Research Partnerships in Support of Regional Climate Adaptation

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Regions have been an organizing influence for both decision makers and scientists working on climate adaptation. Recognizable climate patterns, such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), emerge at the regional level where our understanding of observations and models coalesce. Critical resources for society are managed in a context of regional systems, such as water supply and human populations. Multiple scales of governance (local, state, and federal) with complex institutional relationships can be examined across a region. Climate information (i.e. data, science, research etc) developed within these contexts and working across spatial and temporal scales resonates with people making decisions on the ground.Recognizing the importance of regions and the interests of Congress, the President's Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force (ICCATF) recommends that regional climate science and service efforts of the Federal government should be better coordinated to most effectively support regional-to-local decision makers facing the impacts of climate change. Congress and the Administration want to ensure that trust between scientists and decision makers who are already working to manage climate risks is not compromised by duplicative or conflicting information. The NOAA Climate Program Office's (CPO) Regionally Integrated Science and Assessments (RISA) program supports research teams that conduct innovative, interdisciplinary, user-inspired, and regionally relevant research that informs resource management and public policy. The eleven RISA teams are nationally and internationally recognized for their innovations in providing support to decision makers on the ground who are managing risks associated with climate variability and change. NOAA's RISA program is a part of CPO's Climate and Societal Interactions (CSI) division and an active partner in the National Climate Data Center's (NCDC) efforts to build an integrated regional climate services partnership.Central to the RISA approach are commitments to process, partnership, and trust building; assessments of stakeholder decision-making needs and contexts; and evaluation of institutional and political constraints to using climate knowledge. RISA teams are effective because they have been able to create strong, long-term relationships with stakeholders from the public and private sectors, including local, regional, and state governments, federal agencies, tribal governments, utilities, the business community, national and international non-profit organizations, and educational institutions.After 15 years of regional capacity building and research, a key finding from the RISA program is that trust building between partners is best accomplished when using shared resources to collaborate on common goals, objectives or outcomes. Working together to solve problems brings people together to innovate lasting solutions. Furthermore, capacity (tools, information, knowledge, etc) is best sustained when the developers of capability or knowledge are working hand-in-hand with those entities who will apply that capability or knowledge over time. This announcement is designed to stimulate partnerships by bringing people together around specific projects related to regionally relevant issues addressing climate adaptation.

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