About
the Program
Today’s
presentation will describe a new approach to climate change decision support and its application to
Southern California
‘s Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA). Despite significant uncertainty about its future climate and other
challenges, the studies helped IEUA identify robust and cost-effective responses. While other regions may
have different management concerns and options available than IEUA, these new planning methods can be applied
to address a wide range of challenges facing today’s water management agencies.
Water
management agencies face a difficult challenge of planning under uncertainty. Traditionally agencies draft
their water management plans assuming that their regions’ future climate and all its variability will be
similar to that experienced historically. Unfortunately, this planning assumption seems increasingly unlikely
to hold in the future.
As
part of a multiyear project on improving decision making under uncertainty, RAND researchers have been
helping water management agencies in
California
identify their vulnerabilities to future climate change and their best options for reducing those
vulnerabilities.
In
this briefing, Robert Lempert, RAND Senior Scientist, and David Groves, RAND Associate Policy Researcher,
will present findings from two new
RAND
reports:
- Presenting
Uncertainty About Climate Change to Water Resource Managers: A Summary of Workshops with the Inland
Empire Utilities Agency
and
- Preparing
for an Uncertain Future Climate in the
Inland Empire: Identifying Robust Water Management Strategies
Light refreshments will be
served.
About
the Speakers
 Debra
Knopman
is Vice President and Director of RAND Infrastructure, Safety, and Environment. Dr. Knopman’s research
background is in hydrology, environmental and natural resources policy, systems analysis, and public
administration. From 1997 to 2003, she was a member of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which has
oversight of the
Yucca
Mountain
scientific and engineering program. She served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the
U.S. Department of the Interior, Chief of the Branch of Systems Analysis in the U.S. Geological Survey,
professional staff member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and legislative
assistant for energy and environmental issues to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan.
 Robert
Lempert
leads RAND’s multiyear, NSF-funded effort on climate change decision making uncertainty Improving
Decisions in a Complex and Changing World. A RAND senior scientist and professor of
policy analysis in the Pardee RAND Graduate School, Dr. Lempert is a member of the National Academy’s Climate
Research Committee, a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a Fellow
of the American Physical Society, and an author of the book Shaping
the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis.
 David
Groves
is a RAND associate policy researcher and professor of policy analysis in the Pardee
RAND
Graduate
School. He specializes in the development and use of exploratory modeling and robust decision making methods for
long-term policy analysis. For the past several years he has worked to apply these tools to water resource
planning in a variety of contexts in California. He has a doctorate in Policy Analysis and masters degrees in Atmospheric Sciences and Earth Systems.
How
to Attend
To
RSVP, please send email to the California Institute’s RSVP address or contact Sirat Attapit, RAND Legislative Analyst for Energy and
Environment, at [email protected] or 703-413-1100 ext. 5938.
|
The California Institute for Federal Policy Research
