Climate Change

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q1.  What is the Federal Climate Change and Water Working Group (C-CAWWG).
Q2.  How will this document be used?
Q3.  Is this a request for public comment?
Q4.  Are there plans to keep this documented updated?
Q5.  If I cannot provide perspectives now, or my organization was not invited to contribute perspectives at this time, will I have an opportunity later?
Q6.  The invitation for perspectives is to organizations involved in water resources management.  Does this mean that I cannot contribute perspectives if I am from a science or research organization?
Q7.  Will the document become broadly available?

 

Q1.  What is the Federal Climate Change and Water Working Group (C-CAWWG).

Reclamation, USACE, NOAA, and USGS formed C-CAWWG in 2008 to provide scientific collaborations in support of water management as climate changes.  In 2009, these four agencies jointly published USGS Circular 1331:  Climate Change and Water Resources Management:  A Federal Perspective.  As the two original C-CAWWG agencies with a mission of managing water resources, Reclamation and the USACE have expanded and further defined their need for tools and information originally published in Chapter 6 of USGS Circular 1331.  More information on
C-CAWWG is available at: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/ccawwg/.  More information about this
C-CAWWG “User Needs” project is available at: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/ccawwg/docs/ccawwg_projectSummary_012010.pdf

Q2.  How will this document be used?

We hope that it provides a collective voice to the research and scientific community, from the Federal and non-Federal water management community, about the needs that they could help fill.

Q3.  Is this a request for public comment?

No….this is not a request to comment and suggest changes to the perspectives developed by Reclamation and USACE.  This is an invitation to other Federal and non-Federal organizations that manage, or play a role in managing water and water-related resources to contribute their own perspectives, and have their perspectives published alongside those of Reclamation and USACE.

Q4.  Are there plans to keep this documented updated?

Yes.  We intend for this “user needs’ document to be flexible and dynamic to include periodic updates to reflect other perspectives, new knowledge, new capabilities, and new needs.

Q5.  If I cannot provide perspectives now, or my organization was not invited to contribute perspectives at this time, will I have an opportunity later?

Yes....our intent is open future contributions to the Federal and non-Federal water management and scientific communities through online collaboration tools to build on this document for future updates as discussed in the answer to Q3.  An inclusive approach is the best collaborative approach.  However, it is unrealistic to expect that everyone that might have relevant perspectives to contribute can be included in the initial release of the document.  Our goal for the initial release is to “seed” the document with a representative cross-section of the Federal and non-Federal water and water-related resource management communities.  We attempted to identify organizations that can provide this sampling in our invitation to contribute perspectives in the initial release.  We recognize that this invited list does not include all organizations that can offer relevant contributions.

Q6.  The invitation for perspectives is to organizations involved in water resources management.  Does this mean that I cannot contribute perspectives if I am from a science or research organization?

We will consider perspectives on the water management community’s needs for climate change information from science and research organizations based on their experiences and interactions.  Such perspectives would inform the following process where a science response strategy is developed to address the gaps in this needs document.  NOAA and USGS will coordinate development of the science response strategy.  For the completion of this needs document, we would also review perspectives offered by science and research organizations, looking for gap issues that are not well represented in the review draft.  However, the final document will only report the views of Reclamation, USACE, and the broader water management community.

Q7.  Will the document become broadly available?

We hope to evolve the document into an online collaboration forum to facilitate information sharing, collaboration, and contributions from across the water management and scientific communities of practice.