Decision support experiments and evaluations using seasonal to ...

and, thus, able to span the domains of climate
knowledge production and climate knowledge
for water management use.
Adaptive and inclusive management practices
are essential to fulfilling these objectives. These
practices must empower people to use information
through providing adequate training
and outreach, as well as sufficient professional
reward and development opportunities; and
they must overcome capacity-building problems
within organizations to ensure that these
objectives are met, including adequate user
support. The cases discussed below—on the
California Department of Water Resources’
role in adopting climate variability and change
into regional water management, and the efforts
of the Southeast consortium and its satellite
efforts—are examples of inclusive leadership
which illustrate how scientists as well agency
managers can be proactive leaders. In the former
case, decision makers consciously decided
to develop relationships with other western
states’ water agencies and partnership (through
a Memorandum of Understanding [MOU])
with NOAA. In the latter, scientists ventured
into collaborative efforts—across universities,
agencies, and states—because they shared a
commitment to exchanging information in
order to build institutional capacity among the
users of the information themselves.
Case Study A:
Leadership in the California Department of
Water Resources
The deep drought in the Colorado River Basin
that began with the onset of a La Niña episode
in 1998 has awakened regional water resources
managers to the need to incorporate climate
variability and change into their plans and
reservoir forecast models. Paleohydrologic estimates
of streamflow, which document extended
periods of low flow and demonstrate greater
streamflow variability than the information
found in the gage record, have been particularly
persuasive examples of the non-stationary behavior
of the hydroclimate system (Woodhouse
et al., 2006; Meko et al., 2007). Following a
2005 scientist-stakeholder workshop on the
use of paleohydrologic data in water resource
management , NOAA
Decision-Support Experiments and Evaluations using Seasonal to
Interannual Forecasts and Observational Data: A Focus on Water Resources
RISA and California Department of Water
Resources (CDWR) scientists developed
strong relationships oriented toward improving
the usefulness and usability of science in
water management. Since the 2005 workshop,
CDWR, whose mission in recent years includes
preparation for potential impacts of climate
change on California’s water resources, has
led western states’ efforts in partnering with
climate scientists to co-produce hydroclimatic
science to inform decision making. CDWR led
the charge to clarify scientific understanding of
Colorado River Basin climatology and hydrology,
past variations, projections for the future,
and impacts on water resources, by calling upon
the National Academy of Sciences to convene a
panel to study the aforementioned issues (NRC,
2007). This occurred, and in 2007, CDWR
developed a Memorandum of Agreement with
NOAA, in order to better facilitate cooperation
with scientists in NOAA’s RISA program and
research laboratories (CDWR, 2007a).
Case Study B:
Cooperative Extension Services, Watershed
Stewardship: The Southeast Consortium
Developing the capacity to use climate information
in resource management decision
making requires both outreach and education,
frequently in an iterative fashion that leads to
two-way communication and builds partnerships.
The Cooperative Extension Program has
long been a leader in facilitating the integration
of scientific information into decision maker
of practice in the agricultural sector. Cash
(2001) documents an example of successful
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