RISA Funded Projects

GLISA's scenario planning approach co-develops plausible climate-driven futures that, in turn, are discussed with potential users to support decision-making. In Phase I, we developed such scenarios with the US National Park Service (Fisichelli et al. 2013) and in Phase II with decision-makers in Illinois, Michigan, and New York. In Phase III with our Practitioner Working Group, we will develop a set of climate change scenarios tailored to specific audiences, including cities, natural resource managers, tribes, and agricultural producers. We will: 1) integrate new scientific knowledge of climate extremes and variability, including consideration of Arctic changes and impacts on lake levels into existing scenarios; 2) continue to work with the GLISA PWG to define and refine sector-specific scenarios; 3) carry out case studies to validate the scenarios and investigate their impact; and 4) package scenarios in a decision-friendly format to improve usability. We will also pursue formal evaluation of our scenario planning approach to better understand the utility of the process, short- and long-term outcomes, and how we can improve the approach.

Deliverables Produced: 1) a set of climate scenarios tailored to different stakeholder audiences, such as cities, natural resource managers, tribes, and agricultural producers available on GLISA's website in a user-friendly format 2) case studies that validate the scenarios and investigate their impact 3) a report summarizing a formal evaluation of our scenario planning approach to better understand the utility of the process, short- and long-term outcomes, and how we can improve the approach

Stakeholder Need Addressed: Advance understanding, Innovate services, products, and tools, Evaluate / assess / learn from stakeholder efforts

RISA Team: GLISA (Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments)

Principle Investigators: Rood

Team Members: Rood

Key Supporters: TBD

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Years Active: 2022 - 2026

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Keywords: Adaptation, Agriculture, Coasts, Drought, Ecosystems, Extreme Events, Forestry, Tribal, Urban, Water Resources

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Geographic Location: Great Lakes: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ontario

Climate change directly impacts Indigenous peoples’ livelihoods and lands in unforeseeable and often destructive ways. Tribal lifeways affected include food sovereignty, cultural subsistence activities (i.e., sugaring, ricing, hunting, fishing, medicinal plant gathering), forestry, traditional burning practices, infrastructure, education, and various other aspects of tribal ways of life. Tribal nations need culturally relevant adaptation tools that better suit their communities and needs. We hope to start a dialogue to identify tribal water resources and their relationships to lifeways to inform culturally based adaptations that center TEK (traditional ecological knowledge). This framework will better equip tribal communities in creating adaptation tools similar to the Tribal Adaptation Menu. We also hope to create a framework that helps non-Indigenous partners like GLISA engage with TEK. We will seek to develop a framework for climate science organizations like GLISA to engage with TEK in a manner that promotes critical engagement with Indigenous knowledge and experiences. We will start by taking an experiential learning approach to CMN and GLISA’s co-equal partnership during the next five years. We will initiate and develop community dialogues that provide insight on water resources at the tribal level. We will also host a tribal water resources summit that provides a space for tribal natural resource managers, tribal leaders, climate scientists, and other stakeholders to engage and develop solutions to climate change impacts on tribal communities’ waters. The methods for conducting the related cross-cultural research will be developed co-equally and iteratively as challenges and opportunities associated with working across the cultural and institutional boundaries involved emerge. A primary objective will be to challenge the legacy of tribes’ role as research subjects through analyzing GLISA team members’ and other non-Indigenous partners’ experiences engaging with tribal perspectives. Particular attention will be given to how gaps or tensions that form when non-Indigenous participants come in contact with TEK ultimately support learning through updates to these participants’ understandings of TEK, awareness of Indigenous perspectives, or perceptions about their own worldviews and understanding.

Deliverables Produced: Insights from this project will be shared and disseminated in year 5 at a regional conference. The conference will include a diverse group of collaborators, including community members and professionals from the tribal, intertribal, academic, government, and non-profit sectors. Insights from the co-equal process to design methods of assessing non-Indigenous experiences engaging with TEK will be used to inform the development of a framework for climate science organizations like GLISA to engage appropriately with TEK.

Stakeholder Need Addressed: Advance understanding, Strengthen relationships & networks, Support knowledge exchange, Evaluate / assess / learn from stakeholder efforts

RISA Team: GLISA (Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments)

Principle Investigators: Thomas Kenote

Team Members: Thomas Kenote

Key Supporters: None

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Years Active: 2021 - 2026

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Keywords: Ecosystems, Forestry, Tribal, Water Resources

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Geographic Location: Great Lakes: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ontario

Originally, pre-Covid-19 times one or two statewide meetings were planned to discussion drought in Alaska. But since we are not able to have an in-person Alaska drought workshop, we are moving forward with a webinar series to begin the conversation about drought in Alaska. What does drought look like in Alaska? We heard from Rick Thoman, Alaska climate specialist, who reviewed past climate information focusing on unusual dry times and provided a statewide overview, including tools typically used to access drought/precipitation deficit. Then another webinar from David Simeral, drought monitor author, explained the U.S. drought monitor process. Both webinars had time for questions from the audience. We know that climate data are limited in Alaska and do not tell the entire story. So, we heard from stakeholders in regional listening sessions to learn what has been seen or experienced during unusually dry times in Alaska. Information shared in these listening sessions will help to inform a future in-person workshop on drought preparation, once it is safe.

Deliverables Produced: White Paper, Publication(s) (book and/or peer-reviewed publication and/or technical report),

Stakeholder Need Addressed: Advance understanding, Strengthen relationships & networks, Support knowledge exchange

RISA Team: ACCAP (Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy)

Principle Investigators: Tina Buxbaum

Team Members: Tina Buxbaum

Key Supporters: USDA Climate Hubs

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Years Active: 2021 - 2021

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Keywords: Adaptation, Drought, Water Resources

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Geographic Location: statewide

We are replicating a previous study that assessed considerations about climate change mitigation, adaptation, economic development, and sustainability across sixteen different policy actions from 2010-2015 in cities with populations between 5,000 and 500,000 in the eight Great Lakes states. This new data will cover 2016-2021, creating an opportunity to assess how these considerations have evolved from the first time period to the second. As the initial study did, we will also assess the relationships between existing capacities in these cities and their considerations about climate change adaptation, as well as instances where they do and don’t associate climate change adaptation with other policies goals like economic development and sustainability. We will be particularly interested in exploring cases where adaptation considerations have emerged between these two time periods or have been pursued in the first time period, but not the second. Insights from this process may inform outreach as it can provide insights into opportunities to target engagement where adaptation may be a relevant issue, but is not being pursued, especially where resource limitations may be blocking action.

Deliverables Produced: a) insight into how AC factors underlying the pursuit of adaptation in cities is changing over time will inform how we can more effectively target climate information to inform adaptation in cities; and b) an inventory/database of urban adaptations in GL cities that can be updated every few years.

Stakeholder Need Addressed: Advance understanding, Innovate services, products, and tools, Inform distribution of money & resources

RISA Team: GLISA (Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments)

Principle Investigators: Scott Kalafatis

Team Members: Scott Kalafatis

Key Supporters: US Census Data

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Years Active: 2021 - 2026

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Keywords: Adaptation, Infrastructure, Coasts, Economy, Energy, Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Recreation/Tourism, Transportation, Urban, Water Resources

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Geographic Location: Great Lakes: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ontario

One possible adaptation to climate change is shifting to new crops or adopting cropping rotations that may be more environmentally and economically suitable to new climates in the region. Adaptation requires individuals to recognize the threat a changing climate poses to their well-being and respond accordingly. Extreme weather events may be especially salient and play an outsized role in this process. This work will analyze how Great Lakes rural communities have responded to extreme weather events through shifts in crop cultivation. We will develop a model that ties particularly salient extreme weather events to climate beliefs and links these updated beliefs to changes in crop selection. The results of the survey will be summarized and reported. We will also develop and share materials aimed at highlighting examples of communities that have productively responded to extreme weather and how others may develop adaptation plans.

Deliverables Produced: We will develop a model that ties particularly salient extreme weather events to climate beliefs and links these updated beliefs to changes in crop selection. The results of the survey will be summarized and reported. We will also develop and share materials aimed at highlighting examples of communities that have productively responded to extreme weather and how others may develop adaptation plans.

Stakeholder Need Addressed: Advance understanding, Innovate services, products, and tools, Strengthen relationships & networks, Inform plans & policies, Evaluate / assess / learn from stakeholder efforts

RISA Team: GLISA (Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments)

Principle Investigators: Gammans

Team Members: Gammans

Key Supporters: USDA Climate Hubs

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Years Active: 2021 - 2026

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Keywords: Adaptation, Agriculture, Drought, Extreme Events, Water Resources

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Geographic Location: Great Lakes: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ontario

The Great Lakes Climate Adaptation Network (GLCAN) is a network of local government staff (20 active members) that work together to identify and act on climate adaptation challenges. While our relationship with GLCAN has been invaluable to advance our relationship with GL cities, we have two main challenges: 1) we do not have the capacity to serve all cities with high levels of individual support; and 2) although there is an abundance of decision support tools and planning resources from GLISA and other organizations, for cities it is challenging and time consuming to find credible and usable information that fits their needs. We will continue to support GLCAN and work with members to co-develop a web-based diagnostic tool to help cities identify appropriate climate information and decision support tools based on their current level of expertise, adaptation goals, and what peer cities have already done. We will leverage data from our city AC survey (5A, p.13) and existing narratives of GLISA’s work with cities to create a roadmap that can be used by cities depending on how much they have already accomplished and where they want to be in the future (e.g., updating a hazard plan, applying for infrastructure grants).

Deliverables Produced: Roadmap that can be used by cities depending on how much they have already accomplished and where they want to be in the future (e.g., updating a hazard plan, applying for infrastructure grants).

Stakeholder Need Addressed: Innovate services, products, and tools, Train professionals, Strengthen relationships & networks, Support knowledge exchange, Inform plans & policies

RISA Team: GLISA (Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments)

Principle Investigators: Naud

Team Members: Naud

Key Supporters: USDN

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Years Active: 2021 - 2024

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Keywords: Adaptation, Infrastructure, Economy, Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Urban

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Geographic Location: Ann Arbor

A team of partners from federal agencies, academic institutions, and public, private, and non-profit organizations collaborated to create a Southeast Region Information Hub within the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit (CRT). It gathers regionally relevant resources and provides an approachable overview to climate change and its impacts in the Southeast. The CRT aims to educate the public and easily link to tools which can turn new knowledge into actions to build resilience. Our Climate Solutions Specialist, Jory Fleming, was a lead author on the landing page, helping to develop key messages and creating maps to convey complex data and information about climate in the region. He also helped develop the Building Resilience in the Southeast page which provides multiple examples of work to increase resilience in different communities and at different scales. The new pages were released on June 24, 2021, with additional content to be added as new resources and case studies become available.

Deliverables Produced: Southeast Landing Page of the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit: https://toolkit.climate.gov/regions/southeast

Stakeholder Need Addressed: Advance understanding, Train professionals, Support knowledge exchange, Inform plans & policies, Respond to legal / regulatory mandate, Evaluate / assess / learn from stakeholder efforts

RISA Team: CISA (Carolinas Integrated Sciences and Assessments)

Principle Investigators: Fleming

Team Members: Fleming

Key Supporters: NOAA Regional Climate Service Directors (RCSDs), NOAA Climate Program Office

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Years Active: 2021 - 2021

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Keywords: Adaptation, Infrastructure, Coasts, Drought, Economy, Ecosystems, Extreme Events, Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Human Health, Natural Hazards, Recreation/Tourism, Transportation, Urban, Water Resources, The CRT covers a wide range of topics and climate adaptation activities.

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Geographic Location: Southeast

Precipitation patterns across the GL have changed significantly during recent decades, with overall increases in total and seasonal precipitation, the number of wet days, and the intensity of short-duration storm events, including extreme events. Economic costs associated with extreme precipitation events currently rank among the costliest weather- and climate-related natural disasters in the region. Detailed statistics of current and projected future precipitation characteristics, such as Intensity Duration Frequency (IDF) curves, are essential for infrastructure planning and development and the operational management of natural and built environments. While pieces of this data exist for the GL region, coverage is limited by state, and the standard NOAA Atlas 14 historical reference statistics for some of the region are based on data only through 2003, missing many of the extreme events of the past 17 years. In addition, development of many of these statistics makes the assumption of stationarity, which is not valid in today’s changing climate. Based on these shortcomings and increasing demand for this information from our user community, we propose developing a new informational heavy precipitation data resource for the GL region based on existing information and newly updated historical data. We will integrate information from new datasets funded by NOAA and the Department of Defense to create a novel information product, co-produce guidance on how to use it, and evaluate its use with the help of Dr. Meadow. We will develop new, updated statistics on historical precipitation frequency, including IDF curves for 1948-2020, using the methodology from Angel et al. (2020) for the eight US states in the region. Historical statistics for sub-daily up to 10-day periods will be based on data from more than 300 individual observing sites obtained from NOAA NCEI’s Global Historical Climate Network Hourly Precipitation Data, from the Automated Surface Observing System data series, and from the Michigan’s Enviroweather mesonetwork. Projected future precipitation frequencies for the project domain from 2030-2100 will be based on the recent global climate model-derived results. We will also utilize 4.8-km resolution gridded radar based Multisensor Precipitation Estimate data. from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction to examine the spatial scales involved in heavy precipitation events across the region since 2002.

Deliverables Produced: The data resources developed in this project will provide detailed, up-to-date information on heavy and extreme precipitation event frequency across the GL region of the US, including data for both historical (1948-2020) and projected future time frames (2030-2100), and a user interface housed on GLISA’s newly redesigned website. We will also offer educational programming and training via a webinar series and self-training tutorials.

Stakeholder Need Addressed: Advance understanding, Innovate services, products, and tools, Inform plans & policies, Respond to legal / regulatory mandate

RISA Team: GLISA (Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments)

Principle Investigators: Andresen

Team Members: Andresen

Key Supporters: Department of Defense (DOD)

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Years Active: 2021 - 2026

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Keywords: Adaptation, Agriculture, Extreme Events, Natural Hazards, Tribal, Urban

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Geographic Location: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ontario, CA

GLISA hosted a 2020 webinar on NOAA climate and weather tools for stormwater applications and developed guidance documents for each tool. The webinar was well attended (> 170) and a survey indicated many participants feel that there is an abundance of tools available, but that a key barrier is the time it takes to learn how to use them and assess their credibility. We developed a more in-depth set of guidance materials for a new tool of interest (Flood Factor) as proof of concept. We will expand on this approach for at least five more existing translational tools that are relevant to GL practitioners with guidance from our PWG, and develop accompanying guidance (i.e., tool overview, tutorial). Potential future tools to evaluate include NOAA’s Great Lakes Dashboard, Lake Level Viewer, and Climate Explorer.

Deliverables Produced: Anticipated deliverables include guidance documents and tutorial videos for weather and climate tools.

Stakeholder Need Addressed: Advance understanding, Innovate services, products, and tools, Train professionals

RISA Team: GLISA (Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments)

Principle Investigators: Rood

Team Members: Rood

Key Supporters: None

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Years Active: 2021 - 2026

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Keywords: Adaptation, Coasts, Drought, Extreme Events, Natural Hazards, Water Resources

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Geographic Location: Great Lakes region

There is a need for improved data resources for our region that capture important lake-land-atmosphere feedback and data on extremes, especially precipitation extremes (Barlow et al. 2019). We will apply our current model evaluation framework as part of our GL Ensemble project to continue asking fundamental questions of new datasets that become available, including observations, projections, and simulations produced for research. Our priority will be assessing the new high-resolution projections produced in a related project, selecting CMIP6 models that offer potentially promising advancements in simulation quality. Our goal is to determine if new datasets offer improved information for the GL region, including if and how the GL and lake-effect processes are represented, if hydrometeorological coupling is improved, and if bias is reduced. We will expand our evaluation framework to identify when there are scientific breakthroughs in terms of more robustly representing important physical processes for the region (e.g., lake effects, summertime mesoscale convective complexes, net basin supply components) by developing a series of questions and metrics. Our ‘breakthrough identification’ framework is an innovative approach to streamlining dataset evaluation and ultimately for identification of new and improved data resources. This research will serve not only our stakeholders, but also the broader scientific community by directing researchers and users to new credible data sources. Research question: Are new, emerging datasets exhibiting improved data credibility for our region? Methods & analysis: We will: 1) generate an inventory of top-priority model evaluation criteria for both scientific and practitioner credibility; 2) develop an algorithm (e.g., series of targeted questions or criteria) for determining if datasets are starting to represent the physical system more robustly and to identify breakthroughs; and 3) integrate newly developed RCM projections into our current model evaluation workflow and products.

Deliverables Produced: 1) integration of new model evaluation information (e.g., CMIP6) into existing products (i.e., Climate Model Report Cards and bias work); and 2) algorithm for identifying robust simulations. LOS: SAC and PWG members (see p.26, Tables 3 and 4).

Stakeholder Need Addressed: Advance understanding, Innovate services, products, and tools, Inform plans & policies

RISA Team: GLISA (Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments)

Principle Investigators: Rood

Team Members: Rood

Key Supporters: TBD

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Years Active: 2021 - 2026

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Keywords: Adaptation

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Geographic Location: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ontario, CA