Identifying stakeholder-relevant climate change impacts: a case study in the Yakima River Basin, Washington, USA

Climatic Change
By: , and 

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Abstract

Designing climate-related research so that study results will be useful to natural resource managers is a unique challenge. While decision makers increasingly recognize the need to consider climate change in their resource management plans, and climate scientists recognize the importance of providing locally-relevant climate data and projections, there often remains a gap between management needs and the information that is available or is being collected. We used decision analysis concepts to bring decision-maker and stakeholder perspectives into the applied research planning process. In 2009 we initiated a series of studies on the impacts of climate change in the Yakima River Basin (YRB) with a four-day stakeholder workshop, bringing together managers, stakeholders, and scientists to develop an integrated conceptual model of climate change and climate change impacts in the YRB. The conceptual model development highlighted areas of uncertainty that limit the understanding of the potential impacts of climate change and decision alternatives by those who will be most directly affected by those changes, and pointed to areas where additional study and engagement of stakeholders would be beneficial. The workshop and resulting conceptual model highlighted the importance of numerous different outcomes to stakeholders in the basin, including social and economic outcomes that go beyond the physical and biological outcomes typically reported in climate impacts studies. Subsequent studies addressed several of those areas of uncertainty, including changes in water temperatures, habitat quality, and bioenergetics of salmonid populations.

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Identifying stakeholder-relevant climate change impacts: a case study in the Yakima River Basin, Washington, USA
Series title Climatic Change
DOI 10.1007/s10584-013-0806-4
Volume 124
Issue 1-2
Year Published 2014
Language English
Publisher Kluwer Academic Publishers
Publisher location Dordrecht
Contributing office(s) Western Fisheries Research Center
Description 14 p.
First page 371
Last page 384
Country United States
State Washington
Other Geospatial Yakima River Basin
Online Only (Y/N) N
Additional Online Files (Y/N) N
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