Toward the Application of Decadal Climate Predictions in Water Management

Decadal climate predictions offer potential to meet planning needs that fall between seasonal forecasts and centennial climate projections. As decadal prediction science advances through its current exploratory phase, there is considerable opportunity to better understand its potential role for water managers. I will present an overview of an ongoing NSF-funded project, Understanding Decision-Climate Interactions on Decadal Scales (UDECIDE), that aims to understand the role of decadal climate information for water management decisions. In particular, I will share a framework that we have developed towards the application of decadal climate predictions. The framework has been applied to a water utility as a case study, and results can help to highlight the potential benefits and remaining challenges of providing experimental climate predictions to the water resources sector. Finally, I can discuss how decadal predictions could complement ongoing national and regional activities.