By Barry Rock, University of New Hampshire

The New England regional scoping workshop was held at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) on September 3-5, 1997. Of the 122 participants, 57 represented non-academic, non-agency stakeholders from the six New England states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont), as well as upstate New York. For workshop discussions, these stakeholders were grouped into seven sectoral groups, including Business and Industry, Energy and Utilities, local Government and Resource Management, Human Health, Information Transfer and Public Awareness, Natural Resources, and Recreation and Tourism. 

Stakeholder interest in the workshop was high, and participation was maintained during the workshop by engaging participants in an open, two-way dialogue. Participants were treated not only as listeners, but as important sources of information and perspective. Three key issues identified by the stakeholders as important to citizens of the New England region were:

• climate change information and educational materials written in "plain English" - stakeholders want information to be readily accessible to assist in understanding of the issues;
• a regional integrated assessment of climate change impacts for New England - such as an assessment as needed for developing sector-based coping strategies;
• regionally-specific examples of climate change impacts - specific examples are needed to make the concept of climate change relevant and important to the general public.

The New England Regional Assessment process following up on the workshop will focus on addressing these stakeholder needs. This process will begin by assembling a stakeholder-based Regional Assessment team to include representatives of the seven sectoral areas. Since the September 1997 workshop, a strong region-wide network has been established between members of the regional steering committee, university and agency research scientists, and the stakeholders. Through the network, key stakeholders will be selected to convene and run seven, sector-based, one-day workshops designed to identify major sectoral needs and concerns likely to be impacted by regional climate change. The climatic data sets made available by the National Assessment Synthesis Team (NAST) will be used to generate climate scenarios, which will be presented to each sector for evaluation and integration into sector-specific examples of possible climate variability and impacts to the region. Modeled historical data will be compared against recorded and proxy data for region over the past 300-400 years, assembled as part of the New England climate initiative organized by the Climate Change Research Center at UNH.

In addition to the socioeconomic data provided for the National Assessment, regional economic impacts of climate change will be modeled using an off-the-shelf impact assessment model as part of each sector-based assessment activity. The sectoral components of the Regional Assessment Report will be written by stakeholders and collectively integrated into the regional report. The Regional Assessment Team will act as a review panel for evaluating and producing the final version of the report.

A parallel activity within the assessment process will be the development of innovative educational and outreach materials. Existing hands-on science outreach programs such as Forest Watch and GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment), currently available in hundreds of classrooms throughout New England and upstate New York, will be used to introduce teachers and their students to model products and supplemental educational materials on regional climate change issues, as well as to engage students in the process of "doing science" and contributing valuable data of use in the documentation of climate impact to the region. In addition, interactive displays and information kiosks dealing with climate change issues will be developed in conjunction with regional science museums (Talcott Mountain Science Museum in Hartford, CT, and the Boston Museum of Science, in Boston MA).

For more information, contact:

Professor Barry Rock; Workshop Co-Chairman, Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space; University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH; (603) 862-2949; barry.rock@unh.edu