How tribes are harnessing cutting-edge data to plan for climate change - NationofChange

2019-04-03

Excerpt from this Nation of Changestory:

Resources developed by the Climate Impacts Group at University of Washington for tribes in the Pacific Northwest and Oregon, Nevada, and Utah’s Great Basin may prove useful to tribes like the Quinault and the Makah. The collection of resources is designed for the 84 tribes in those regions in their various stages of the climate preparation process. The package will help tribes evaluate impacts, conduct vulnerability assessments, perform adaptation and economic planning, and locate financial resources.

The Makah have already tested out the CIG resources, which provide Western climate science and planning materials tailored to the unique needs of tribal communities. The tribe is currently incorporating those resources into their climate adaptation plan. The tools and resources are useful in taking large regional climate data and zooming in to provide information at a more local scale, Chang said.

“This is super-helpful because many regional climate models can’t provide hyper-local climate projections, which is crucial when making planning and adaptation decisions,” Chang said. Using the CIG models, it’s possible to determine the potential effects on individual streams, rivers, and forests, he said.

CIG researchers reached out to every tribal chairperson seeking input into what climate information their tribe wanted or needed to prepare for climate change, said Meade Krosby, project lead and Climate Impacts Group senior scientist.

All told, it took two years to compile the resources.