Daniel B. Ferguson

Moving toward the Deliberate Coproduction of Climate Science Knowledge

Coproduction of knowledge is believed to be an effective way to produce usable climate science knowledge through a process of collaboration between scientists and decision makers. While the general principles of coproduction—establishing long-term relationships between scientists and stakeholders, ensuring two-way communication between both groups, and keeping the focus on the production of usable science—are well understood, the mechanisms for achieving those goals have been discussed less. It is proposed here that a more deliberate approach to building the relationships and communication channels between scientists and stakeholders will yield better outcomes. The authors present five approaches to collaborative research that can be used to structure a coproduction process that each suit different types of research or management questions, decision-making contexts, and resources and skills available to contribute to the process of engagement. By using established collaborative research approaches scientists can be more effective in learning from stakeholders, can be more confident when engaging with stakeholders because there are guideposts to follow, and can assess both the process and outcomes of collaborative projects, which will help the whole community of stakeholder-engaged climate-scientists learn about coproduction of knowledge.

Wildfire Management and Forecasting Fire Potential: The Roles of Climate Information and Social Networks in the Southwest United States

AbstractContinuing progress in the fields of meteorology, climatology, and fire ecology has enabled more proactive and risk-tolerant wildland fire management practices in the United States. Recent institutional changes have also facilitated the incorporation of more advanced climate and weather research into wildland fire management. One of the most significant changes was the creation of Predictive Services in 1998, a federal interagency group composed, in part, of meteorologists who create climate- and weather-based fire outlooks tailored to fire manager needs. Despite the numerous forecast products now available to fire managers, few studies have examined how these products have affected their practices. In this paper the authors assess how fire managers in the Southwest region of the United States perceive and incorporate different types of information into their management practices. A social network analysis demonstrates that meteorologists have become central figures in disseminating information in...

Informing Decisions with a Climate Synthesis Product: Implications for Regional Climate Services

AbstractThe demand for regional climate information is increasing and spurring efforts to provide a broad slate of climate services that inform policy and resource management and elevate general knowledge. Routine syntheses of existing climate-related information may be an effective strategy for connecting climate information to decision making, but few studies have formally assessed their contribution to informing decisions. During the 2010–11 winter, drought conditions expanded and intensified in Arizona and New Mexico, creating an opportunity to develop and evaluate a monthly regional climate communication product—La Nina Drought Tracker—that synthesized and interpreted drought and climate information. Six issues were published and subsequently evaluated through an online survey. On average, 417 people consulted the publication each month. Many of the survey respondents indicated that they made at least one drought-related decision, and the product at least moderately influenced the majority of those d...

Rain Gauges to Range Conditions: Collaborative Development of a Drought Information System to Support Local Decision-Making

AbstractDrought monitoring and drought planning are complex endeavors. Measures of precipitation or streamflow provide little context for understanding how social and environmental systems impacted by drought are responding. Here the authors report on collaborative work with the Hopi Tribe—a Native American community in the U.S. Southwest—to develop a drought information system that is responsive to local needs. A strategy is presented for developing a system that is based on an assessment of how drought is experienced by Hopi citizens and resource managers, that can incorporate local observations of drought impacts as well as conventional indicators, and that brings together local expertise with conventional science-based observations. The system described here is meant to harness as much available information as possible to inform tribal resource managers, political leaders, and citizens about drought conditions and to also engage these local drought stakeholders in observing, thinking about, and helpin...

Unique Challenges Facing Southwestern Tribes

The Southwestern United States is home to 182 federally recognized tribes (Federal Register 2010, Figure 17.1). California has the largest number of tribes (109), and the largest Native American population in the country (Table 17.1). Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah are also home to seven of the most populous tribes, with populations ranging from 10,000 to over 300,000 (U.S. Census 2010). Nine tribes in the Southwest are considered “large land-holding tribes,” five of which are among the ten largest reservations in the United States, ranging in size from 600,000 to 15 million acres (Federal Register 2010). More than one-third of the land in Arizona is tribal land.

Discerning “Flavors” of Drought Using Climate Extremes Indices

AbstractMonitoring drought conditions in arid and semiarid regions characterized by high levels of intra- and interannual hydroclimatic variability is a challenging task. Typical drought-monitoring indices that are based on monthly-scale data lack sufficient temporal resolution to detect hydroclimatic extremes and, when used operationally, may not provide adequate indication of drought status. In a case study focused on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States, the authors used recently standardized World Meteorological Organization climate extremes indices to discern intra-annual hydroclimatic extremes and diagnose potential drought status in conjunction with the simple metric of annual total precipitation. By applying data-reduction methods to a suite of metrics calculated using daily data for 1950–2014, the authors identified five extremes indices that provided additional insight into interannual hydroclimatic variability. Annual time series of these indices revealed anomalous years ch...