The recent interest stemming from the release of the IPCC report has resulted in a growing awareness that mitigation and adaptation to climate change are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, committed warming is already on the order of .5C and adaptation will be required. At least three states, California, Colorado and New Mexico, have begun to discuss water adaptation efforts along with their greenhouse gas mitigation efforts. How are these adaptation efforts being structured? What are the goals, and how successful have they been?

In working with the Colorado Climate Project, a stakeholder group charged to make recommendations to the state on activities that can “reduce the state's contribution and vulnerability to a changed climate”, a water adaptation group has provided specific goals including a need for state leadership and involvement of the state engineer and water planning agencies to include climate change in their decision processes; needs for modeling, research coordination, and quality observing systems; and development of coordinated efforts that realize the connection between water and energy. This presentation will discuss the state climate action planning process with a particular emphasis on the role of adaptation in such processes.