Subject: Two New Publications Posted: 3/10/2008 Viewed: 30739 times
Two New Publications Jack Sieber jsieber <a href="mailto:jack.sieber@sei-us.org">jack.sieber@sei-us.org</a> I just posted two new publications on the WEAP website (http://www.weap21.org/index.asp?doc=16) that describe some innovative research by the RAND Corporation that used WEAP to help them model uncertainty due to climate change, and the implications for water management.
Presenting Uncertainty About Climate Change to Water-Resource Managers A Summary of Workshops with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency
By: David G. Groves, Debra Knopman, Robert J. Lempert, Sandra H. Berry, Lynne Wainfan
Water-resource managers have long strived to meet their goals of system reliability and environmental protection in the face of many uncertainties, including demographic and economic forecasts, intrinsic weather variability, and short-term climate change induced by El Niño and other naturally occurring cycles. Now water managers also face a new uncertainty - the potential for longer-term and more persistent climate change, which, in coming years, may significantly affect the availability of supply and patterns of water demand. Information about the future effects of climate change is deeply uncertain and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Thus, the scientific community is debating how to most usefully characterize this important yet uncertain information for decision makers. As part of a multiyear study on climate-change decision-making under uncertainty, RAND researchers are working with water agencies in California to help them better understand how climate change might affect their systems and what actions, if any, they need to take to address this challenge. This report documents the methods and observations used to preserve an archive of the workshop process and provide a basis for refining the approach for future applications.
Preparing for an Uncertain Future Climate in the Inland Empire Identifying Robust Water-Management Strategies
By: David G. Groves, Robert J. Lempert, Debra Knopman, Sandra H. Berry
Water managers face significant uncertainties about future water-management conditions, including precipitation and temperature patterns that may be changing in response to global climate change. As part of a multiyear study on climate-change decision-making under uncertainty, RAND researchers are working with water agencies in California to help them better understand how climate change might affect their systems and what actions, if any, they should take to address this challenge. This briefing augments a recent RAND report, Presenting Uncertainty About Climate Change to Water-Resource Managers: A Summary of Workshops with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, and describes the last of four workshops held with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency in Southern California. In this briefing, the RAND team presents an analysis, based on robust decision-making methods, of how different adaptive water-management strategies may reduce the vulnerability of the region to climate change and other planning uncertainties.
