Climate Change Adaptation Lessons from the Land of Dry Heat

The Arizona Water Institute, along with Arizona State University and the University of Arizona's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, brought together local, State, tribal, and Federal water resources managers with agency and university scientists to identify adaptation and response strategies to climate change impacts on water supplies. The workshop participants identified the following issues and potential solutions:

• need for comprehensive water balance monitoring in anticipation of changes in the hydrologic cycle, including continuous observations of demand-side variables such as consumptive water use and evapotranspiration, in addition to perennial needs for improved groundwater, snow, and soil moisture observations;
• strong concerns about attrition of the U.S. Geological Survey streamflow network; • concern about the implications of hydrologic non-stationarity for water management planning and infrastructure design, which will require evolution from standards-based approaches, e.g. using fixed "normals," to flexible risk-based approaches;
• need for enhanced decision-support products and processes, including innovative ways to visualize and compare the outcomes of alternative policies in the context of future climate variability;
• need for a greater emphasis on explanatory information to accompany climate projectionsand scenarios, and on the adoption of common decision-support tools within regions and sectors to enhance communication and consistency of analysis; and
• need for dendrohydrologic data to form the basis for improved understanding of past streamflow variability and sequences of low flows, and to plan for worst-case scenarios and to hedge bets when purchasing alternative supplies—managers need more reliable highflow estimates and the ability to distinguish summer and winter reconstructed flows.