America's Water: Multiscale Forecasting and Innovation in Infrastructure Design & Management Instruments is critical for Climate Adaptation

Abstract:

Over the last two decades, many investigators have developed seasonal climate forecasts, with the intention of their application to improved management of water resources. The number of routine applications that have emerged in the USA is relatively small. Rayner et al (2005) painted a rather bleak picture of the prospects for the application of these forecasts citing institutional and individual structures for rewards and constraints. Forecasts that are potentially useful have consequently not seen much application, and the attention shifted to climate change scenarios, and to near term weather forecasts. It is interesting that despite the biases/uncertainties in, and the low net present value of the actions proposed to respond to the later 21st century climate scenarios, there has been tremendous interest generated in academia, political spheres and in practice. It is not uncommon for people to now conclusively assert that climate has already changed and events that they see now are unprecedented and defeat classical ways of approaching management. While this is not always true, the strong awareness of climate change, and the lack of a formal differentiation between climate variability at inter-annual to decadal scales and anthropogenic change, has produced an opportunity for the development and application of multiscale forecasting and simulation methods to guide the transition from our aging water infrastructure and regulations to a new architecture for both. I will present a few examples of how this can take place, and will help fulfill societal aspirations for a climate safe future in the USA and elsewhere.

Rayner, S., Lach, D., & Ingram, H. (2005). Weather forecasts are for wimps: why water resource managers do not use climate forecasts. Climatic change, 69(2-3), 197-227.