NOAA's Climate Program Office's (NOAA/CPO) mission is to help policy and decision-makers better understand and use climate forecast information in making pivotal choices focusing, for example, on land use, zoning, public infrastructure, emergency planning decisions to protect the public's health, safety and welfare. A key concern is providing timely information in a usable and pragmatic format. The types of information and formats required for decision-making are not completely understood by those providing information. Conversely, decision-makers often do not understand what information is available, or how to manipulate this information so that it could be of use in decision-making. The NOAA Sectoral Applications Research Program (SARP) catalyzes and supports interdisciplinary research, innovative outreach, and education activities that enhance the capacity of key socio-economic sectors to respond to and plan for climate variability and change through the use of climate information and related decision support resources.

This talk will highlight NOAA/CPO funded projects by addressing climatic concerns in the urban water arena as well as highlight the relevant findings from the US Climate Change Synthesis and Assessment Product (5.3) on decision support experiments. The presentations will address experiences, lessons learned, tools, guides, and methodologies that are transferable. A description of future plans for urban-related work within NOAA's Climate Program Office will follow.