Letter of Intent to Propose
Submitted toNOAA Office of Global Programs
OGP Program Element:Climate Prediction Program for the Americasand
Sector Applications and Research Program
Tentative Project Title:Transforming climate information into usable knowledge to enhance decision-making water resources management in the Río de la Plata Basin, Argentina.
Participating Investigators:Balaji Rajagopalan(Lead Investigator) / University of Colorado
Guillermo Podestá / Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami
Angel Menéndez / Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
Daniel Barrera / Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
Carlos Vionnet / Universidad del Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina
Carlos Villanueva / Servicio Meteorológico Nacional, Argentina
Statement of the Problem
Current use of climate information to support decision-making in climate-sensitive sectors of society is evolving rapidly. Improved scientific and technological capabilities, a growing appreciation for the importance of climate on human endeavors (including sustainable development and poverty mitigation), and an increasing demand for information to support decisions are all providing strong incentives for the production and delivery of useful climate data, information, and knowledge to decision-makers. The ability to provide timely climate information offers an exciting opportunity to learn how important and prevalent climate-sensitive sectors such as water resources management may respond.
We propose to explore conditions for the effective use of climate information to enhance decision-making and address resource management challenges in the Río Salado del Norte Basin in central Argentina, a component of the Río de la Plata Basin that drains a large portion of South America.The Río Salado watershed is subject to marked interannual climate variability: enhanced (reduced) precipitations and streamflows are associated with El Niño (La Niña) events. The ability to forecast regional climate based on El Niño-Southern Oscillation, thus, may allow adaptive actions to reduce the likelihood of negative impacts, such as the extensive flooding of the City of Santa Fein 2003,that caused several deaths, mass evacuations, and large monetary losses. Dry conditions have considerableimpacts on the prevalently rainfed agriculture of the region. In addition to climate predictions, a characterization of recent climate conditions (say, in the previous 2-6 months) providescriticalcontext for the interpretation of seasonal forecasts and early detection of potential climate threats. For example, predictions of wet conditions are concerning when water table levels and streamflowsalready are high. Similarly, predictions of dry conditions raise alerts when soils are experiencing a protracted lack of moisture. Finally, adecadal-scale enhancementin precipitation, which is also mimicked by streamflows in the major rivers of the region, has induced significant changes in regional land use patterns (e.g., continuous agriculture has replaced agriculture-pasture rotations) that, in turn,may influence sensitivity to climate through more technology-intensive production and feedbacks into environmental conditions (e.g., loss of soil structure).
Approach Proposed
We propose to consider the opportunities, impediments and context for the use of three kinds of climate information in an important river basin in southeastern South America: (a)diagnostics of conditions in the recent past, (b)forecasts of seasonal conditions, and (c)plausible decadal trends.We submit that, in order to be useful, climate information must be relevant to viable decisions and compatible with current decision processes. Further, the use of climate information must be understood within a broader framework that includes, as an example,the economic, social, cultural, and institutional contexts. Therefore, the work we propose will involve three major streams:
- Development of tools to “translate” seasonal climate predictions into distributions of relevant outcomesanduseful information products with appropriate temporal and spatial resolution;
- Development of tools to summarize recent climate information into useful diagnostics thatprovide context for theinterpretation of seasonal forecasts; and
- Exploration of the social and institutional context that may offer opportunities for, or limit the effectiveness of information use.
The first stream will involve the linkage of seasonal climate forecasts with non-parametric stochastic weather generators that can produce numerousrealizations of climate variables (temperatures, precipitation) with statistical properties similar to those of historical records. The resulting synthetic series will be linked to process models (e.g., a hybrid hydrological-hydraulic model being developed for the target basin by project participants at Univ. del Litoral). The process models will translate synthetic weather into probability distributions of streamflows, maps of flood risk and flood persistence, soil moisture maps, and other products that provide useful input to decision-making. Recent developments in the stochastic generators allow us to introduce various low-frequency trends intothe regional climate, allowing us to explore the implications of various plausible scenarios,for example a return to drier conditions that were common prior to the 1980s.
The second stream will involve estimates or summary indices ofhydroclimatic conditions (precipitation and evapotranspiration, soil moisture) in recent months that will provide early alert of elevated flood or drought risks in the basin. Further, these diagnostics will provide useful context for the interpretation of seasonal scenarios of climate conditions and likely sectoral outcomes.
The third project stream (to be carried out in collaboration with social scientists) will focus on understanding the communication and use of climate information and derived products. We will survey institutions currently or potentially involved in providing information and advice for water resource management in the SaladoBasin. These analyses will examine the missions, functions, products and interrelationships of the institutions selected, and patterns of information flow. An improved understanding of the institutional structure of the sector, information needs, and current decision-making procedures will enable us to assess current and potential use of climate information in water resources and related climate-sensitive sectors. Building upon our earlier experience in agriculture, we will work closely with relevant stakeholders in the basin, such as staff from the Ministry of Water Resources of the Province of Santa Fe. We note that Santa Fe is the only province in Argentina that has a water-related ministry, indicating the importance the province places on this sector.
Interactions with Ongoing Efforts
The proposed work will complementongoing efforts in the study region, such as a GEF-funded project to enhance understanding and predictability of regional climate in the Río de la Plata Basin. The enhancement of climate predictability in many cases is not sufficient to derive societal benefits. The work we propose, therefore, will complement efforts focused on improving climate prediction by providing needed insights on communication and use of those predictions and other kinds of climate information. The project also will benefit significantly from interactions withan OGP-sponsored project that, although focused on agriculture, is exploring existing mental models of climate variability in the study region, as well as existing institutional structures for production and dissemination of climate information. Investigators in this team are participating in an NSF-sponsored project exploring adaptive management in agriculture; this project will provide useful insights on decision-making under uncertainty, the value of climate information, and diffusion of innovative technologies or information.
Project Budget
We estimate that the proposed project will require three years, starting on or about 1 January 2006. Approximate project cost will be XXX,XXXUS dollars per year.