Columbia (SC) canal spillway

Project Abstract

Rapid population growth combined with a recent four-year drought has heightened concerns over water supply and quality in North and South Carolina. As demand grows and water systems increasingly face quality issues, interannual and interdecadal climate variability, as well as the potential for longer-term climate change, will play an increasingly important role in water resource management. Despite this, most current water managers do not incorporate climate information into their operational decisions and planning. Successfully integrating climate information into decision processes will require committed dialogue between researchers, decision makers, and government agencies.

This program examines how decision makers currently use climate information to manage water and how such use could be expanded most beneficially. Five specific questions frame the research:
(1) How can current operational practices benefit from greater use of historic and near-real time climate information?
(2) How can models be improved to better represent the key interactions between climate and hydrologic systems that are identified by water resource managers?
(3) What is the most effective way to present the science of future climate variability into the current decision-making framework?
(4) What are the parameters of climate variability that have the greatest influence on the decisions of water resource managers and users heavily dependent on water?
(5) What are decision makers' tolerance levels for climate variability and uncertainty in forecasts and what priorities order their associated risks of failure?
Collectively, these questions address the need for integrating climate science, societal impacts, and decision making and policy.

We will address these goals and specific questions by establishing dynamic partnerships among social and natural scientists and stakeholders in the North and South Carolina water resource community. Two specific lines of inquiry will be established. The first will investigate the sensitivity of stakeholders to climate variability and the influence of climate in their current decision making. This will uncover the economic and institutional framework within which decision making occurs. The second line of inquiry will focus on the historic hydroclimatology of North and South Carolina, examine scenarios of seasonal and long-term climate change, and explore potential impacts on water quality and supply. We will marry the two research foci by sharing climatological research results with stakeholders who provide feedback on their applicability in the decision-making process. In practical terms, this will require exposing stakeholders to climate science and information as we query their current operational procedures, and sharing new products that respond to their perceived needs.

By teaming university researchers with scientists from the Southeast Regional Climate Center and SC State Climate Office, we hope to bridge existing gaps between the user community and climate science. We believe that this project will help to achieve NOAA's goals for the Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments Program by improving the interaction between researchers and public and private stakeholders