The U.S. National Assessment: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change on Water Resources

Public Law 101-606, the "Global Change Research Act of 1990," states that the Federal Government "shall prepare and submit to the President and the Congress an assessment...." The assessment is due January 1, 2000 and is under the direction of the interagency Subcommittee on Global Change Research (SGCR) which coordinates the implementation of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) in cooperation with the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The process to conduct the assessment was initiated in January, 1997 at a White House meeting of all Federal Cabinet members.

The assessment, which is entitled "U.S. National Assessment: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change," is a Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) chartered process that began with a series of 7 regional workshops across the United States that were designed to identify and prioritize issues related to climate variability and change. Following the initial workshops, a National Forum of scientists and stakeholders was convened in Washington, D.C., in November, 1997. During the forum regional issues were synthesized and prioritized, and plans for conducting the national assessment were initiated. These plans include holding 13 additional regional workshops in 1998 and reducing the number of national assessment sectors to five. The five national sectors are water resources, forests, agriculture, human health and coastal areas.

The management and funding for the sectoral and regional assessments was distributed among the Federal agencies. Each designated agency is responsible for assembling assessment teams, advisory committees, and analytical support from a broad spectrum of scientists and stakeholders.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), through the Department of Interior (DOI), was given the responsibility for 3 of the 20 regions (Rocky Mountain/Great Basin, Southwest, and Alaska) in the United States and for preparing an analysis of the water resources sector. The regions are charged with qualitative assessments, while the sectors have quantitative responsibilities. The water resources sector analysis will provide an assessment of the potential consequences of climate variability and change on the water resources of the nation.

Results from the water resources sector assessment will provide a wide spectrum of useful data and information. Analytical information will include modeling results from climate, hydrologic, and socio-economic models for current, 25 to 30 and 100 years in the future that will be useful to stakeholders.

For further information on the assessment see the USGCRP's National Assessment home page and the USGS page on Assessing the Impacts of Climate Variability and Change on the Nation's Resources.

The water resources Sector Assessment Team (SAT) has been organized and a variety of research is under way. One of the activities of the SAT is a specialty symposium in cooperation with the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) which will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, MAY 10-12, 1999. The proceedings of this symposium will be a volume of extended abstracts (4 page maximum). From the symposium papers will be selected for enhancement to be submitted to the peer reviewed Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) which will be published in the October, 1999 issue of JAWRA, which is dedicated to the water resources sector of the National Assessment. Those significant papers that are not selected for the journal will be published in an AWRA monograph. Attached is the call for papers for the AWRA symposium. You are encouraged to submit papers from your related work and interests. Please pass this announcement on to interested colleagues, stakeholders, academic, government and professional groups.

Advancing Water Resources Research and Management
1999 Annual Spring Specialty Conference
Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change to Water Resources of the United States
Atlanta, Georgia, May 10-12, 1999

The water sector of interest to the NACC includes nearly all aspects of water supply and demand - from human consumptive uses to natural ecosystem needs. The four central questions that are guiding the NACC are: (1) what are current stresses on water resource systems, (2) how might those stresses change if climate changes, (3) what information is needed to better understand the answers to these first two questions, and (4) what strategies are available to cope with both current and future stresses. Abstracts of contributed papers are requested on the following climate-related water resource topics for presentation at the conference:

• Interpretation of historical climatology and hydrology at regional and national levels
• Methods for predicting future climates and water budgets, including downscaling of GCMs
• Regional studies of water resources, as affected by climate variability and change
• Socioeconomic impacts of climate variability and change
• Sensitivity of aquatic ecosystem and human health to changing climates
• Vulnerability of municipal, industrial, agricultural, and energy water uses to climate change
• Technical and institutional change for adapting to present and future climates
• Models of the land-atmosphere interface and interactions among land use, water, and climate
• Use of advance forecasting in real-time management of water resource systems
• Integrated assessment of water resources as a driver for other socioeconomic sectors

Schedules for papers to be submitted for the JAWRA are:

Contact: D. Briane Adams, Staff Hydrologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Norcross, Georgia, dadams@usgs.gov, (770) 409-770