The mission of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce is to promote global environmental stewardship by supporting efforts to describe, assess, and predict the Earth’s environment. To fulfill its mission, NOAA must make observations, process them into useful products, and efficiently disseminate the products to users. NOAA-sponsored research aims to prepare the agency to improve its performance and meet future requirements.

NOAA recently began several pilot projects to assess climate variability and longer-term climate change in terms of impacts on human and natural systems in the U.S. CLIMAS, the Climate Assessment Project for the Southwest, was established in 1998. The project's mission is to improve the ability of the region to respond sufficiently and appropriately to climatic events and climate changes. Central to the project is its ability to provide useful information to regional decision makers and resource managers.

CLIMAS brings together researchers who study the processes and effects of climate on theSouthwest region with individuals and organizations who need climate information to makeinformed decisions. The project aims to foster participatory, iterative research involving researchers, decision makers, resource users, educators, and others who need more and better information about climate and its impacts. The project has two directives: (1) to create and administer a core office responsible for coordinating research activities, communicating research results, and engaging in outreach activities oriented toward linking users’ information needs with sources of that information; and (2) to undertake a series of closely integrated natural and social science research initiatives to assess and enhance knowledge about regional climate variability, vulnerability, impacts, and responses.

This document reports the findings of a pilot stakeholder assessment conducted for CLIMAS. Conceptually, the focus on the stakeholder acknowledges that people who use climate information are ultimately the environmental stewards, and their perspectives are critical to the direction and operation of the CLIMAS project. The purpose of the pilot assessment was to identify and characterize the climate information needs of stakeholders in southeastern Arizona. As a pilot, this study only begins to reveal and explore issues of importance to CLIMAS. Still, the results demonstrate how CLIMAS researchers can improve climate information and predictions for the Southwest and also identifies an effective methodology that can be modified for other study areas in the Southwest.

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