Area 2: Obtain Climate Change Information

For description of this technical area and for the context on how this area fits into the outline of technical areas for incorporating climate change information into water resources assessments, please see our Long-term climate change research activities.

. These areas were featured in discussion of desired versus current capabilities in Addressing Climate Change in Long-Term Water Resources Planning and Management: User Needs for Improving Tools and Information (pdf 8MB). The result from that discussion are a listing of research needs, or "gaps", under eight technical areas. After compiling this list, a process followed where relative research priorities were assigned to each gap (low, medium and high). The second and third columns of the table indicates priority ratings reflecting pooled views from Reclamation and USACE only, and pooled views from all document reviewers, respectively. The fourth column lists the research activities being supported by Reclamation's Research and Development Office associated with these gaps.

Technical Planning Steps and Associated Gaps in Tools and Information	Priority Ranking1		Activities
	Reclamation/ USACE	All Respondents	Activities
2.01 Improved skill in simulating long-term global to regional climate.	High	High
2.02 Downscaled data at finer space and time resolutions and for different variables.	High	High	FY 2007 - present Directed: Climate Change Downscaling
2.03 Information on the strengths and weaknesses of downscaled data and the downscaling methodologies used to develop these data (including both statistical and dynamical methods and associated approaches for climate model bias-correction).	High	High	FY2011 1646 Sensitivity of Hydrologic Impacts Assessment to Downscaling Methodology and Spatial Resolution Directed: Post-doctoral Resarch Support (Project 2. Assessing Differences between BCSD CMIP3, NARCCAP, and Statistical Downscaling Approaches and their Significance in Water Resources Planning Support)
2.04 Indication of conditions of where and when the stationarity assumption of statistical downscaling may not hold (defined above) and should motivate use of dynamical downscaling techniques rather than statistical.	Medium	Medium
2.05 Synthesis of sea level projection information and guidance on consistent use in planning for all Reclamation and USACE coastal areas.	Low	Low