Session 3B Building Resilience to Weather and Climate Extremes Across Scales

Monday, 8 January 2018: 2:00 PM-4:15 PM
Room 6B (ACC) (Austin, Texas)
Host: 13th Symposium on Societal Applications: Policy, Research and Practice
Chair:
Lisa Dilling, Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, CIRES and Environmental Studies Program, Boulder, CO

As the twenty-first century progresses and economic growth continues in many parts of the world, there is more at stake—and more to lose—from extreme weather and climate events. While, fortunately, scientific advances and good policy decisions have been able to reduce loss of life from these events in many areas of the world, livelihoods, property assets, and infrastructure are increasingly vulnerable. At the same time, it is becoming hard to predict the patterns of these extremes. Past experience is no longer a reliable guide to their future severity or frequency. This situation calls for the building of resilience—the capacity of a system to continue to maintain its structure and function in the face of disturbance, while also keeping options open for future development. Building resilience does not mean building rigidity, however. Resilient systems must be more flexible, more nimble, and more responsive to changing economic and social conditions. One of the ways to build resilience and flexibility is to build effective networks of partners to catalyze rapid development and ongoing dissemination of information and best practices so that businesses, governments and households can respond in a timely way to changing conditions. Resources are finite, however. There are more and less efficient ways to organize and effectively build capacity and learning networks. In this session we focus on examples and lessons learned from building sustained partnerships for knowledge exchange and risk management across a variety of contexts and scales. Highlighting examples from (but not limited to) drought, wildfire, and coastal and inland flooding, we examine the value of sustained partnerships for avoiding damage and property loss, and ultimately, building resilience in an uncertain world. Papers from a wide variety of contexts and cases are encouraged.

Papers:
2:00 PM
3B.1
2:15 PM
3B.2
Drought Response and Planning in South Carolina: Challenges and Opportunities for Building Resilience across Scales and Sectors
Kirsten Lackstrom, Carolinas Integrated Sciences and Assessments, Columbia, SC; and H. Mizzell and E. Altman
2:45 PM
3B.4
Understanding and Responding to Ecological Drought: Supporting the National Drought Resilience Partnership in Montana’s Upper Missouri Headwaters
Amanda E Cravens, USGS, Fort Collins, CO; and A. Schwend, T. Laidlaw, J. McEvoy, S. Crausbay, A. Ramirez, N. Raheem, M. Cross, K. Hall, and S. Carter

3:00 PM
Break

3:15 PM
3B.5
4:00 PM
3B.8
Working with Decision-Makers to Improve Energy−Water System Resiliency in the Lower Hudson River Basin
Jack D. Fellows, ORNL (Retired), Oak Ridge, TN; and J. Pullen, J. E. Gonzalez, F. Saleh, V. Bhatt, and M. Schoonen
- Indicates paper has been withdrawn from meeting
- Indicates an Award Winner