Building Climate Science into Land and Water Conservation Planning and Decision Making in the American Southwest

This project connects two RISA programs, the Western Water Assessment (WWA) and CLIMAS with regional conservation planners and decision makers to improve climate adaptation planning and implementation by land managers in the American Southwest. A key challenge is to bring climate knowledge to bear on habitat and species conservation efforts underway in the region, and to move conservation projects beyond vulnerability assessments to adaptation planning and implementation. This project is intended to advance four goals: expand translational science capacity in the region to support adaptation; improve regional climate-sensitive conservation decision making; disseminate climate knowledge through conservation networks in the region; and develop both a comprehensive evaluation of the project and a training curriculum for future personnel intending to engage in this type of work. The project will prototype and develop a model for expanding the translational climate science capacity needed to move ecosystem management beyond vulnerability assessments and into on-the-ground decision making for adaptation to climate variability and change.