Developing a baseline for a RISA program: SCIPP's natural hazards and climate change planning survey

The Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program (SCIPP) is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) supported Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program serving the climate research and information needs of the south-central United States with a specific focus on the 6-state region of Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Mississippi. It is across this highly diverse region that SCIPP engages stakeholders and decision-makers in an effort to enhance future preparedness for climate hazards and improve longer-term planning for climate change impacts at the local and community levels.

Since beginning in August 2008, SCIPP has set out to formally establish a program baseline from which to measure its success. This has recently been accomplished through the use of a carefully developed and tested survey that was distributed throughout the hazard management and planning communities across the SCIPP region during the fall of 2009. The content focus of the region-wide survey was on three key areas: 1) natural hazards planning, 2) climate change perceptions and planning, and 3) information needs. In particular, the SCIPP team used the survey as an opportunity to evaluate regional climate change attitudes and determine the general degree of planning underway at present. It is planned for this survey to be repeated upon the end of SCIPP's initial funding period (in 2013) to determine the contribution SCIPP may have played in enhancing hazard and climate planning processes across the south central U.S.

This presentation will focus on several items including lessons learned from the development process as well as initial results from a selected set of survey questions.