Fort Lewis College’s inaugural summit is a meeting point of scientific rigor, artistic expression, and community collaboration. We aim to foster awareness and unity around our regional climate interests.
The Southwest Climate Hub (SWCH) sponsored a special session at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Society for Range Management. Presentations by Hub scientists covered efforts, some long-running and some new, to provide information and support improved decision-making as people in the Southwest confront the realities of a changing climate. Along with partners, Hub scientists have developed information and tools specifically targeted to different groups and their unique challenges, ranging from primary school students to national policy makers and from intensive irrigated crops to arid rangelands.
In 2024, the SW CASC co-convened the Southwest Adaptation Forum (SWAF), a regional forum of the National Adaptation Forum. The 2024 SWAF from meet February 27-29, 2024, at the Desert Diamond Hotel & Conference Center in Tucson, Arizona.
The Native Climate Working Group (NCWG) is a forum for Tribal Extension leaders, agriculture producers, and youth educators to come together with federal agency partners to learn about seasonal and long-term climate trends and to discuss how climate extremes are impacting Tribal agriculture, economies, and well-being. The group discusses available resources to help farmers, ranchers, and resource managers enhance the resilience of Tribal agriculture and build capacity for climate education in Tribal Extension and education programs. Practical and timely information is exchanged across a broad range of topics including drought adaptation, water sustainability, food sovereignty, climate change curriculum and outreach initiatives, and economic outlooks.
The Drought-Smart Indigenous Agriculture Project kicked off its workshop series on March 30, 2023, with a two-day session on soil health, drought, and climate change. Approximately 20 individuals involved in Pueblo agriculture and natural resources management attended the workshop at the Santa Ana Pueblo Wellness Center. Several pueblos were represented among attendees (Nambe, Santa Ana, San Ildefonso, Santa Domingo, Sandia, and Kewa), in addition to two public health representatives with the New Mexico Alliance of Health Councils and the Center for Health Innovation
Representatives from the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC), the USDA Southwest Climate Hub, East-West Center, Clark University and the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry hosted a series of drought workshops in October 2022 on four Hawaiian Islands. Participants represented a variety of agricultural and natural resource management agencies including federal organizations (USDA Farm Service Agency and Forest Service, Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center), Akaka Foundation for Tropical Forests, Hawaii Fire Department, Three Mountain Alliance, US Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center, University of Hawaii, Mauna Kea Watershed Alliance and other organizations. Discussions centered around the following topics: 1) United States Drought Monitor production and process; 2) How drought monitoring works in Hawaii; 3) USDA programs associated with the USDM; 4) Hawaii drought resources and research; and 5) Pacific Drought Knowledge Exchange.
Representatives from the Southwest Climate Hub, Lauren Kramer and Maude Dinan, attended the 16th Annual Biennial Conference of Science & Management for the Colorado Plateau & Southwest Region. The conference was held at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff, Arizona, and sponsored by NAU, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The theme of the conference was “Creating hope through action: advancing solutions to rapid environmental change.”
At least 95% of resource managers want to hear from peers about lessons learned during drought. A recent survey administered by the Drought Learning Network (DLN) indicated that 66% of resource managers were ‘very interested’ and another 30% were ‘somewhat interested’ in accessing lessons learned by others during drought. The Drought Learning Network, a consortium of climate service providers and resource managers, strives to share critical drought-related knowledge to build future resilience via: 1) fostering knowledge exchange between managers and climate service providers in learning about community and researcher needs, resources, responses and knowledge gaps; 2) supporting the creation of self-directed peer-to-peer learning networks; and 3) establishing structures that are co-led by users to support the efficient and effective function of DLN to best respond to future drought.
Drought impacts information helps the State of Utah in drought monitoring, planning and response efforts, and U.S. Drought Monitor authors in categorizing drought severity. However, drought impacts in Utah have historically been under-reported, meaning that important information does not consistently reach Utah decision-makers or Drought Monitor authors. The Southwest Hub and Drought Learning Network partners delivered an online workshop on December 4th, 2020. The main objectives of the workshop were to share information about evaluating, measuring, and reporting drought and to engage more people in reporting drought impacts.
In June 2021, the USDA Southwest and Northern Plains Climate Hubs, the U.S. Forest Service, and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) hosted a virtual workshop, Estimating rangeland grazing loss for the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance program. “The USDA Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) Noninsured Crop Disaster Program (NAP) provides financial assistance to producers of non-insurable crops when low yields, loss of inventory, or prevented planting occur due to natural disasters” (United States Government, 2021).
In June 2021, the USDA Southwest and Northern Plains Climate Hubs, the U.S. Forest Service, and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) hosted a virtual workshop, Estimating rangeland grazing loss for the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance program. “The USDA Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) Noninsured Crop Disaster Program (NAP) provides financial assistance to producers of non-insurable crops when low yields, loss of inventory, or prevented planting occur due to natural disasters” (United States Government, 2021).
Colorado State University, the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science (NIACS), the Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS), and the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station recently hosted a virtual climate change adaptation workshop for folks working on the ecology and management of spruce-fir forests.
This workshop is part of a project titled theAdaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) Network, which is a collaborative effort between managers and scientists working to establish a series of experimental trials across a network of diverse forest ecosystems throughout North America. Each trial is focused on understanding and evaluating management options designed to enable forests to respond to a changing climate.
In October, we had the privilege of traveling to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), the Republic of Palau, and Guam as part of a collaborative effort with the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Extension Forester, Dr. JB Friday, and United States Forest Service Region 5 Tropical Nursery Specialist, Dr. Emily Senegal-Thyroff. This trip was instrumental in building relationships and furthering resilience efforts across the region, focusing on collaboration, resource sharing, and addressing unique regional challenges.
The Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center (PI-CASC), the USDA Southwest Climate Hub, and multiple other partners came together to host a forum. The event focused on sharing critical lessons around disaster preparedness and response from across the Pacific to strengthen and inform invasive species management and preparedness in Hawaiʻi. The forum featured insights on how severe weather events exacerbate the spread of invasive species and highlighted strategies to integrate invasive species prevention into broader disaster planning efforts.
In December 2020, Asombro presented about three SWCH climate change education units for middle and high school students at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) annual meeting. Each year at the AGU conference, the National Association for Geoscience Teachers hosts a Geoscience Information for Teachers Share-a-thon, during which educators share free resources with each other. There were presentations from science education organizations like Asombro and from classroom teachers, who were there to share their favorite resources and the innovative approaches they’ve taken in their classrooms.
The National Drought Resilience Partnership is an effort to promote stronger drought resilience on federal lands. As a part of this effort, the U.S. Forest Service conducted a series of focused workshops across the country to understand the management opportunities and constraints imposed by drought conditions, as well as the challenges of floods and changing precipitation patterns on forest and rangeland resources.
The economic, social, and environmental costs of drought can be significant, and vulnerability to drought will likely increase in the future with a warming climate. To promote stronger drought resilience on federal lands, the National Drought Resilience Partnership was initiated in 2016. As a part of this effort, the U.S. Forest Service conducted a series of focused workshops across the country to build the capacity to address the impact of short- and long-term drought on forest and rangeland resources, thus informing land management, restoration, and climate change adaptation.
In early December, community forestry stakeholders and natural resource managers participated in a workshop exploring climate change impacts and adaptation strategies for municipal community forests. This workshop was designed to identify climate change impacts and potential adaptation actions for Durango, Colorado’s community forest to be integrated into real-world, on-the-ground forest management projects.
The Southwest Climate Hub team had a large presence at the 2019 Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) / National Institutes for Water Resources (NIWR) Annual Water Resources Conference held from June 11-13 in Snowbird, Utah – it seemed like the SWCH team was ubiquitous throughout the program due to the number of sessions we chaired (2) and oral presentations we gave (6).
To the people living in southwestern Colorado, one thing is clear to most. Colorado’s forests and watersheds are in trouble. A deadly combination of drought, warmer temperatures, forest insect infestation and disease, coupled with unnatural fire suppression have disarmed Mother Nature’s ability to self-correct the high-altitude forests’ health. These tinderbox conditions are coming up against increasing population densities in forested areas (and accompanying watershed and flood zones) that span federal, state, tribal and private lands, increasing the risk of wildfire and accompanying watershed impacts on communities in Colorado.
The Southwest Hub teamed up with the Arizona Drought Monitoring Technical Committee, CLIMAS, the National Drought Mitigation Center and the National Weather Service to bring a Drought Monitoring and Reporting Workshop to Scottsdale on March 6th. We know from previous workshops that while many people know about and use the US Drought Monitor (USDM), they are not aware that they can contribute to the Drought Monitor process in several ways. We were pleased to welcome participants from throughout Arizona to the workshop, especially people from rural and tribal areas at the frontline of drought impacts.
During the first week of March, Southwest Hub Fellow Julian Reyes visited the Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) in Annapolis, MD to collaborate on a “big data” project “Soil as a social-ecological feedback: Mapping the social and ecological processes for agroecosystem resilience in the era of climate change.” A little about SESYNC first because it is a truly unique research center that promotes synthesis as a research method. SESYNC is funded by the National Science Foundation, the University of Maryland and others and is “charged with motivating and accelerating socio-environmental research balancing the needs of people and the environment“. The center has advanced computational facilities for big data analyses, and they provide the support to interdisciplinary teams of natural and social scientists to solve complex socio-environmental problems using existing but underused data, knowledge, and expertise.
On August 12, 2020, we convened scientists and technical and service advisors to share preliminary climate predictions for annual forage production on rangelands of the western US over the next three decades. After short presentations on climate, forage, and rancher experiences, we opened conversation to the workshop participants to discuss how our findings might be most useful to current and future work as rangeland advisors. See the flyer here. Watch the sketch video here.
“Let the wisdom of the desert guide us on our journey to newly find ‘old’ ways of feeding ourselves that heal rather than harm the very earth that nourishes us.” – Dr. Gary Nabhan
On a January evening, nearly 300 people crowded into the historic Rio Grande Theater in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The masses gathered for one of New Mexico State University’s Climate Change Education Series. First on the line-up this year: Dr. Gary Nabhan. Esteemed ethnobotanist, science communicator, and thought leader, Nabhan shared his visions for redesigning desert food systems to accommodate a changing climate.