Transborder Climate Webinars | Climate Assessment for the Southwest

Join us for our fall 2012 webinar series examining climate-related forecasts, cutting-edge research, and pressing resource management issues. The topic line-up for September and October includes tropical storm forecasts for the border region, energy and water management, and watershed management for providing ecosystem services. Each webinar includes two 20-minute talks and a 20-minute Q&A session. Space is limited.

To participate or be added to the Transborder Climate listserv, contact Adrian Quijada at: aquijada@cals.arizona.edu

Schedule (other webinars will be added as the semester progresses)

October 12, 12:00 PDT

Watershed-Management And Ecosystem Services In Transboundary Environments

1. Watershed Management Under Climate Change In Cross-Border Environments

Laura Norman, U.S. Geological Survey. Web: https://profile.usgs.gov/lnorman

Abstract: Groundwater pumping has lowered water tables and impacted instream flows in the borderlands, leaving many reaches to flow only in response to storm events or treated wastewater. In the binational Santa Cruz Watershed, a wastewater treatment plant treats effluent from twin-cities on the border, before discharging it to the river. An explicit understanding of the benefits of maintaining flow requires the ability to assess and understand tradeoffs implicit in management decisions. I will outline a tool for modeling and visualizing these tradeoffs. We have identified and quantified ecosystem services of instream flow important to local stakeholders, including sustaining perennial flow, maintaining riparian vegetation, and providing habitat for wildlife. We modeled the potential decrease in effluent discharge and map the capability of provisioning of these ecosystem services. We compare results of service provisioning with ordinal maps of human well-being and market land price and discuss implications for binational policy and implementation.

About the speaker: Dr. Norman has been with the USGS since 1998, working primarily along the US-Mexico Border, examining the fate and transport of industrial, urban, and mining pollution in surface waters, their sources and sinks, and relationship with human populations. The focus of her work is investigating strategic planning for sustainable development.

2. Ecosystem services across borders: a framework for transboundary conservation

Laura López Hoffman, School of Natural Resources and the Environment and the Udall Center for Public Policy Studies, University of Arizona. Web: http://udallcenter.arizona.edu/lauralhlab/

Abstract: Species that migrate through wilderness areas deliver ecosystem services to people in faraway locations. International borders rarely coincide with natural ecological boundaries. Because neighboring countries often share ecosystems and species, they also share ecosystem services. As examples, the United States and Mexico share the regulating service of agave crop pollination by long-nosed bats; Mexican free-tailed bat helps control cotton crop pests in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico; and the North American monarch butterfly provides aesthetic value as a cultural service. The concept of ecosystem services, as articulated by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, could be used as an organizing principle for transboundary conservation, because it meets many of the criteria for successful transboundary policy. Ecosystem service can be used to frame conservation in terms of mutual interests between countries, consider a diversity of stakeholders, and provide a means for linking multiple services and assessing tradeoffs between uses of services.

About the speaker: Dr López-Hoffman studies the linkages between the environment and human society. The objective of her research is to contribute to the development of policies and institutions that protect ecosystems while sustaining their contributions to human well-being. She uses interdisciplinary and comparative research approaches to integrate science and policy, in particular the concept of ecosystem services.

October 23, 16:00 - 17:30 PDT

Border Energy Forum: Energy Efficiency and Water Systems

This webinar will be broadcast from the 2012 Border Energy Forum, which is being convened in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. The goal of the Border Energy Forum is to exchange information about the best ways to produce and consume energy in our fast-growing region, forge new partnerships and help each other work together on our twin goals of economic development and environmental protection.

Key Speakers:

Renata Manning-Gbogbo, Border Environment Cooperation Commission

Christopher Scott, University of Arizona
Milton Chávez Gasca, ABB México SA de CV (a power and automation technology company)
Enrique Rebolledo, Bajo en Carbono (Low Carbon)
Shahid Chaudhry, California Energy Commission

For more information: http://www.glo.texas.gov/what-we-do/energy-and-minerals/border-energy-forum/index.html

November webinars (dates and times TBA)

Southwest Climate Change Assessment Report: Impacts of Future Climate Change in the Southwest on Border Communities.

Margaret Wilder & Gregg Garfin. Udall Center & CLIMAS. University of Arizona. Web: http://www.climas.arizona.edu/

This webinar presentation examines climate-related vulnerability in the western portion of the U.S.-Mexico border region from the Pacific coast of California/Baja California to El Paso/Ciudad Juárez, focusing primarily on border counties in the United States and municipalities in Mexico. The material is part of a new climate assessment report for the United States. The webinar will report on the drivers of climate-related vulnerability (demographic, socioeconomic, institutional), and the potential impacts of climate change across multiple sectors (e.g., water, agriculture and ranching, and ecosystems).

Transborder Climate provides webinars, brief reports, and pointers to information useful to resource management and policy, with a special emphasis on information relevant to adaptation to climate variations and trends. Transborder Climate is part of the NOAA , a two-year interdisciplinary assessment of adaptation strategies in the southwestern United States and northwest Mexico.