WWA Co-PI Corrie Knapp and core staff member Katie Clifford, together with student Emily Peters, continued work on a project to improve our understanding of adaptation needs in carbon-dependent communities and explore opportunities for building resilience to compound hazards in Wyoming. Peters and Knapp assessed existing research efforts around climate change impacts and compound hazards in the state, including interviews with long-term researchers, managers, government officials, and NGOs, and a thorough literature review to highlight the status of existing work to provide a baseline of state-wide efforts. Results of the needs assessment helped to inform a second phase of the Wyoming Small Grants Competition project. Peters and Knapp completed interviews and analysis for the needs assessment component of the project, and they submitted a manuscript for peer-reviewed publication in 2023. 

Phase III (2024-2026) will be an effort to identify an identified issue related to compound hazards in the state where Western Water Assessment could bring together stakeholders and researchers to co-produce a research proposal. We will host a 2-day workshop with the goal of strengthening, building, and expanding networks to meet tangible and identified needs and crafting the structure for a proposal to fund these efforts. The goal will be to emerge with a draft funding proposal that we will pursue to meet community-identified needs. Results from this project will inform activities in other projects to build regional community resilience.