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Gregg Garfin

Assessment of Climate Change in the Southwest United States - a contribution to the 2013 National Climate Assessment - is a summary and synthesis of the past, present, and projected future of the region’s climate, emphasizing new information and understandings since publication of the previous national assessment in 2009.
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Actionable Science to Understand the Effects of Recent Temperature Increases to Inform Natural Resources Management in the Southwestern United States
In recent decades, average temperatures across the U.S. Southwest have increased substantially and precipitation patterns have increased in variability. The warmer temperatures directly impact water availability within Southwest ecosystems, including earlier snowmelts; reduced snowpacks, soil moisture, and streamflow; and lower humidity. Collectively, this has led to an increase in aridity across this region. This in turn affects terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, increases wildfire severity, and impacts human activities such as agriculture and municipal water use. These well-documented trends are at the forefront of the concerns of natural resource managers in the Southwest. This project aims to strengthen partnerships...
In 2018, to help fulfill the Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center’s (SW CASC) mission of developing useful science products for natural resource managers, researchers conducted a rapid assessment of science and information needs of Southwest natural resource managers in Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah. Researchers assessed (a) stakeholder research, data and information needs, (b) communication and engagement preferences, (c) training and extension needs, and (d) identified partnership and collaboration barriers and opportunities.
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Future of Fire in the Southwest: Towards a National Synthesis of Wildland Fire Under a Changing Climate
Climate change is altering the patterns and characteristics of fire across natural systems in the United States. Resource managers in the Southwest are faced with making natural resource and fire management decisions now, despite a lack of accessible information about how those decisions will play out as fire regimes, and their associated disturbances, will change across the landscape. Decision makers in natural-resource management increasingly require information about projected future changes in fire regimes to effectively prepare for and adapt to climate change impacts. An accessible and forward-looking summary of what we know about the “future of fire” is urgently required in the Southwest and across the country...
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Continued Partnerships to Increase Capacity for Tribal Natural Resource Adaptation Planning
For centuries, tribal and indigenous communities have relied on natural resources to sustain their families, communities, traditional ways of life, and cultural identities. This relationship with both land and water ecosystems makes indigenous people and cultures particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. In 2015, the Southwest Climate Science Center partnered with the University of Arizona Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions (CCASS) to develop regional capacity for engagement with tribes to support climate change adaptation. CCASS is now building on the success of the 2015 project and is strengthening partnerships to support the climate adaptation capacity of tribes in the Southwest....
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