Geology ReportsSearch

Geology topics

Robin O’Malley

Publications and source records attributed to Robin O’Malley.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Training and capacity building activities of Climate Adaptation Science Centers for the benefit of Tribal and Indigenous communities, 2010–2019

Tribal nations and Indigenous communities are key collaborators on adaptation work within the Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC) network. The centers have partnered with numerous Tribal and Indigenous communities on projects or activities to better understand the communities’ specific knowledge of and exposure to impacts of climate change, to increase or assist with capacity to support adaptation planning, and to identify and address climate science needs. Projects and activities generated in the various CASC regions have different Tribal and Indigenous stakeholders, climate change contexts, and training needs. Consequently, these projects and activities were neither implemented nor reported consistently throughout the network. Information and materials on the various projects and activities were gathered and are presented in the Tribal and Indigenous Projects Data Sheet (hereafter, Data Sheet) with the goals of reducing inconsistencies between CASCs and benefitting other agencies who plan to implement similar activities. The Data Sheet is complementary to this report, which provides a synthesis of the CASC-led climate-related, capacity-building activities for Tribes and Indigenous communities. The results described in this report provide an analysis of the categorization of projects, activities, and individual trainings to highlight detailed information on the various ways each CASC works with and supports Native and Indigenous communities.

General Information Product

Intermountain west drought social science synthesis working group: Report to the National Climate Adaptation Science Center

Throughout the Intermountain West, there has been significant investment in understanding how social factors influence manager and citizen experiences of drought in particular locations. Yet there is still a gap in knowledge of how human dimensions of drought impacts, planning, and resilience are similar and different across cases and regions. Building on the natural science understanding developed by the USGS’ various ecological drought projects as well as a range of other place-based social science case studies of drought and its impacts, this project explored human dimensions of ecological drought across the intermountain west from a comparative, regional perspective. The Working Group brought together agency and university experts in the field of drought social science, including researchers affiliated with the North Central and South Central Climate Adaptation Science Centers (USGS), Western Water Assessment (a NOAA RISA program), the Northern Plains Climate Hub (USDA), and the USGS-supported SNAPP Ecological Drought Working Group. The group held three virtual meeting during Spring 2018 in preparation for an extended in-person workshop in June 2018 in Fort Collins, CO, followed by monthly calls to finalize products. The group’s objectives were to (1) integrate insights from existing social science studies of drought to identify commonalities and trends that generalize across cases while simultaneously accounting for the complexity experienced in particular places by individual decision makers, (2) develop a common lexicon and analytic framework for understanding drought across the Intermountain West from a social-ecological systems perspective, (3) identify emergent research themes, questions, and needs, (4) consider strategies for social scientists to contribute to drought management, (5) facilitate coordination among federal and university researchers for future collaborative activities, and (6) develop a typology of drought decision making that captured group insights. Project outputs included two conference sessions, a typology manuscript to be submitted by the end of FY19, and the conceptual framing of a rapid assessment methodology that was subsequently developed into a standalone project.

Cooperator Report