Weather Forecasts are for Wimps: Why Water Resource Managers Do Not Use Climate Forecasts

Rayner, Steve; Lach, Denise; Ingram, Helen

doi:10.1007/s10584-005-3148-z

Cited by 297 publications

(259 citation statements)

References 28 publications

(21 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

245

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Rayner, Lach, & Ingram, 2005). For instance, when presented with an annual planning decision, all groups in the role-playing activity chose a multi-year type of information (e.g.…”

Section: Capacity Building Of Decision Makers Around the Opportunitiementioning

confidence: 99%

“…To effectively integrate short-to medium-term information into planning, they will need additional knowledge on the opportunities and limitations of projections, and how to deal with information on a timescale longer than a seasonal basis that takes into account changing trends (Rayner, et al, 2005). As one interviewee from the MoAFS noted, 'it's not enough to have the information but [we need] to understand how to use it'.…”

Section: Capacity Building Of Decision Makers Around the Opportunitiementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Identifying climate services needs for national planning: insights from Malawi

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The importance of climate services, i.e. providing targeted, tailored, and timely weather and climate information, has gained momentum, but requires improved understanding of user needs. This article identifies the opportunities and barriers to the use of climate services for planning in Malawi, to identify the types of information that can better inform future adaptation decisions in sub-Saharan Africa. From policy analysis, stakeholder interviews, and a national workshop utilizing serious games, it is determined that only 5-10 day and seasonal forecasts are currently being used in government decision making. Impediments to greater integration of climate services include spatial and temporal scale, accessibility, timing, credibility and the mismatch in timeframes between planning cycles (1-5 years) and climate projections (over 20 years). Information that could more usefully inform planning decisions includes rainfall distribution within a season, forecasts with 2-3 week lead times, likely timing and location of extreme events in the short term (1 -5 years), and projections (e.g. rainfall and temperature change) in the medium term (6 -20 years). Development of a national set of scenarios would also make climate information more accessible to decision makers, and capacity building around such scenarios would enable its improved use in short-to medium-term planning. Improved climate science and its integration with impact models offer exciting opportunities for integrated climate-resilient planning across sub-Saharan Africa. Accrual of positive impacts requires enhanced national capacity to interpret climate information and implement communication strategies across sectors. Policy relevanceFor climate services to achieve their goal of improving adaptation decision making, it is necessary to understand the decision making process and how and when various types of weather and climate information can be incorporated. Through a case study of public sector planning in Malawi, this article highlights relevant planning and policy-making processes. The current use of weather and climate information and needs, over various timescales -sub-annual to short term (1-5 years) to medium term (6 -20 years) -is outlined. If climate scientists working with boundary organizations are able to address these issues in a more targeted, sector-facing manner they will improve the uptake of climate services and the likelihood of climate-resilient decisions across sub-Saharan Africa.

show abstract

“…Rayner, Lach, & Ingram, 2005). For instance, when presented with an annual planning decision, all groups in the role-playing activity chose a multi-year type of information (e.g.…”

Section: Capacity Building Of Decision Makers Around the Opportunitiementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Capacity Building Of Decision Makers Around the Opportunitiementioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying climate services needs for national planning: insights from Malawi

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Rayner et al, 2005;Coulibaly et al, 2015). For example, an attempt to increase forecast accuracy by providing more early warnings often implies a risk of increasing the number of false alarms, ultimately discouraging the use of W&C services in an operational context due to different perceptions of risk and uncertainty (Demeritt et al, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A coupled human–natural system to assess the operational value of weather and climate services for agriculture

Liu

Giuliani

Castelletti

2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Recent advances in weather and climate (W&C) services are showing increasing forecast skills over seasonal and longer timescales, potentially providing valuable support in informing decisions in a variety of economic sectors. Quantifying this value, however, might not be straightforward as better forecast quality does not necessarily imply better decisions by the end users, especially when forecasts do not reach their final users, when providers are not trusted, or when forecasts are not appropriately understood. In this study, we contribute an assessment framework to evaluate the operational value of W&C services for informing agricultural practices by complementing traditional forecast quality assessments with a coupled human-natural system behavioural model which reproduces farmers' decisions. This allows a more critical assessment of the forecast value mediated by the end users' perspective, including farmers' risk attitudes and behavioural factors. The application to an agricultural area in northern Italy shows that the quality of state-ofthe-art W&C services is still limited in predicting the weather and the crop yield of the incoming agricultural season, with ECMWF annual products simulated by the IFS/HOPE model resulting in the most skillful product in the study area. However, we also show that the accuracy of estimating crop yield and the probability of making optimal decisions are not necessarily linearly correlated, with the overall assessment procedure being strongly impacted by the behavioural attitudes of farmers, which can produce rank reversals in the quantification of the W&C services operational value depending on the different perceptions of risk and uncertainty.

show abstract

“…In fact, regarding dynamical seasonal forecast systems, they are seldom used by any end-user, a preference that can be explained because the skill of these seasonal forecasts is limited in the extra-tropics and for it is difficult to easily communicate the usefulness of the forecasts (e.g. Rayner et al, 2005;Watkins and Wei, 2008). Therefore, it is important to explore new ways to improve seasonal dynamical forecasts and give new insights in their usefulness to provide end-users with the adequate information to decide the best choice for their water management strategies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of bias correction techniques to improve seasonal forecasts for reservoirs — A case-study in northwestern Mediterranean

Marcos-Matamoros

Llasat

Quintana-Seguí

et al. 2018

Science of The Total Environment

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper, we have compared different bias correction methodologies to assess whether they could be advantageous for improving the performance of a seasonal prediction model for volume anomalies in the Boadella reservoir (northwestern Mediterranean). The bias correction adjustments have been applied on precipitation and temperature from the European Centre for Middle-range Weather Forecasting System 4 (S4). We have used three bias correction strategies: two linear (mean bias correction, BC, and linear regression, LR) and one non-linear (Model Output Statistics analogs, MOS-analog). The results have been compared with climatology and persistence. The volume-anomaly model is a previously computed Multiple Linear Regression that ingests precipitation, temperature and in-flow anomaly data to simulate monthly volume anomalies. The potential utility for end-users has been assessed using economic value curve areas. We have studied the S4 hindcast period 1981-2010 for each month of the year and up to seven months ahead considering an ensemble of 15 members. We have shown that the MOS-analog and LR bias corrections can improve the original S4. The application to volume anomalies points towards the possibility to introduce bias correction methods as a tool to improve water resource seasonal forecasts in an end-user context of climate services. Particularly, the MOS-analog approach gives generally better results than the other approaches in late autumn and early winter.

show abstract

Weather Forecasts are for Wimps: Why Water Resource Managers Do Not Use Climate Forecasts

Cited by 297 publications

References 28 publications

Identifying climate services needs for national planning: insights from Malawi

Identifying climate services needs for national planning: insights from Malawi

A coupled human–natural system to assess the operational value of weather and climate services for agriculture

Use of bias correction techniques to improve seasonal forecasts for reservoirs — A case-study in northwestern Mediterranean

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About