Examination of Large-Scale Drivers of Water Availability in the US Great Plains

Known for its agricultural productivity and vital ecosystems, the Great Plains' vast expanse plays a significant role in supporting human livelihoods, wildlife, and natural resources. Understanding processes and their drivers is of paramount importance in the face of increasing water demands, growing environmental challenges, and the uncertainties associated with future climate change.

Synthesis of Climate Adaptation in Mountain Ecosystems in the North Central Region

Alpine and treeline systems are very heterogeneous. A reduction of physical area at higher elevations, the sensitivity of alpine species to climate, and low connectivity make them particularly vulnerable to climate change. With climate change, we’re seeing elevation-dependent warming, loss of snowpack, and increased glacial and permafrost melt.

Upcoming NC CASC Webinar: September 14, 2023

Our first webinar for the fall will be on Thursday, September 14, at 11 AM MT. Join us to learn more about the Ogallala Aquifer by Dr. Caitlin Rottler (South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center).

When

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.

Partnerships, Not Parachutes

“As Indigenous people we don’t say we don’t like science; we do use it [too], but we also understand that we also bring our knowledge too,” Rattling Leaf says. Check out this new article about the importance of Indigenous knowledge and citizen science for enhancing climate knowledge.

RCAP Summer Presentations

The NC CASC Rapid Climate Assessment Program (RCAP) aims to create a series of Rapid Climate Assessments (RCAs) which are a synthesis of science information that can be used as a baseline for further research and a foundation for future stakeholder engagement.

Ecological Scenarios Working Group convenes for NC CASC Workshop

On July 18-19, 2023, a group of multidisciplinary scientists from Utah, Montana, Hawaii, Colorado, and Alaska joined the NC CASC in Boulder, Colorado for the Ecological Scenarios Workshop, co-led by NC CASC’s Kyra Clark-Wolf, Imtiaz Rangwala, Wynne Moss, and Brian Miller.