Regional Climate Response Collaboratives: Multi-Institutional Support for Climate Resilience

Abstract

Federal investments by U.S. agencies to enhance climate resilience at regional scales grew over the past decade (2010s). To maximize efficiency and effectiveness in serving multiple sectors and scales, it has become critical to leverage existing agency-specific research, infrastructure, and capacity while avoiding redundancy. We discuss lessons learned from a multi-institutional “regional climate response collaborative” that comprises three different federally supported climate service entities in the Rocky Mountain west and northern plains region. These lessons include leveraging different strengths of each partner, creating deliberate mechanisms to increase cross-entity communication and joint ownership of projects, and placing a common priority on stakeholder-relevant research and outcomes. We share the conditions that fostered successful collaboration, which can be transferred elsewhere, and suggest mechanisms for overcoming potential barriers. Synergies are essential for producing actionable research that informs climate-related decisions for stakeholders and ultimately enhances climate resilience at regional scales.

Assessing the use of climate change information in State Wildlife Action Plans

“…Interview results stress the importance of connections to professional networks and boundary organizations to support finding and applying appropriate information. Boundary organizations facilitate regional cooperation among states and foster engagement between state agencies and the climate science community (c.f., McNie, 2007;Crona & Parker, 2011;Averyt et al, 2018). Further, as organizations that keep up with the latest advances in climate science and its application as part of their mission, they can provide translational information to help SWAP authors identify and apply appropriate climate information.…”

“…We reviewed the most recent SWAP from 10 states: Colorado (Colorado Parks and Wildlife, 2015); Iowa (Iowa Department of Natural Resources, 2015); Kansas (Rohweder, 2015); Minnesota (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 2016); Montana (Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, 2015); Nebraska (Schneider et al, 2011); North Dakota (Dyke et al, 2015); South Dakota (South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks, 2014); Utah (Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, 2015); and Wyoming (Wyoming Game and Fish Department, 2017). These states were selected because they are served by boundary organizations which collaborate in the region (Averyt et al, 2018): the USGS North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NCCASC), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Western Water Assessment Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (NOAA RISA), and the US Department of Agriculture Northern Plains Climate Hub. Boundary organizations work to facilitate the flow of information between the research and management communities (Averyt et al, 2018;Crona & Parker, 2011;Gustafsson & Lidskog, 2018;McNie, 2007).…”

“…These states were selected because they are served by boundary organizations which collaborate in the region (Averyt et al, 2018): the USGS North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NCCASC), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Western Water Assessment Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (NOAA RISA), and the US Department of Agriculture Northern Plains Climate Hub. Boundary organizations work to facilitate the flow of information between the research and management communities (Averyt et al, 2018;Crona & Parker, 2011;Gustafsson & Lidskog, 2018;McNie, 2007). Adjacent states of Iowa and Minnesota are included because they encompass the eastern portions of the Prairie Pothole Region and Northern Great Plains, ecosystems which are a focus of the NCCASC.…”

Evolution of the Southwest Drought Learning Network: Collective Response to Exceptional Drought

“…In this way, the DLN helps connect RMs with their DEWS network and drought information coordinator, thus enabling and supporting both DEWS and DLN ongoing efforts. Collaboration between CSO enhances regional climate resilience (Averyt et al, 2018, Schafer et al, 2016 and DLN structure fosters impactful collaboration to this end.…”

Resiliencia de acuíferos en zonas de posconflicto en Colombia

“…Dentro del sistema ecológico se puede ver la resiliencia climática como la capacidad de preparación que hay en un ambiente al enfrentamiento con la diversificación del cambio climático, donde se hace necesaria una serie de conocimientos estratégicos que brinden el mayor provecho a su desarrollo; tales como las nuevas formas de conectar, aprovechar y apoyar a los colaboradores regionales de respuesta al clima, creando un mejoramiento en la resiliencia climática [7].…”