ABSTRACT: The Ogallala Aquifer (OA) underlies about 111 million acres of Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico, including about 1.9 million acres of Tribal lands and 2.9 million acres of federal lands. Water from the aquifer is vital to regional aquatic, riparian, range, and agricultural ecosystems. Management of the OA presents challenges in various forms, as it is a common resource that crosses multiple state lines and is subject to an array of Tribal, Federal, State, and Municipal regulations. Aquifer depletion, especially in a region expected to become hotter and drier with climate change, presents a growing problem, threatening both natural and managed ecosystems. One way to begin approaching the complex issue of understanding and managing the Ogallala Aquifer at the regional scale is to address the problem of multiple large, disparate datasets that, as a result of being difficult to locate, are not easily combined and synthesized in a way that supports science-based decision-making and communication between and among stakeholders. The Ogallala Data Directory Project worked to identify datasets and make them easier to access with less labor-intensive searching by creating a metadata library with records corresponding to datasets located in various places online. Project outputs include a fully searchable website housing metadata records that assist in cataloging datasets by geographic scope of coverage, time period, and data type. Metadata entries are included for hydrologic, agricultural, and ecological data. The directory is hosted with the Ogallala Water Coordinated Agriculture Project data portal that has been built through ongoing collaboration with the Colorado State University Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory. About the speaker: Dr. Caitlin Rottler is the New Mexico Climate Adaptation Specialist for the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (SC CASC). From her home in Albuquerque, she works with natural and cultural resources managers in New Mexico to facilitate climate adaptation by connecting them with the resources and researchers of the SC CASC. In addition to working with CASC collaborators and information end-users, she has engaged extensively in science communication with audiences from a wide breadth of expertise, including K-12 audiences, farmers and ranchers, fellow scientists, community members, and politicians. Prior to working for the CASC, she worked for the USDA Southern Plains Climate Hub as a Climate Hub Fellow, engaging in both research and outreach to help agricultural land managers in the southcentral US to adapt to climate change. She is a rangeland and reclamation ecologist by training, and did her doctoral research on the recovery of sagebrush plant communities and soil in southwestern Wyoming after oil and gas development, and will never tire of talking about sagebrush with anyone and everyone. | 
