climate Change Initiative (SWCCI). The effort is led by WWA team member Bill Travis. See the project description here.

Outside Magazine

The journal Ecology and Society recently published "Climate Change and Western Public Lands: A Survey of U.S. Federal Land Managers on the Status of Adaptation Efforts." This article summarizes and analyzes the results of a survey conducted by WWA team members Kellie Archie and Lisa Dilling, with Jana Milford and Fred Pampel of CU, on the status of climate adaptation efforts being undertaken by federal land managers in the WWA region. Read the full article at Ecology and Society.

The Summary for Decision Makers of the forthcoming report Assessment of Climate Change in the Southwestern United States is now available through the Southwest Climate Science Center. Several WWA team members contributed to the report, which provides a state-of-the-science overview of past, ongoing, and projected climate changes and impacts for the Southwest region, including Utah and Colorado. The full report will be published by Island Press in the near future.

The Denver Post

On Tuesday, November 13, from 10:00-11:00 am, WWA researcher James Meldrum will present "Water, Energy, and Climate Change: Freshwater Use by Power Plants." See the WWA Webinars page for more details and login information.

On October 18, the Western Water Assessment was among the organizations awarded a Department of the Interior's Partners in Conservation Award for their collaborative effort on the Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study, led by the Bureau of Reclamation. WWA's Joe Barsugli, who helped Reclamation develop the future climate and hydrology scenarios for the Basin Study, accepted the award in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the program. This is the second Partners in Conservation Award in four years that WWA has shared for its work with Reclamation and others on Colorado River climate and hydrology.

Grand Junction (CO) Sentinel

Grand Junction (CO) Sentinel

On Tuesday, October 2, WWA convened its third annual stakeholder meeting. The meeting provided a forum for WWA to present the results of recently completed research projects and the objectives of the new projects for the coming year, and to get feedback from our community about those projects and their emerging needs for climate-related information and research. Presentations from the meeting have now been posted on the Meeting homepage.