SW CASC Research Consortium Partners

Dates

Start Date: 2018
End Date: 2023

Summary

University of Arizona (HOST) The University of Arizona (UArizona) is the SW CASC host institution, and the state’s land grant institution. UArizona is a national leader in climate and environmental science, co-production of science and policy research, engagement, and outreach and climate adaptation science, planning and implementation. The SW CASC is housed within the Arizona Institute for Resilient Environments and Societies (AIRES) at UArizona, which has over 300 affiliated faculty and houses many long-term initiatives with experience in co-production of actionable science. UArizona SW CASC co-PI Alison Meadow and DRI co-PI Tamara Wall are evaluating SW CASC projects using a framework they developed for the evaluation of [...]

Summary

University of Arizona (HOST)

The University of Arizona (UArizona) is the SW CASC host institution, and the state’s land grant institution. UArizona is a national leader in climate and environmental science, co-production of science and policy research, engagement, and outreach and climate adaptation science, planning and implementation. The SW CASC is housed within the Arizona Institute for Resilient Environments and Societies (AIRES) at UArizona, which has over 300 affiliated faculty and houses many long-term initiatives with experience in co-production of actionable science.

UArizona SW CASC co-PI Alison Meadow and DRI co-PI Tamara Wall are evaluating SW CASC projects using a framework they developed for the evaluation of collaboratively produced climate science that specifically addresses the process of producing outcomes of actionable science. Additionally, Meadow is engaged with other SW CASC co-PIs and affiliated researchers to develop a publication focused on how Indigenous communities in the Southwest are using a climate justice approach for their work on climate change adaptation. UArizona PI Gregg Garfin (also SW CASC University Director) is collaborating with other SW CASC co-PIs and affiliated researchers on the Southwest Integrated Climate Change Project, and the Recent Warming Initiative (see Collaborative Initiatives page).

Publications:

M. Meadow, Peck, D. E. , Owen, G. , Wilmer, H. , Brymer, A. Bentley, Carroll, S. Russo, Ferguson, D. B. , Garba, I. , and Greene, C. , “Expanded Ethical Principles for Research Partnership and Transdisciplinary Natural Resource Management Science”, Environmental Management, 2021.

I. N. S. Djenontin and Meadow, A. M. , “The Art of Co-production of Knowledge in Environmental Sciences and Management: Lessons from International Practice”, Environmental Management, vol. 61, 2018.

Colorado State University

Colorado State University (CSU) is a land grant institution and leader in research, service, education, and extension. CSU SW CASC co-PIs have connections with the Warner College of Natural Resources (WCNR) and the Colorado Water Institute. They have strong relationships with Southwest federal, state, and municipal water managers, and a long history of collaboration with agencies such as the Bureau of Reclamation. CSU’s Colorado Climate Center is a strong center for citizen-science programs (e.g., CoCoRaHS monitoring network) and CSU houses the nationally top-ranked Department of Atmospheric Science and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere.

CSU co-PI Erica Fleishman is leading the Recent Warming Initiative (see Collaborative Initiatives page) and terrestrial resources focused research (see description under UC Davis below). CSU co-PI Brad Udall, with partner Julie Vano (NCAR), is designing a web-based platform where:

The newest Colorado River research is summarized and shared
The activities of the research community are made more visible
Important datasets and tools are made more accessible

Contributions can be made by the community and ownership is shared
Advances in science are given context so they have more value to non-specialists (e.g., agency staff, congressional staffers, 1st year grad students, journalists)

The design and content is being informed by a series of interviews with stakeholders engaged in Colorado River science and management from federal agencies, nonprofit organizations, universities, water utilities, and boundary organizations (i.e., from those who will be using the product).

Publications (also see UCDavis publications)

K. Wheeler, Schmidt, J. C. , Salehabadi, H. , Neilson, B. , Mihalevich, B. , Kasprak, A. , Goeking, S. , Gilbert, L. , Wang, J. , Udall, B. , Bruckerhoff, L. , and Kuhn, E. , “Alternative Management Paradigms for the Future of the Colorado and Green Rivers”, Center for Colorado River Studies, 2021.

Desert Research Institute

Desert Research Institute (DRI) is an environmental research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education, with extensive faculty and facilities in atmospheric sciences, earth and environmental sciences, hydrology, life sciences, and informatics. DRI is a host of the California Nevada Applications Program NOAA-RISA, and hosts the California Drought Early Warning System, part of the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS). DRI SW CASC co-PIs have more than 20 years of experience in working directly with state, regional, and national wildfire managers, and they are affiliated with the Program for Climate, Ecosystems, and Fire Applications (CEFA), and the Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC), the premier center for weather and climate data and analysis products for the western United States.

Data Access. DRI co-PIs are supporting data access and visualization by improving the Southwest Climate and Environment Information Collaborative (SCENIC) tool, providing training sessions with partners, and helping to build adaptive management capacity by training future scientists and resource managers. The technical team is primarily focused on optimization, improving data access, and working collaboratively with partners, end-users, and evaluators to improve the capacity and usability of SCENIC.
Evaluation. With UArizona co-PI Alison Meadow and other researchers, DRI co-PI Tamara Wall is developing an evaluation design utilizing a developmental evaluation approach to understand the impacts of SW CASC activities and provide guidance to SW CASC co-PIs and researchers. The team is also evaluating SCENIC to better understand what impact the tool has on SW CASC partners.
Wildfire Science. With recent extended drought events followed by extreme participation, understanding the implications on fire regimes, fire fuels, and fire behavior is timely and important for DOI land managers. SW CASC co-PI Tim Brown provides to the SW CASC wildfire science and management expertise. He serves as advisor to at least one graduate student working on wildfire related projects. Dr. Brown assists in performing analyses on relationships between climate, fire and vegetation under the terrestrial ecosystems research component. Additionally, co-PI Wall is working with the Global Learning Exchange Network to facilitate roundtable discussions with Southwest fire practitioners, to help inform policy and practice in the state of California.

Publications:

T. M. Brown, Balantic, C. , Morelli, T. Lyn, Adams, A. , Gross, S. , Mazur, R. , Sawyer, S. , Tucker, J. , Vernon, M. , Mengelt, C. , Morales, J. , Thorne, J. H. , and Athearn, N. , “Toward climate change refugia conservation at an ecoregion scale”, Conservation Science and Practice, vol. 3, no. 9, 2021.

K. VanderMolen, Wall, T. U. , Horangic, A. , and Meadow, A. M. , “Typologizing Stakeholder Information Use to Better Understand the Impacts of Collaborative Climate Science”, Environmental Management, 2020.

K. VanderMolen, Wall, T. , and Daudert, B. , “A Call for the Evaluation of Web-based Climate Data and Analysis Tools”, American Meteorological Society, vol. 100, 2019.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) is internationally recognized for research, education, and public service. Scripps SW CASC co-PIs and related academic staff are members of the SIO Climate, Atmospheric Science and Physical Oceanography Research Division, the Climate Science Curricular Group, the new Hertzberg Center for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation (CCCIA), and the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes. The co-PIs have a long collaboration with USGS California Water Science Center scientists.

SIO SW CASC co-PIs are working on research focused on: 1) the impacts of sea level rise, precipitation extremes, runoff, and marine layer clouds on the marine and terrestrial near-shore environments in collaboration with partners at UCLA; 2) seasonal to intraseasonal predictability of weather and climate extremes, climate model validation and downscaling with respect to these extremes (e.g., downslope winds, drought and extreme precipitation, atmospheric rivers, as well as heat waves and their impacts on snowpack); 3) climate model downscaling and hydrologic modeling in collaboration with CSU.

Additionally, SW CASC co-PIs are supporting an assessment of the natural resources at risk from climate change and increased variability in San Diego’s diverse terrestrial ecosystems. The goal is to present a needed assessment of San Diego ecosystems and natural resources futures, which will take stock of the implications of climate change as well as other stressors. The ultimate aim is to compile and present this assessment to help guide better stewardship and management of the unique ecosystems in the region, and to inform the 4th California Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment.

Publications:

P. L. Barnard, Iacobellis, S. F. , Dugan, J. E. , Page, H. M. , Wood, N. J. , Hart, J. A. Finzi, Cayan, D. R. , Erikson, L. H. , Hubbard, D. M. , Myers, M. R. , and Melack, J. M. , “Multiple climate change-driven tipping points for coastal systems”, Scientific Reports, vol. 11, 2021.

R. Aguilera, Benmarhnia, T. , and Gershunov, A. , “Atmospheric rivers impact California's coastal water quality via extreme precipitation”, Science of the Total Environment, vol. 671, 2019.

J. Guzman‐Morales and Gershunov, A. , “Climate Change Suppresses Santa Ana Winds of Southern California and Sharpens Their Seasonality”, Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 46, no. 5, 2019.

J. T. Abatzoglou, Lettenmaier, D. P. , A. Williams, P. , Balch, J. K. , Bishop, D. A. , Guzman‐Morales, J. , and Gershunov, A. , “Observed Impacts of Anthropogenic Climate Change on Wildfire in California”, Earth's Future, 2019.

D. A. Bishop, Lettenmaier, D. P. , A. Williams, P. , Abatzoglou, J. T. , Gershunov, A. , Guzman‐Morales, J. , and Balch, J. K. , “Observed Impacts of Anthropogenic Climate Change on Wildfire in California”, Earth's Future, vol. 7, no. 8, 2019.

A. Gershunov, F. Ralph, M. , Kalansky, J. , Polade, S. D. , Cayan, D. R. , Lavers, D. A. , Dettinger, M. D. , Pierce, D. W. , Guirguis, K. , Clemesha, R. E. S. , and Shulgina, T. , “Precipitation regime change in Western North America: The role of Atmospheric Rivers”, Scientific Reports, vol. 9, 2019.

University of California, Davis

University of California, Davis (UCD) is a land grant institution that is globally ranked among the top three to five institutions in the environment and agriculture. UCD brings to the SW CASC skills in research on resource management, tribal law and policy, science communication, and extension. UCD’s John Muir Institute of the Environment hosts both the SW CASC and the USDA California Climate Hub. UCD hosts a suite of federal research partners focused on climate adaptation, such as USFS Pacific Southwest Research Station, USGS Western Ecological Resource Center, USDA National Resource Conservation Service, USFS Center for Urban Forest Research.

Terrestrial Resources. In collaboration with federal and state land and fish & wildlife management colleagues, SW CASC CSU co-PI Erica Fleishman (previously with UCD) continues to explore the impacts of fire, livestock grazing, topography, and precipitation on cheatgrass prevalence in the Great Basin. She has concluded that grazing corresponds with increased cheatgrass occurrence and prevalence regardless of variation in climate, topography, or community composition.
Climate and Fire Outreach. In collaboration with the USDA California Climate Hub, UCD SW CASC co-PI Mark Schwartz is working to facilitate rapid and effective communication of climate science to resource managers in the state of California, with a focus on forest management. Given the 2020 fire year, when over 4 million acres of California’s natural ecosystems burned, there is a widely perceived need to provide rapid response information on (a) prioritization of climate-smart restoration (b) prioritization of building climate resiliency through forest management; (c) provide information on management for drought readiness. Our focus is to work on these three issues. Their approach is to engage with stakeholders to better understand information needs; research what is known about those information gaps and provide rapid response to stakeholders on those information needs.
Traditional Burning as a Climate Adaptation Strategy. SW CASC co-PI Beth Rose Middleton is working to understand and contribute to decision-making and governance mechanisms that facilitate the application of Indigenous fire science as an adaptive strategy. Indigenous traditional burning may be applied singularly, or as a complementary approach with other ecosystem restoration practices, such as thinning and prescribed burning. Focusing on central California, this work supports (1) analysis of policy and governance mechanisms that facilitate traditional burning, (2) a series of collaborative, multi-stakeholder traditional burning efforts, (3) an evaluation of preliminary sociopolitical and ecological outcomes of these burning efforts, (4) a broader synthesis of outcomes that draws upon recent burning efforts by the same team of practitioners, and (5) documentation of lessons learned and best practices. Additionally, our SW CASC post-doc fellow, Nina Fontana, (part of the Climate Adaptation Postdoctoral Fellows Program cohort) is conducting a synthetic research assessment of 1) the state of the science and practice on how climate change is currently affecting and projected to transform fire processes in the Southwest; 2) how projected changes fit within the context of national patterns and trends; 3) the implications of these changes for natural resource management and climate change adaptation efforts in the Southwest, and 4) Indigenous perspectives on the application of fire in the context of a changing climate.

Publications:

E. Fleishman and Fogarty, F. A. , “Bias in estimated breeding-bird abundance from closure-assumption violations”, Ecological Indicators, vol. 131, 2021.

C. Adlam, Middleton, B. Rose, Almendariz, D. , Goode, R. W. , and Martinez, D. J. , “Keepers of the Flame: Supporting the Revitalization of Indigenous Cultural Burning”, Society & Natural Resources, 2021.

F. A. Fogarty, Fleishman, E. , DeHaan, L. L. , and Cayan, D. R. , “Associations of Breeding-bird Abundance with Climate vary among Species and Trait-based Groups in Southern California”, PLOS One, 2020.

N. Horning, Zillig, M. Wohlfeil, Fogarty, F. A. , Ersts, P. J. , and Fleishman, E. , “Mapping of Land Cover with Open‐source Software and Ultra‐high‐resolution Imagery Acquired with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles”, Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, 2020.

F. A. Fogarty, M. Zillig., W. , Williamson, M. A. , Fleishman, E. , Nally, R. C. Mac, Chambers, J. C. , Bradley, B. A. , Dobkin, D. S. , Board, D. I. , Leu, M. , and Horning, N. , “Fire, livestock grazing, topography, and precipitation affect occurrence and prevalence of Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) in the central Great Basin, USA”, Biological Invasions, 2019.

B. Rose Middleton and Reed, K. , “Returning the Yurok Forest to the Yurok Tribe: California’s First Tribal Carbon Credit Project,”, in Stan. Envtl. L. Rev., vol. 39, 2019.

Swanston, C.W.; Brandt, L.A.; Butler-Leopold, P.R.; Hall, K.R.; Handler, S.D.; Janowiak, M.K.; Merriam, K.; Meyer, M.; Molinari, N.; Schmitt, K.M.; Shannon, P.D.; Smith, J.B.; Wuenschel, A.; Ostoja, S.M 2020. Adaptation Strategies and Approaches for California Forest Ecosystems. USDA California Climate Hub Technical Report CACH-2020-1. Davis, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Climate Hubs. 65 p

Other outputs:

Keeping California Forests and Woodlands Healthy – a series of three research briefs intended to communicate ecosystems' general physical appearance and summarize critical processes that serve a myriad of ecological functions relevant to keeping these forests and woodlands intact. The briefs are intended to help communicate example desirable conditions for managers' and private landowners' use. The series includes briefs on blue oak woodlands, ponderosa pine forests, and coastal redwood forests; each brief characterizes healthy forest attributes, their ecological function, and key stressors affecting forest health.
https://www.swcasc.arizona.edu/fact-sheets

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (IoES), SW CASC’s UCLA host, is a campus-wide center that offers faculty with multidisciplinary expertise in life, physical, social, and geospatial sciences, and a culture of pursuing policy-relevant and actionable research. Specific UCLA research and educational strengths that have contributed to the SW CASC include coastal zone ecology, sedimentology, carbon dynamics, climate model downscaling, remote sensing, water resources, urban sustainability, and climate change policy. CASC-relevant facilities include the UCLA-managed UC Natural Reserve System sites (Santa Monica Mountains), the La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science, and the White Mountains Research Center.

UCLA co-PIs are focusing research efforts on coastal ecosystem physical and biological responses to climate and extreme climatic events. Over the 5-year period, the team will organize three regional and multidisciplinary stakeholder meetings, bringing together SW CASC scientists and coastal research managers. The meetings will focus on issues of climate change and its impacts on California coastal environments, and especially on marshes and estuaries. The first meeting, described in this report, was held in Los Angeles, California in 2019, and set priorities and research aims. Based on the research priorities identified in the first meeting, UCLA investigators held a second meeting in April 2021 with a smaller select group of engaged stakeholders, focusing discussions on climate change impacts on rocky intertidal zones. The final larger meeting will focus on communication of results and framing of management and planning actions required for current and future needs and priorities.

Publications:

G. M. MacDonald, Dong, C. , A. Williams, P. , Abatzoglou, J. T. , Lin, K. , Okin, G. S. , Gillespie, T. W. , Long, D. , Lin, Y. - H. , and Hall, A. , “The season for large fires in Southern California is projected to lengthen in a changing climate”, Communications Earth & Environment, 2022.

E. Fard, MacDonald, G. M. , Smol, J. P. , Lydon, S. , and Brown, L. N. , “High-resolution sedimentological and geochemical records of three marshes in San Francisco Bay, California”, Quaternary International, 2021.

J. R. Holmquist, MacDonald, G. M. , and Brown, L. N. , “Localized Scenarios and Latitudinal Patterns of Vertical and Lateral Resilience of Tidal Marshes to Sea-Level Rise in the Contiguous United States”, Earth's Future, vol. 9, no. 6, 2021.

M. E. Harvey, Schroeter, S. C. , Elwany, H. , Page, H. M. , Ambrose, R. , Johnston, K. , Thorne, K. , Pawlak, G. , Meltzer, H. , Tiefenthaler, L. , Largier, J. L. , Gallien, T. , Stein, E. D. , Crooks, J. A. , Whitcraft, C. , and Giddings, S. N. , “Effects of Elevated Sea Levels and Waves on Southern California Estuaries During the 2015–2016 El Niño”, Estuaries and Coasts, 2020.

J. A. Rosencranz, MacDonald, G. M. , Brown, L. N. , Ambrose, R. F. , and Willis, K. S. , “Multiple Stressors Influence Salt Marsh Recovery after a Spring Fire at Mugu Lagoon, CA”, WETLANDS, 2019.

C. Dong, MacDonald, G. M. , A. Williams, P. , Okin, G. S. , Gillespie, T. W. , and Willis, K. , “Vegetation Responses to 2012–2016 Drought in Northern and Southern California”, Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 46, 2019.

J. A. Rosencranz, Thorne, K. M. , Buffington, K. J. , Takekawa, J. Y. , Hechinger, R. F. , Stewart, T. E. , Ambrose, R. F. , MacDonald, G. M. , Holmgren, M. A. , Crooks, J. A. , Patton, R. T. , and Lafferty, K. D. , “Sea-level rise, habitat loss, and potential extirpation of a salt marsh specialist bird in urbanized landscapes”, Ecology and evolution.Ecology and evolution. [Oxford] :, 2018.

Utah State University

Utah State University (USU), the state’s land grant institution, has a strong tradition of integrated research and outreach with stakeholders. USU houses the Ecology Center, which is home to the iUTAH interdisciplinary research and training program. iUTAH brings together a network of researchers, universities, government agencies, industry partners, and non-profit organizations to strengthen science applicable to Utah’s water future. USU also hosts the Utah Climate Center and the BLM-USU National Aquatic Monitoring Center. USU co-PIs lead the SW CASC Natural Resources Workforce Development (NRWD) Fellowship program, leveraging USU’s NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) in Climate Adaptation Science (CAS).

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Principal Investigator :: Gregg Garfin

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SW CASC Research Consortium Partners

Dates

Summary

Summary

University of Arizona (HOST)

Colorado State University

Desert Research Institute

Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

University of California, Davis

University of California, Los Angeles

Utah State University

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University of Arizona (HOST)

Colorado State University

Desert Research Institute

Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

University of California, Davis

University of California, Los Angeles

Utah State University

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