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Understanding and responding to today's complex environmental problems requires collaboration that bridges disciplinary boundaries. As the barriers to interdisciplinary research are formidable, promoting interdisciplinary environmental research requires understanding what motivates researchers to embark upon such challenging research. This article draws upon research on problem choice and interdisciplinary research practice to investigate motivators and barriers to interdisciplinary climate change (IDCC) research. Results from a survey on the motivations of 526 Ph.D.-holding, earlyto mid-career, self-identified IDCC scholars indicate how those scholars make decisions regarding their research choices including the role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and the barriers arising from the nature of interdisciplinary research and institutional structures. Climate change was not the main motivation for most respondents to become scholars, yet the majority began to study the issue because they could not ignore the problem. Respondents' decisions to conduct IDCC research are driven by personal motivations, including personal interest, the importance of IDCC research to society, and enjoyment of interdisciplinary collaborations. Two thirds of respondents reported having encountered challenges in communication across disciplines, longer timelines while conducting interdisciplinary work, and a lack of peer support. Nonetheless, most respondents plan to conduct IDCC research in the future and will choose their next research project based on its societal benefits and the opportunity to work with specific collaborators. We conclude that focused attention to supporting intrinsic motivations, as well as removing institutional barriers, can facilitate future IDCC research.

Seasonal climate forecasting skill has improved over the past decades, accompanied by expectations that these forecasts, along with other climate information, will be increasingly used by water managers in certain regions of the United States. Most research efforts focus on why adoption does not occur; however, the important question of why adoption does occur has received little attention. Barriers to the use of climate information by this sector frequently identified include risk aversion, institutional constraints, and low forecast reliability. Relatively fewer researchers have focused on the identification and analysis of cases of adoption of climate information in the water management sector. Relying upon the results from observations and semistructured interviews conducted between 2006 and 2010 in South Florida, this research identifies the characteristics that enabled the early adoption of climate information by the South Florida Water Management District, one of the largest water management organizations in the United States. The findings herein are analyzed in relation to existing theories on technology transfer and innovation diffusion. Lessons from this specific case are situated in the context of the broader U.S. water management landscape. The research finds that the existence of in-house climate expertise, innovative agency culture, social networks linking water and climate science researchers, and serendipitous policy windows were critical factors enabling adoption. Additionally, models and information, including a long-range hydrologic model and a national governmentissued seasonal climate forecast were readily available and could be incorporated into preexisting and trusted decision-support tools. Implications for climate services in the U.S. water sector are discussed. 1 The SFWMD is the largest of the five regional water management agencies in Florida. The SFWMD is responsible for responsible for water supply, water quality, flood control, and environmental restoration in central and southern Florida.

Interdisciplinary research is increasingly called upon to find solutions to complex sustainability problems, yet co-creating usable knowledge can be challenging. This article offers broad lessons for conducting interdisciplinary science from the South Florida Water, Sustainability, and Climate Project (SFWSC), a 5-year project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). The goal was to develop a holistic decision-making framework to improve understanding of the complex natural-social system of South Florida water allocation and its threats from climate change, including sea level rise, using a water resources optimization model as an integration mechanism. The SFWSC project faced several challenges, including uncertainty with tasks, high task interdependence, and ensuring communication among geographically dispersed members. Our hypothesis was that adaptive techniques would help overcome these challenges and maintain scientific rigor as research evolved. By systematically evaluating the interdisciplinary management approach throughout the project, we learned that integration can be supported by a three-pronged approach: (1) Build a well-defined team and leadership structure for collaboration across geographic distance and disciplines, ensuring adequate coordination funding, encouraging cross-pollination, and allowing team structure to adapt; (2) intentionally design a process and structure for facilitating collaboration, creating mechanisms for routine analysis, and incorporating collaboration tools that foster communication; and (3) support integration within the scientific framework, by using a shared research output, and encouraging team members to adapt when facing unanticipated constraints. These lessons contribute to the international body of knowledge on interdisciplinary research and can assist teams attempting to develop sustainable solutions in complex natural-social systems.

Effective, sustainable management of urban water systems, including drinking water, stormwater, wastewater, and natural water systems, is critical to the health and well-being of people in urban areas and the ecosystems that encompass them. The demands of human population growth, aging infrastructure, and changing climate will increase pressure on these systems and require future innovations in water management. Planning for urban water systems will increasingly require collaborations between water professionals and researchers to imagine, design and model the response of novel urban water systems to future conditions. We highlight benefits and challenges of transdisciplinary projects for integrated urban water management; organized broadly into: (1) engagement of water managers and planners; (2) transdisciplinary design of innovative systems, and once designed; (3) modeling and evaluation of urban water system response to various innovations. We describe the development of a multi-scale approach to design and evaluation of innovative urban water systems, and illustrate its application using examples from the Willamette River Basin and Portland, Oregon. The scenario-based approach described here offers several key contributions to the design and modeling of innovation. First, this process provides the opportunity to convene professionals and researchers, who do not typically collaborate, as participants in a collaborative process. Second, it engages participants in thinking together across land and water management sectors to develop plausible futures at multiple spatial extents and multidecadal time horizons. Third, it helps to identify critical gaps in extant water modeling capabilities, and thus helps define the near-term research agenda for modelers.