Water Policy and Planning in a Variable and Changing Climate

OVERVIEW AND BACKGROUND

Introduction: The Context for Western Water Policy and Planning
Kathleen A. Miller, Alan F. Hamlet, and Douglas S. Kenney

Natural Variability, Anthropogenic Climate Change, and Impacts on Water Availability and Flood Extremes in the Western United States
Daniel R. Cayan, Michael D. Dettinger, David Pierce, Tapash Das, Noah Knowles,
F. Martin Ralph, and Edwin Sumargo

WATER POLICY ISSUES RELATED TO CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND CHANGE

Key Legal Issues in Western Water Management and Climate Adaptation
Denise D. Fort

The West’s Water—Multiple Uses, Conflicting Values, Interconnected Fates
David Lewis Feldman

Protection and Restoration of Freshwater Ecosystems
Brian D. Richter, Emily Maynard Powell, Tyler Lystash, and Michelle Faggert

Climate Variability and Adaptive Capacities of Intergovernmental
Arrangements: Encouraging Problem Solving and Managing Conflict
Edella Schlager

Support for Drought Response and Community Preparedness: Filling the
Gaps between Plans and Action
Kelly Helm Smith, Crystal J. Stiles, Michael J. Hayes, and Christopher J. Carparelli

Providing Climate Science to Real-World Policy Decisions: A Scientist’s
View from the Trenches
Andrea J. Ray

Using the Past to Plan for the Future—The Value of Paleoclimate
Reconstructions for Water Resource Planning
Connie A. Woodhouse, Jeffrey J. Lukas, Kiyomi Morino, David M. Meko,
and Katherine K. Hirschboeck

CASE STUDIES: REGIONAL ISSUES AND INSIGHTS ON ADAPTATION PATHWAYS

The Columbia River Treaty and the Dynamics of Transboundary Water
Negotiations in a Changing Environment: How Might Climate Change Alter
the Game?
Barbara Cosens, Alexander Fremier, Nigel Bankes, and John Abatzoglou

California, a State of Extremes: Management Framework for Present-Day
and Future Hydroclimate Extremes
Jeanine Jones

California’s Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta: Reflections on Science, Policy,
Institutions, and Management in the Anthropocene
Richard B. Norgaard

California’s Climate Change Response Strategy: Integrated Policy and Planning for Water, Energy, and Land
Robert C. Wilkinson

California’s Irrigated Agriculture and Innovations in Adapting to Water Scarcity
Heather Cooley

Responses of Southern California’s Urban Water Sector to Changing Stresses and Increased Uncertainty: Innovative Approaches
Celeste Cantú

Climate Change and Allocation Institutions in the Colorado River Basin
Jason A. Robison

Using Large-Scale Flow Experiments to Rehabilitate Colorado River Ecosystem Function in Grand Canyon: Basis for an Adaptive Climate-Resilient Strategy
Theodore S. Melis, William E. Pine, III, Josh Korman, Michael D. Yard, Shaleen Jain,
and Roger S. Pulwarty

Integration of Surface Water and Groundwater Rights: Colorado’s Experience
Thomas V. Cech

Floods as Unnatural Disasters: The Role of Law
Sandra B. Zellmer and Christine A. Klein

Adaptive Management and Governance Lessons from a Semiarid River
Basin: A Platte River Case Study
Chadwin B. Smith, Jason M. Farnsworth, David M. Baasch, and Jerry F. Kenny

Drought as an Opportunity for Legal and Institutional Change in Texas
Ronald Kaiser

Biography

Kathleen A. Miller is an economist working at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in the Climate Science and Applications Program. She conducts research on climate impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation. Her work focuses especially on natural resource governance and adaptation planning under uncertainty and on modeling interactions between human strategic behavior and dynamic natural systems. She is the author of numerous papers on the management of water, fisheries, and other natural resources in the context of climate variability and prospective climate change.

Douglas S. Kenney has been with the University of Colorado’s Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment since 1996 where he directs the Western Water Policy Program. He researches and writes extensively on several water-related issues, including law and policy reform, river basin- and watershed-level planning, the design of institutional arrangements, water resource economics, and climate change adaptation. Dr. Kenney has also served as a consultant to a variety of local, state, multistate, and federal agencies, and has made presentations in 20 U.S. states, seven countries, and four continents.

Alan F. Hamlet is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering & Earth Sciences, College of Engineering, at University of Notre Dame. Dr. Hamlet’s research is focused on the integrated modeling of climate variability and change, surface water hydrology, water resource systems, the built environment, and aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. He has been actively involved in stakeholder education and outreach programs in the Pacific Northwest for many years and is a leader in the development of decision support systems and sustainable climate change adaptation strategies in the water sector.

Kelly T. Redmond is the deputy director and regional climatologist at the Western Regional Climate Center at the Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada. He has played an active role nationally in development of the climate services sector. Dr. Redmond is currently working on several projects for the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS). He is closely involved in the NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessment (RISA) Program and the Department of Interior Climate Science Center Program. He has also served on and contributed to approximately a dozen committees for the National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council.

"… presents a synthesis of what leading scientists, lawyers, political scientists and other water professionals know about the likely adverse impacts on the region and how the West might make the hard choices to cope with its changed climate. The book covers the latest scientific understanding of climate change and its impact on the region’s hydrology. It gives equal weight to both ends of the risk spectrum—stressed water availability for consumptive and non-consumptive environmental uses as well as more extreme flood events. … essential reading for all water professionals and anyone interested in the fate of the American West."
—Dan Tarlock, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA

"We have always lived with considerable variability in water supply in the western United States. Now the range of uncertainty in water supply planning has increased markedly as a consequence of climate change. This new book provides valuable contributions from a wide array of perspectives to help us better understand the challenges we now face and the responses that will be necessary under these conditions."
—Lawrence J. MacDonnell, Senior Fellow, Getches-Wilkinson Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

"… the contributors embrace uncertainty in the physical and social systems shaping future water options. This is liberating because it enables new ways of thinking about adaptively managing water sector risks under climate change. They also provide well-grounded and thoughtful critiques of the most significant technical and policy challenges ahead. Most importantly, they give hope to those faced with the daunting task of reforming water planning by giving plenty of examples of how this can be done in practice."
—Professor Robert L. Wilby, Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK