WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:06.460 --> 00:00:09.410 Ashley Fortune Isham: Good afternoon from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National 00:00:09.410 --> 00:00:12.420 Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. 00:00:12.420 --> 00:00:16.880 My name is Ashley Fortune Isham, and I'd like to welcome you to our webinar series that's 00:00:16.880 --> 00:00:21.480 held in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Climate Change and Wildlife 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:26.360 Science Center, or NCCWSC, and they're located in Reston, Virginia. 00:00:26.360 --> 00:00:29.970 The NCCWSC Climate Change Science and Management webinar series highlights their sponsored 00:00:29.970 --> 00:00:35.630 science projects related to climate change impacts and adaptation, and aims to increase 00:00:35.630 --> 00:00:39.690 awareness and inform participants like you about potential and predicted climate change 00:00:39.690 --> 00:00:42.600 impacts on fish and wildlife. 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:48.070 I'd like to welcome Dr. Shawn Carter, Senior Scientist at NCCWSC, to introduce our speaker. 00:00:48.070 --> 00:00:49.070 Shawn, welcome. 00:00:49.070 --> 00:00:51.480 Shawn Carter: Thanks, Ashley. 00:00:51.480 --> 00:00:57.879 It's my pleasure today to introduce Dr. Shannon McNeeley. 00:00:57.879 --> 00:01:03.050 She's an interdisciplinary social-natural scientist at Colorado State University, and 00:01:03.050 --> 00:01:07.580 she serves as a co-lead for the adaptation science area of the North Central Climate 00:01:07.580 --> 00:01:09.590 Science Center (NC CSC). 00:01:09.590 --> 00:01:14.090 Her research focuses on climate variability and climate impacts, vulnerabilities in the 00:01:14.090 --> 00:01:18.119 adaptation of social and socio-ecological systems. 00:01:18.119 --> 00:01:24.189 Some of her previous work has addressed adaptive capacity of indigenous peoples in remote rural 00:01:24.189 --> 00:01:29.649 interior region of Alaska, as well as drought-induced water scarcity and sustainability in the context 00:01:29.649 --> 00:01:33.920 of climate change in the Northwest Colorado. 00:01:33.920 --> 00:01:40.180 Shannon currently leads the NC CSC Drought Risk and Adaptation in the Interior project, 00:01:40.180 --> 00:01:45.009 as well as various tribal engagement projects, such as the Wind River Reservation on Drought 00:01:45.009 --> 00:01:46.430 Preparedness. 00:01:46.430 --> 00:01:51.820 Today, Shannon's going to be talking to us about co-producing science and tools for drought 00:01:51.820 --> 00:01:59.840 preparedness in the Wind River Reservation's tribal water managers, so without further 00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:02.140 ado, I'll turn it over to Shannon. 00:02:02.140 --> 00:02:03.140 Welcome. 00:02:03.140 --> 00:02:05.390 Shannon McNeeley: Thank you, Shawn. 00:02:05.390 --> 00:02:08.100 Can everyone hear me OK? 00:02:08.100 --> 00:02:09.179 Ashley: Yes. 00:02:09.179 --> 00:02:10.259 Shannon: Great. 00:02:10.259 --> 00:02:15.860 Thank you all for listening today, and thank you to the coordinators for the opportunity 00:02:15.860 --> 00:02:20.990 to talk about this fun and exciting project at the Wind River Reservation for drought 00:02:20.990 --> 00:02:22.360 preparedness. 00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:30.830 My talk is going to cover some of the process and framework for doing the co-production 00:02:30.830 --> 00:02:35.110 work with the tribes, and then some of the talk is going to cover some of the actual 00:02:35.110 --> 00:02:40.980 content of the technical assessment that we're doing with the tribes. 00:02:40.980 --> 00:02:45.960 I'm located here at Colorado State University, on the university side of the North Central 00:02:45.960 --> 00:02:46.960 Climate Science Center. 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:51.770 This is a map of our region and the public lands within our region. 00:02:51.770 --> 00:02:58.540 We do have a lot of public lands, scientists, and managers that we serve throughout the 00:02:58.540 --> 00:03:04.760 region, and part of that mandate is supporting tribes in climate adaptation. 00:03:04.760 --> 00:03:07.690 This is one of the North Central Climate Science Center-sponsored projects. 00:03:07.690 --> 00:03:15.760 This is just a map of the reservations in the region, so you get an idea. 00:03:15.760 --> 00:03:23.760 We have 31 federally recognized tribes and one state recognized tribe, and we do acknowledge 00:03:23.760 --> 00:03:26.100 that these are just the reservation boundaries. 00:03:26.100 --> 00:03:31.670 This isn't all the tribal lands, and certainly not all the indigenous people and organizations 00:03:31.670 --> 00:03:33.750 that are outside of the reservation boundaries. 00:03:33.750 --> 00:03:35.190 Now, let's see. 00:03:35.190 --> 00:03:39.280 My pointer's a little wonky, but getting over here. 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:42.350 Today, we're going to focus on...Can you see that? 00:03:42.350 --> 00:03:44.510 Can you see my pointer? 00:03:44.510 --> 00:03:45.510 Shawn: Yeah. 00:03:45.510 --> 00:03:51.030 Shannon: Today, we're going to focus on the Wind River Reservation, which is here in Wyoming. 00:03:51.030 --> 00:03:53.150 It's the only reservation in Wyoming. 00:03:53.150 --> 00:03:59.650 It's the home of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern and Northern Arapaho tribes. 00:03:59.650 --> 00:04:05.470 There are about 26,000-plus people who live at Wind River Reservation. 00:04:05.470 --> 00:04:14.070 It's a 2.2 million-acre reservation, so rather large...seventh largest in the United States, 00:04:14.070 --> 00:04:16.940 based on land mass, and fifth in population. 00:04:16.940 --> 00:04:23.599 The tribal membership is a little over 10,000 of the Northern Arapaho, and about 4,300 and 00:04:23.599 --> 00:04:25.590 some change of the Eastern Shoshone. 00:04:25.590 --> 00:04:29.539 The Eastern Shoshone tribe is the treaty tribe of the reservation, and then the Northern 00:04:29.539 --> 00:04:34.080 Arapaho were moved there later in the 1870s. 00:04:34.080 --> 00:04:41.870 This is a more detailed map of the Wind River Reservation. 00:04:41.870 --> 00:04:48.330 It's characterized by a mountainous region over here in the western portion, alpine and 00:04:48.330 --> 00:04:49.330 sub-alpine. 00:04:49.330 --> 00:04:58.530 As you move west, it gets much drier, more arid -- sage brush, steppe, largely -- ecosystem 00:04:58.530 --> 00:04:59.780 in that area. 00:04:59.780 --> 00:05:02.600 Drought is a big concern for the reservation. 00:05:02.600 --> 00:05:08.139 They've seen several very severe droughts in recent decades, affecting water availability, 00:05:08.139 --> 00:05:18.550 which affects almost everything at the reservation, such as reservoir management, tribal agriculture, 00:05:18.550 --> 00:05:24.780 mainly ranching, and fish and wildlife, among other things. 00:05:24.780 --> 00:05:31.319 We are working very closely with the tribal water engineer's office and the Wind River 00:05:31.319 --> 00:05:40.661 Water Resources and Control Board to work on this project of drought preparedness. 00:05:40.661 --> 00:05:45.159 The project has three main, over-arching components to it. 00:05:45.159 --> 00:05:51.669 One is the drought risk technical assessment, which is where the USGS funding is coming 00:05:51.669 --> 00:05:54.050 through the climate science centers. 00:05:54.050 --> 00:05:56.180 The second is capacity-building and monitoring. 00:05:56.180 --> 00:06:02.009 The third is drought planning. 00:06:02.009 --> 00:06:08.639 To give you a little bit more detail of what each of these three components entails, one 00:06:08.639 --> 00:06:17.439 is social science interviews and field work, primarily to date focusing on water managers 00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:26.129 and some of the producers on the reservation, about drought risks and responses, and also 00:06:26.129 --> 00:06:34.560 to document local knowledge and observations to inform the rest of the science and planning 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:35.620 activities. 00:06:35.620 --> 00:06:40.289 We're doing this integrated assessment of drought vulnerability, which includes the 00:06:40.289 --> 00:06:46.319 social vulnerability assessment, physical climate assessment, and hydro-climatological 00:06:46.319 --> 00:06:56.650 assessment from past to the future, and then looking at ecosystem's impacts and responses. 00:06:56.650 --> 00:07:01.180 The third component is this capacity building and training. 00:07:01.180 --> 00:07:05.499 We're working with them to develop a quarterly climate and drought summary as a decision-support 00:07:05.499 --> 00:07:08.490 tool for the water managers and others at the reservation. 00:07:08.490 --> 00:07:12.770 They've been doing training for the staff of the tribal water engineer's office, and 00:07:12.770 --> 00:07:15.820 then youth and adult water and drought educational activities. 00:07:15.820 --> 00:07:17.650 I'll get into more detail about each of these. 00:07:17.650 --> 00:07:21.509 I'm just giving the high-level overview, first. 00:07:21.509 --> 00:07:24.349 As I mentioned, drought planning. 00:07:24.349 --> 00:07:30.090 The overall target for the project is a reservation-wide drought plan. 00:07:30.090 --> 00:07:36.729 This, of course, will be informed closely by the technical assessment. 00:07:36.729 --> 00:07:45.780 Lastly, we also have a project evaluation that's happening to look at both the processes 00:07:45.780 --> 00:07:52.339 of the research, as well as the outputs and outcomes of the research, to make sure that 00:07:52.339 --> 00:08:00.150 we are doing usable and actionable science for the managers. 00:08:00.150 --> 00:08:05.680 A summary of the project activities, to date. 00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:13.069 The genesis of the project, it started in the spring of 2014 when we started working 00:08:13.069 --> 00:08:16.400 on the proposals with the tribes. 00:08:16.400 --> 00:08:22.270 This went through the summer, into the fall when the proposals were due in 2014. 00:08:22.270 --> 00:08:30.809 This included many visits by myself to Wind River Reservation to build those relationships 00:08:30.809 --> 00:08:37.089 and work closely with them to make sure that we were designing the project, from the beginning, 00:08:37.089 --> 00:08:39.610 in a way that they wanted. 00:08:39.610 --> 00:08:43.640 As I mentioned, the Wind River Reservation Climate and Drought Summary which I'll show 00:08:43.640 --> 00:08:46.850 later, we've produced seven with them to date. 00:08:46.850 --> 00:08:52.070 The last one was just released, I think, it was last month. 00:08:52.070 --> 00:09:00.450 We've had a series of workshops at the reservation with the scientists and the managers and producers 00:09:00.450 --> 00:09:03.230 and other stakeholders. 00:09:03.230 --> 00:09:05.661 There will have been five as of the end of July. 00:09:05.661 --> 00:09:09.390 The next one is happening next week. 00:09:09.390 --> 00:09:13.660 Then I mentioned the training for the tribal water technicians. 00:09:13.660 --> 00:09:21.500 We, with some support from NIDIS, the National Integrated Drought Information System, drought.gov, 00:09:21.500 --> 00:09:27.770 we have sent them to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to work with the National Drought Mitigation 00:09:27.770 --> 00:09:35.340 Center and the High Plains Regional Climate Center to train them on the data and the science 00:09:35.340 --> 00:09:41.120 that goes into the creation of the Climate and Drought Summary, with the idea that ultimately 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:44.650 the production of that summary will transfer to the tribes. 00:09:44.650 --> 00:09:51.200 Then, as I mentioned, the in-depth interviews with water managers have been going on during 00:09:51.200 --> 00:09:57.870 2014, through 2015, and to date I've done 20 of those interviews. 00:09:57.870 --> 00:10:05.600 So the technical assessment leadership is a combination of scientists across disciplines 00:10:05.600 --> 00:10:08.660 and tribal members and managers. 00:10:08.660 --> 00:10:14.130 You can see on the outside the two leads of the project are Cody Knutson at University 00:10:14.130 --> 00:10:19.200 of Nebraska-Lincoln and the National Drought Mitigation Center and then myself here at 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:20.200 CSU. 00:10:20.200 --> 00:10:27.290 On the top level are the tribal partners, Gary Collins who is the former tribal water 00:10:27.290 --> 00:10:28.580 engineer. 00:10:28.580 --> 00:10:33.830 Mitch Cottenoir who's the current water tribal engineer and Al C'Bearing who's the point 00:10:33.830 --> 00:10:38.310 of contact for the project and one of the water technicians in the tribal water engineer's 00:10:38.310 --> 00:10:39.970 office. 00:10:39.970 --> 00:10:47.630 On the bottom level, you have the other team leads and PIs, Mark Svoboda at the National 00:10:47.630 --> 00:10:53.020 Drought Mitigation Center and Imtiaz Rangwala at the CU Boulder, the University of Colorado 00:10:53.020 --> 00:10:59.850 at Boulder and NOAA and then Jennifer Wellman who is a hydrologist who is the Wind River, 00:10:59.850 --> 00:11:05.880 Wyoming, EPSCoR local scientist and coordinator. 00:11:05.880 --> 00:11:09.090 This slide has a lot on it. 00:11:09.090 --> 00:11:14.280 I really don't expect you to be able to read everything, but the point is to show that 00:11:14.280 --> 00:11:22.330 there are a lot of other collaborators and partners across the tribes, across various 00:11:22.330 --> 00:11:26.060 agencies and universities. 00:11:26.060 --> 00:11:34.690 We are leveraging a whole lot of human power and funding for this project beyond just the 00:11:34.690 --> 00:11:35.910 North Central Climate Science Center. 00:11:35.910 --> 00:11:41.160 At the bottom are the acronyms of all the various agencies and universities involved. 00:11:41.160 --> 00:11:51.590 You can see at the core here is the organizations of the Wind River Indian Reservation who has 00:11:51.590 --> 00:11:57.140 some stake in water management and drought, or the impact of drought, and then this is 00:11:57.140 --> 00:12:00.320 the core project management team on the next level. 00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:07.090 Then we have a local technical advisory group with folks from the different tribal departments 00:12:07.090 --> 00:12:14.670 and various agencies, federal agencies, and then we have this broader team of technical 00:12:14.670 --> 00:12:22.550 support and project collaborators at the top. 00:12:22.550 --> 00:12:25.180 How are we doing the science integration? 00:12:25.180 --> 00:12:29.670 This follows our North Central Climate Science Center framework for doing management driven 00:12:29.670 --> 00:12:30.670 science. 00:12:30.670 --> 00:12:37.240 Again, you can see at the center is the Wind River Indian Reservation and the tribal water 00:12:37.240 --> 00:12:40.720 engineer's office, water board, and the business councils. 00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:47.470 Then we have our science team broken up into the different disciplinary groups at the center 00:12:47.470 --> 00:12:54.200 which is the physical climate team and hydro climate experts, the ecological impact here. 00:12:54.200 --> 00:12:59.580 Then at the bottom is the human vulnerability adaptation and the team leads are in black. 00:12:59.580 --> 00:13:05.010 You can see who those are, Mark Svoboda and Imtiaz Rangwala for the physical climate team. 00:13:05.010 --> 00:13:10.310 Jennifer Wellman for the ecological impact team, myself, and Cody Knutson for the social 00:13:10.310 --> 00:13:13.250 science team. 00:13:13.250 --> 00:13:22.550 Each team has monthly calls, and then periodically we have all hands calls and webinars to share 00:13:22.550 --> 00:13:24.230 across teams. 00:13:24.230 --> 00:13:30.550 We pretty much always have someone or multiple people represented from the tribes as well 00:13:30.550 --> 00:13:34.000 who participate in those calls. 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:39.450 I mentioned the Wind River Climate and Drought Summary. 00:13:39.450 --> 00:13:45.440 This is the decision support tool that we've been working on with them to help them with 00:13:45.440 --> 00:13:51.620 implementing their tribal water code and their 15 beneficial and equal uses of water in their 00:13:51.620 --> 00:13:58.190 tribal water code in which they have to make decisions and declarations about water availability 00:13:58.190 --> 00:13:59.190 at the reservation. 00:13:59.190 --> 00:14:02.200 Whether it's surplus, normal, or drought conditions there. 00:14:02.200 --> 00:14:10.470 This is actually a picture of the first summary that was released back in spring of 2015, 00:14:10.470 --> 00:14:14.940 March of 2015. 00:14:14.940 --> 00:14:19.000 We've been trying to work with them to time these with their decision calendar for when 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:20.550 they need to make these decisions. 00:14:20.550 --> 00:14:26.160 These are the culmination of many, many months of meetings and calls and workshops and emails 00:14:26.160 --> 00:14:27.380 and on and on. 00:14:27.380 --> 00:14:31.530 Again, this is very much a co-produced tool. 00:14:31.530 --> 00:14:37.620 As I mentioned earlier, we've now released the seventh one just last month. 00:14:37.620 --> 00:14:42.380 The URL is at the bottom where you can find those at the travel water engineer's office 00:14:42.380 --> 00:14:43.380 at Wind River. 00:14:43.380 --> 00:14:46.700 I don't think the seventh one is up there yet. 00:14:46.700 --> 00:14:48.510 At least, last I looked. 00:14:48.510 --> 00:14:52.130 Then through the social science methods and our collaborative approach for co-production. 00:14:52.130 --> 00:14:59.541 This also informs the technical assessment and vice versa in making sure that all of 00:14:59.541 --> 00:15:05.180 the work that we're doing is culturally sensitive, relevant, and usable for the managers. 00:15:05.180 --> 00:15:10.910 As I mentioned, the goal is ultimately to transfer the production of this summary to 00:15:10.910 --> 00:15:16.650 the water technicians themselves which they have started contributing to these summaries 00:15:16.650 --> 00:15:20.430 over the last couple. 00:15:20.430 --> 00:15:26.720 We are also testing some new tools and doing a variety of physical climate analyses. 00:15:26.720 --> 00:15:32.370 This is what's referred to as the EDDI, the Evaporative Drought Demand Index. 00:15:32.370 --> 00:15:37.690 You can see there that it's overlaid with the map of the Wind River Reservation and 00:15:37.690 --> 00:15:42.570 the Wind River Basin as well as the larger Big Horn Basin that the Wind River is part 00:15:42.570 --> 00:15:44.310 of. 00:15:44.310 --> 00:15:52.330 Basically, what the EDDI does is it calculates drought based on atmospheric thirst. 00:15:52.330 --> 00:16:02.380 This actually is a tool that seems to work very, very well for monitoring and for projecting 00:16:02.380 --> 00:16:05.340 droughts in an early warning system. 00:16:05.340 --> 00:16:11.680 We did some ground truthing with this tool last summer, and it seemed to perform very, 00:16:11.680 --> 00:16:12.680 very well. 00:16:12.680 --> 00:16:17.320 We had a workshop with the water managers where we got their direct feedback on what 00:16:17.320 --> 00:16:21.750 the EDDI was saying at various time points throughout the 2015 irrigation season and 00:16:21.750 --> 00:16:23.190 what they were observing on the ground. 00:16:23.190 --> 00:16:26.800 There seemed to be a pretty good match, so we're pretty excited about the possibility 00:16:26.800 --> 00:16:28.020 of this tool. 00:16:28.020 --> 00:16:34.170 It actually performed even better at this scale than the national drought monitor. 00:16:34.170 --> 00:16:38.160 We're working with the National Drought Mitigation Center, of course, to look at how these tools 00:16:38.160 --> 00:16:44.250 can inform each other to better provide early warning systems for drought. 00:16:44.250 --> 00:16:52.160 [pause] Shannon: We're still in somewhat of an early 00:16:52.160 --> 00:16:57.200 phase of some of the technical assessment. 00:16:57.200 --> 00:17:03.580 The tradeoff of doing this type of a coproduction with this large amount of collaborators is 00:17:03.580 --> 00:17:07.670 that it moves a little bit more slowly. 00:17:07.670 --> 00:17:13.159 We're just getting the ball rolling in terms of some of the analysis and output that's 00:17:13.159 --> 00:17:14.159 being done. 00:17:14.159 --> 00:17:19.139 As I mentioned, we have a workshop at Wind River next week, so we're going to start getting 00:17:19.139 --> 00:17:22.250 some feedback on this. 00:17:22.250 --> 00:17:25.429 Like I said, this is part of our physical climate team. 00:17:25.429 --> 00:17:29.389 These are the folks that are in Boulder, CU Boulder and NOAA. 00:17:29.389 --> 00:17:34.510 I'm just going to give a couple of quick examples of some of the analysis that we're starting 00:17:34.510 --> 00:17:40.360 to look at, a more simple look so it doesn't get too terribly complicated. 00:17:40.360 --> 00:17:46.409 Just to give a flavor and a lens into some of the things that we're doing and how we're 00:17:46.409 --> 00:17:49.350 going about it. 00:17:49.350 --> 00:17:52.879 This is a snowpack and glacier-fed system. 00:17:52.879 --> 00:17:58.830 The timing, quantity, and quality of snowpack and runoff are key determinants in terms of 00:17:58.830 --> 00:18:02.039 water availability and drought risk at the reservation. 00:18:02.039 --> 00:18:07.789 This is, again, just one of the many variables that we're looking at, but this is a really 00:18:07.789 --> 00:18:14.680 important one when working with the local decision makers because they are so snowpack 00:18:14.680 --> 00:18:19.480 dependent and runoff dependent for their management. 00:18:19.480 --> 00:18:26.929 We're starting off by looking at SNOTEL sites to put this into the historical context, combined 00:18:26.929 --> 00:18:30.909 with, again, the information we're gleaning from the interviews to put it in the local 00:18:30.909 --> 00:18:33.999 context and local observation. 00:18:33.999 --> 00:18:40.280 We're looking at SNOTEL sites basin wide throughout the Wind River Basin, combined with those 00:18:40.280 --> 00:18:45.139 local workshops and input through our workshops and webinars. 00:18:45.139 --> 00:18:51.100 This is one of the analyses that's happening with Imtiaz and his group. 00:18:51.100 --> 00:18:59.029 SNOTEL doesn't tell you how much of the precipitation falls as rain versus snow, so we have to do 00:18:59.029 --> 00:19:00.029 an estimate. 00:19:00.029 --> 00:19:05.110 This issue of precipitation falling as rain versus snow is an important one. 00:19:05.110 --> 00:19:14.090 This is because the climate models are projecting for this region that it's very likely that 00:19:14.090 --> 00:19:19.779 we're going to see a shift in precipitation falling as rain and snow. 00:19:19.779 --> 00:19:25.750 That makes a difference in terms of timing and amount of runoff. 00:19:25.750 --> 00:19:30.870 Because if more precipitation falls as rain than as snow, you don't have that snow melt 00:19:30.870 --> 00:19:38.779 that is taking you through the irrigation season to the end of summer and early fall. 00:19:38.779 --> 00:19:46.070 What this is looking at is an equation to look at the combination of SWE, which is snow 00:19:46.070 --> 00:19:54.240 water equivalent, precipitation and temperature, and look at these trends to estimate the difference 00:19:54.240 --> 00:19:59.669 of what's falling as rain versus what's falling as precipitation. 00:19:59.669 --> 00:20:02.679 Then we're looking at these various drought years. 00:20:02.679 --> 00:20:05.549 Here we mention 2015 versus the mean. 00:20:05.549 --> 00:20:10.799 2000 was an interesting year in terms of this rain versus snow equation and I will get back 00:20:10.799 --> 00:20:12.379 to that in more detail later. 00:20:12.379 --> 00:20:19.249 Essentially, trying to answer this question, are we already seeing a shift from precipitation 00:20:19.249 --> 00:20:21.280 falling as rain versus snow? 00:20:21.280 --> 00:20:27.610 We don't have the answers yet, but that's what we're working on. 00:20:27.610 --> 00:20:32.970 We are looking at these SNOTEL sites throughout the region, but also working with the managers 00:20:32.970 --> 00:20:38.950 to hone in on specific sites that are of particular importance to them for their management, so 00:20:38.950 --> 00:20:45.330 the station at Hobbs Park right here is one that is particularly important because this 00:20:45.330 --> 00:20:51.289 is the station that they use to try and understand dynamics in the Little Wind River Basin. 00:20:51.289 --> 00:20:56.929 The Little Wind River Basin is where the majority of travel communities and producers live, 00:20:56.929 --> 00:21:00.860 and the majority of where the TWE focus is -- the Tribal Water Engineers office -- because 00:21:00.860 --> 00:21:06.150 it is where they experience water shortages a lot on the reservation. 00:21:06.150 --> 00:21:11.400 There are large areas on the reservations with non-Indian producers and other managers, 00:21:11.400 --> 00:21:18.419 such as the Bureau of Reclamation who impounds a lot of the water up in Boysen Reservoir 00:21:18.419 --> 00:21:21.320 and Bull Lake over here. 00:21:21.320 --> 00:21:25.990 This whole system on the big Wind River is actually managed by the Bureau of Reclamation 00:21:25.990 --> 00:21:31.419 and a lot of non-Indian producers in that region. 00:21:31.419 --> 00:21:35.259 Hobb's park is at about a little bit over 10,000 feet. 00:21:35.259 --> 00:21:45.610 Some of the output, again, this isn't all, but this is just to give you a flavor, is 00:21:45.610 --> 00:21:57.470 looking at this estimate between real precipitation records versus estimated and rain versus snow. 00:21:57.470 --> 00:22:03.409 Like I mentioned, the SNOTEL sights do not tell you how much precipitation has fallen 00:22:03.409 --> 00:22:05.080 as rain versus snow. 00:22:05.080 --> 00:22:08.889 The solid blue line is the total recorded precipitation versus the estimated, which 00:22:08.889 --> 00:22:17.130 are the dashes. 00:22:17.130 --> 00:22:24.910 What you're seeing here is that there is a pretty good matchup between what on my screen 00:22:24.910 --> 00:22:31.019 looks like a mustardy colored line, which is the maximum snow water equivalent, and 00:22:31.019 --> 00:22:32.929 the estimated snow fall. 00:22:32.929 --> 00:22:39.360 Meaning that most of the precipitation is falling as snow versus rain, which is the 00:22:39.360 --> 00:22:40.720 green line. 00:22:40.720 --> 00:22:45.379 Because those lines match up pretty well, the estimated versus the actual recorded. 00:22:45.379 --> 00:22:51.809 It means that this algorithm is working pretty well. 00:22:51.809 --> 00:23:02.220 What we're also doing is taking the information from the interviews in terms of when people 00:23:02.220 --> 00:23:10.409 have experienced some of the most severe droughts at the reservation and comparing that to the 00:23:10.409 --> 00:23:12.869 drought indicators and climate data. 00:23:12.869 --> 00:23:18.429 This is just one slide that shows you some of the different years that came out in the 00:23:18.429 --> 00:23:21.169 interviews as being important drought impacts. 00:23:21.169 --> 00:23:31.499 Again, I'll just point out that one of the years is 2015, this line here, which on the 00:23:31.499 --> 00:23:35.279 surface doesn't appear to be a drought year. 00:23:35.279 --> 00:23:40.309 However, that issue of rain versus snow and the timing of that is important. 00:23:40.309 --> 00:23:44.919 I'll come back to that again later. 00:23:44.919 --> 00:23:50.120 I also mentioned part of our physical climate team is at the National Drought Mitigation 00:23:50.120 --> 00:23:51.120 Center. 00:23:51.120 --> 00:23:54.619 Mark Svoboda is the lead in that and here are some of his collaborators. 00:23:54.619 --> 00:24:00.220 We're working with them to look at a variety of drought indicators and evaluating them 00:24:00.220 --> 00:24:04.259 in the local context. 00:24:04.259 --> 00:24:10.629 All this will be presented next week at the reservations to get feedback from our stakeholders 00:24:10.629 --> 00:24:13.539 in this iterative coproduction process. 00:24:13.539 --> 00:24:16.340 Just another sample output. 00:24:16.340 --> 00:24:19.149 Again, this is draft. 00:24:19.149 --> 00:24:20.759 All this is draft data. 00:24:20.759 --> 00:24:22.490 None of this is final output. 00:24:22.490 --> 00:24:26.970 As I mentioned, we're in the early to middle stages of this. 00:24:26.970 --> 00:24:35.630 This is just another example of an output looking at the SPI, the Standard Participation 00:24:35.630 --> 00:24:40.250 Index in the counties that are in the Wind River Reservation. 00:24:40.250 --> 00:24:47.029 A lot of this data from the National Drought Mitigation Center is now in their drought 00:24:47.029 --> 00:24:48.029 risk atlas. 00:24:48.029 --> 00:24:49.559 Here's the URL right here. 00:24:49.559 --> 00:24:54.470 It's a relatively new tool that has a lot of different drought indicator data that you 00:24:54.470 --> 00:24:58.730 can pull up and look at, and a whole variety of temporal and spatial scales. 00:24:58.730 --> 00:25:03.379 It's a really good tool to know about if you haven't seen that yet. 00:25:03.379 --> 00:25:08.659 What we're trying to understand and work with the managers is asking this question. 00:25:08.659 --> 00:25:11.980 "What's your risk at any given threshold?" 00:25:11.980 --> 00:25:15.269 In other words, this is the six-month's SPI. 00:25:15.269 --> 00:25:23.749 You can see here, anything that falls below the -2 is a pretty significant drought. 00:25:23.749 --> 00:25:27.909 Mark says, -1, he would expect people to start seeing impacts. 00:25:27.909 --> 00:25:35.100 You can see some pretty big droughts here in the mid-2000s, in 2012, 2013. 00:25:35.100 --> 00:25:39.470 These are ones that people talked about a lot in the interviews, so we can really get 00:25:39.470 --> 00:25:44.850 detailed information on what happened on the ground, what did people observe, what was 00:25:44.850 --> 00:25:49.039 impacted, and what were the management issues related to it? 00:25:49.039 --> 00:25:54.039 Ultimately, how can we as a team help you with better data and information so you can 00:25:54.039 --> 00:25:57.340 manage these impacts better? 00:25:57.340 --> 00:25:59.779 The black lines are actually...Just a quick note. 00:25:59.779 --> 00:26:01.259 This is an experiment. 00:26:01.259 --> 00:26:05.739 These are from the drought impacts reporter which is on the National Drought Mitigation 00:26:05.739 --> 00:26:06.889 Center site. 00:26:06.889 --> 00:26:12.090 These are some sort of citizen science people going in and actually logging impacts. 00:26:12.090 --> 00:26:13.429 Others are media reports. 00:26:13.429 --> 00:26:19.539 Others are from CoCoRaHS, the Community Rain, Hail and Snow monitoring network. 00:26:19.539 --> 00:26:26.059 There's a bit of a lag time because I think they just put these in at January instead 00:26:26.059 --> 00:26:32.539 of when they actually entered them. 00:26:32.539 --> 00:26:40.950 Looking at different time scales, a 12-month SPI versus a 6-month SPI, and understanding 00:26:40.950 --> 00:26:48.889 different phenomenon in different time scales, such as impacts to growing season versus time 00:26:48.889 --> 00:26:55.289 periods of importance for fish and wildlife management versus vegetation for cultural 00:26:55.289 --> 00:27:01.950 or ceremonial purposes, just to name a few. 00:27:01.950 --> 00:27:07.019 Putting these into the context of regional drought trends, especially since the early 00:27:07.019 --> 00:27:15.960 2000s, when they have seen a series of extreme drought conditions as we have in the larger 00:27:15.960 --> 00:27:21.730 western portion of the US. 00:27:21.730 --> 00:27:25.230 I mentioned the year 2015. 00:27:25.230 --> 00:27:32.190 This is one of the things that we're starting to write up as a collaborative across the 00:27:32.190 --> 00:27:42.350 various science teams to do an interdisciplinary, integrated paper on what we're calling a micro-drought, 00:27:42.350 --> 00:27:47.039 meaning a drought that's short in duration and highly localized. 00:27:47.039 --> 00:27:53.109 As I showed, it didn't look like much of a drought if you just looked at the basic indicator 00:27:53.109 --> 00:27:55.899 data for 2015. 00:27:55.899 --> 00:28:03.850 What happened on the ground was they had low snowpacks by January. 00:28:03.850 --> 00:28:11.359 By March and April, snowpack was very, very low, 56 percent of normal, so they were getting 00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:14.480 really worried about the irrigation season. 00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:19.639 Then, anyone who lived in this region will remember, in May, we just got a deluge. 00:28:19.639 --> 00:28:25.989 It poured cats and dogs, but this was rain, not snow. 00:28:25.989 --> 00:28:32.640 The reservoir is filled, but they had to release a lot of that water. 00:28:32.640 --> 00:28:36.389 They had to release it because there's only so much storage capacity in the Little Wind 00:28:36.389 --> 00:28:39.220 River System in Washakie Reservoir. 00:28:39.220 --> 00:28:43.289 Part of the challenge in that system is they just don't have a lot of storage. 00:28:43.289 --> 00:28:44.850 I think Washakie Reservoir is about 8,000 acre-feet? 00:28:44.850 --> 00:28:47.259 Yep, it says right there at the bottom. 00:28:47.259 --> 00:28:56.759 What happened was that by the beginning of August, they started to run out of water. 00:28:56.759 --> 00:28:57.759 Why? 00:28:57.759 --> 00:29:03.070 Because they didn't have that snowpack that was releasing that later-season water. 00:29:03.070 --> 00:29:08.470 By about mid-August, they basically had to end the irrigation season, a season which 00:29:08.470 --> 00:29:13.999 normally goes to about the beginning of October, sometimes even later depending on what's going 00:29:13.999 --> 00:29:16.059 on with the season. 00:29:16.059 --> 00:29:22.710 They had a lot of backlash from local producers who didn't quite understand the dynamics that 00:29:22.710 --> 00:29:28.460 had happened and we're very, very upset that they were cut off because, of course, that 00:29:28.460 --> 00:29:34.299 hurts their production and their livelihood but this is the reality that the tribal water 00:29:34.299 --> 00:29:38.720 engineer's was dealing, is that they just didn't have enough storage and they just didn't 00:29:38.720 --> 00:29:45.169 have enough snowpack and that precipitation falling as rain later in the season versus 00:29:45.169 --> 00:29:49.489 falling as snow earlier in the season is what really hurt them. 00:29:49.489 --> 00:29:54.789 Now, I'm going to put you here a little bit. 00:29:54.789 --> 00:30:02.899 Part of my role here at the North Central Climate Science Center, I do a lot of tribal 00:30:02.899 --> 00:30:08.929 engagements and I've been working with tribes for a very long time so I see part of my role 00:30:08.929 --> 00:30:16.280 as helping other sciences and agency folks who want to work with tribes and don't maybe 00:30:16.280 --> 00:30:21.669 have the experience to understand a little bit better how to work in an Indian country 00:30:21.669 --> 00:30:24.529 although you really have to have the experience and know-how. 00:30:24.529 --> 00:30:32.840 These are just some of my lessons that I've learned in my work both with Wind River Reservation 00:30:32.840 --> 00:30:40.929 and my longer-term work for about 15 years now with tribes on climate change issues. 00:30:40.929 --> 00:30:48.139 First and foremost, the importance of focusing on relationships and trust is paramount. 00:30:48.139 --> 00:30:53.529 I mentioned during the summer and fall of 2014, I spent a lot of time going up to the 00:30:53.529 --> 00:31:00.610 reservation, working with them, building those relationships and trusts, working on the proposal, 00:31:00.610 --> 00:31:13.169 etc. Trust takes a lot of work and isn't easily gained because of the failures of our predecessors 00:31:13.169 --> 00:31:19.119 and some contemporaries and so you really have to work hard at it. 00:31:19.119 --> 00:31:21.229 It's the foundation of everything else. 00:31:21.229 --> 00:31:24.749 By the way, a lot of these lessons are lessons when we're working with stakeholders more 00:31:24.749 --> 00:31:30.279 broadly, but they are particularly important when working with tribes. 00:31:30.279 --> 00:31:39.139 Secondly, especially in the beginning, do a lot of listening and learning. 00:31:39.139 --> 00:31:47.399 I see so much value from this works in learning from the local context and learning from them 00:31:47.399 --> 00:31:51.559 and their knowledge of their environment and their climate and their weather. 00:31:51.559 --> 00:31:52.840 It's a two-way street. 00:31:52.840 --> 00:31:59.480 It's actually a multi-way street but culturally, you'll get a lot more respect if you do a 00:31:59.480 --> 00:32:07.700 lot of listening as opposed to a lot teaching, so to speak, and trying impress people with 00:32:07.700 --> 00:32:14.940 your own knowledge, people are much more impressed by your character than your knowledge. 00:32:14.940 --> 00:32:23.529 Third, respect culture, and cultural and local knowledge, and incorporate local knowledge 00:32:23.529 --> 00:32:29.090 and traditional ecological knowledge to the best of your ability. 00:32:29.090 --> 00:32:37.390 It's really important to understand and respect local practices, taboos, language, etc. and 00:32:37.390 --> 00:32:43.590 do what you can to incorporate local knowledge to the extent possible. 00:32:43.590 --> 00:32:48.039 Focus on early deliverables. 00:32:48.039 --> 00:32:51.390 This is really important for this project. 00:32:51.390 --> 00:32:57.990 We, in the beginning, before we even started writing the proposal, we sat down with them 00:32:57.990 --> 00:33:03.229 and asked them the question, "What is that you need now and how can we help you now?" 00:33:03.229 --> 00:33:05.360 "This is going to take a while to write this proposal. 00:33:05.360 --> 00:33:07.480 It's going to take a while to get this funding. 00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:12.090 It's going to take a while to put everything in place, do the assessment, do the planning 00:33:12.090 --> 00:33:14.220 but what is it that we can help you with now." 00:33:14.220 --> 00:33:23.210 That was when the idea was to do the summary and do some trainings. 00:33:23.210 --> 00:33:29.059 They had learned about everything that was going on at Navajo Nation actually and Hopi 00:33:29.059 --> 00:33:34.919 Nation and wanted to do something similar to those summaries that they were putting 00:33:34.919 --> 00:33:35.919 out. 00:33:35.919 --> 00:33:42.820 We started working on that very early and as I mentioned had the first climate and drought 00:33:42.820 --> 00:33:46.259 summary out before we had the funding for the technical assessment. 00:33:46.259 --> 00:33:50.330 Again, this was through leveraging a lot of other resources. 00:33:50.330 --> 00:33:55.120 NIDIS helped a lot at that point, the National Drought Mitigation Center, the High Plains 00:33:55.120 --> 00:33:59.690 Regional Climate Center and the North Central Climate Science Center. 00:33:59.690 --> 00:34:04.779 Fifth, make sure the co-production is end-to-end. 00:34:04.779 --> 00:34:10.639 Like I mentioned, starting with collaboration on the proposal development including putting 00:34:10.639 --> 00:34:14.119 funding in for the tribes themselves. 00:34:14.119 --> 00:34:19.520 I've seen many times over people who want to work with tribes but they don't have any 00:34:19.520 --> 00:34:28.179 funding to support the tribes and that's a recipe for failure in my opinion. 00:34:28.179 --> 00:34:32.510 It's really, really important to make sure that the funding is in there for the tribes 00:34:32.510 --> 00:34:33.510 themselves. 00:34:33.510 --> 00:34:40.730 On the Wind River Project, we have funding for our tribal Co-PIs and partners to actually 00:34:40.730 --> 00:34:46.720 participate in the research and participate in the whole project. 00:34:46.720 --> 00:34:52.889 Six is, work out a protocol for managing and sharing data and information. 00:34:52.889 --> 00:34:54.539 This is extremely important. 00:34:54.539 --> 00:35:01.650 This gets into a whole of bunch of issues with tribal intellectual property rights. 00:35:01.650 --> 00:35:12.280 Tribes run the spectrum in terms of their openness or being more closed about their 00:35:12.280 --> 00:35:16.290 own intellectual property, their TEK etc. 00:35:16.290 --> 00:35:22.089 It's really important to make sure that you have an understanding of where the various 00:35:22.089 --> 00:35:29.660 tribes sit on that spectrum and to the extent possible if they don't already have a research 00:35:29.660 --> 00:35:32.190 protocol, get one in place. 00:35:32.190 --> 00:35:36.630 It's actually something that I've done with different tribes that I've worked with is 00:35:36.630 --> 00:35:41.200 helping them if they don't already have one to develop their own tribal research protocol. 00:35:41.200 --> 00:35:46.480 We did this for the Wind River tribes and so it helps guide us in terms of not only 00:35:46.480 --> 00:35:54.020 the data and the information sharing itself but also the process how we go about the co-production, 00:35:54.020 --> 00:36:00.510 how we go about the process of research and communicating and sharing information and 00:36:00.510 --> 00:36:07.450 who we need to get the authority from etc. etc. 00:36:07.450 --> 00:36:11.130 Find ways to regular communication but respect people time. 00:36:11.130 --> 00:36:18.590 As I mentioned, we have these monthly calls and periodic all-hands calls and workshops, 00:36:18.590 --> 00:36:19.690 etc. 00:36:19.690 --> 00:36:25.970 We've been really fortunate and that we've had a lot of participation from Wind River 00:36:25.970 --> 00:36:31.640 reservation but at the same time, you have to understand these people are running a nation 00:36:31.640 --> 00:36:33.809 so to speak. 00:36:33.809 --> 00:36:40.510 The people that work for the tribes are often carrying an enormous burden and have a lot 00:36:40.510 --> 00:36:47.109 of pressure on their time so just being really flexible about inviting them to whatever they 00:36:47.109 --> 00:36:54.180 can make it but if they don't, not taking it personally and not worrying about it because 00:36:54.180 --> 00:37:02.190 they do have a lot of demands on their time, as we all do, let go of expectations. 00:37:02.190 --> 00:37:06.331 I don't mean to have no expectations because of course, you want to have goals and objectives 00:37:06.331 --> 00:37:12.220 and all of that, but acknowledging that you're operating in a different culture, in a different 00:37:12.220 --> 00:37:16.079 worldview and way of life and practices and all these things. 00:37:16.079 --> 00:37:21.470 Sometimes, you go out to these remote locations and things don't happen the way you expected 00:37:21.470 --> 00:37:28.150 them to and that's OK because oftentimes, what does end up happening ends up being really 00:37:28.150 --> 00:37:30.270 productive for the project. 00:37:30.270 --> 00:37:36.230 Just, again, having that flexibility and that understanding that things aren't always going 00:37:36.230 --> 00:37:41.940 to go the way we, as western scientists, would like them to go. 00:37:41.940 --> 00:37:49.020 Lastly, I always think it's a good idea to find ways to give back to the community especially 00:37:49.020 --> 00:37:54.309 with the students and the elders. 00:37:54.309 --> 00:37:57.250 Things like doing educational programs. 00:37:57.250 --> 00:38:04.510 One of the things that I've done is helping tribes with interviewing their elders and 00:38:04.510 --> 00:38:12.829 creating or contributing to their tribal archives, anyway that you can help them and give back 00:38:12.829 --> 00:38:19.550 by doing that and bring them into the projects as well is always a really good thing to do. 00:38:19.550 --> 00:38:21.119 That's it. 00:38:21.119 --> 00:38:30.549 That's all I have to say today so I guess we can open it up for questions or comments. 00:38:30.549 --> 00:38:31.549 Ashley: Excellent. 00:38:31.549 --> 00:38:33.650 Thank you very much, Shannon. 00:38:33.650 --> 00:38:37.780 Jeff Morisette: This is, I can, while we're waiting for questions to come in. 00:38:37.780 --> 00:38:40.010 This is Jeff Morisette with the North Central Climate Sciences. 00:38:40.010 --> 00:38:45.960 I just note my appreciation for Shannon's dedication, those lessons learned from tribes. 00:38:45.960 --> 00:38:52.039 She's worked with beyond just the Wind River, several tribes and tribal organization throughout 00:38:52.039 --> 00:38:57.951 the North Central and I just want to give kudos to the dedication and attention she 00:38:57.951 --> 00:39:00.400 pays to those nuances that are not always easy. 00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:11.480 This is not exactly what counts in the academic review for your productivity, your scholarship. 00:39:11.480 --> 00:39:15.520 Shannon has a lot of dedication to it. 00:39:15.520 --> 00:39:23.700 We rely on her at the North Central to give us some guidance and the cultural norms towards 00:39:23.700 --> 00:39:24.720 the tribe. 00:39:24.720 --> 00:39:28.270 Hats off to her for doing that and I appreciate people listening to it. 00:39:28.270 --> 00:39:31.360 I think it is built on a lot of experience that she's had. 00:39:31.360 --> 00:39:32.580 Shannon: Thanks. 00:39:32.580 --> 00:39:43.840 While we wait for BIA-funded tribal liaison, we've been waiting for to have an actual tribal 00:39:43.840 --> 00:39:49.900 person on staff to help with all these things but in the meantime, I'll help out with that. 00:39:49.900 --> 00:39:51.250 Ashley: Excellent. 00:39:51.250 --> 00:39:52.609 Thank you. 00:39:52.609 --> 00:39:59.490 We had a question come in and it says, "For all climate science centers and academics 00:39:59.490 --> 00:40:03.910 working with tribes, might the North Central Climate Science Center develop a white paper 00:40:03.910 --> 00:40:08.470 or outline to share aspects of the research protocol and processes that you've developed 00:40:08.470 --> 00:40:14.380 as this is one of the most critical but often not in place and not adapted well as circumstances 00:40:14.380 --> 00:40:19.510 change and researchers and partners change requiring updates over time?" 00:40:19.510 --> 00:40:29.290 Shannon: Yeah, that's a great point and I really do appreciate that comment. 00:40:29.290 --> 00:40:32.240 We've actually been talking about this. 00:40:32.240 --> 00:40:39.770 We, meaning actually a broader community of people who do this work, indigenous peoples 00:40:39.770 --> 00:40:41.730 in climate change work. 00:40:41.730 --> 00:40:51.910 Kyle Whyte and I are working on a paper with Valerie Small, who on this topic more focused 00:40:51.910 --> 00:40:55.310 on vulnerability assessment. 00:40:55.310 --> 00:40:59.130 The intention for that is to be more of a peer-reviewed article. 00:40:59.130 --> 00:41:06.089 We talked about doing something on this very topic for the National Adaptation Forum that's 00:41:06.089 --> 00:41:11.520 happening in May of 2017 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. 00:41:11.520 --> 00:41:15.171 I'm actually on the steering committee for the National Adaptation Forum and the Equity 00:41:15.171 --> 00:41:16.299 Working Group. 00:41:16.299 --> 00:41:21.000 I was just at Rising Voices Conference on Indigenous Peoples in Climate Change and this 00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:28.670 topic came up in one of breakouts this means, that you point too. 00:41:28.670 --> 00:41:32.369 Whether or not that's a white paper, I think that's a great idea. 00:41:32.369 --> 00:41:38.000 I think we can talk about that here, maybe doing something like that. 00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:43.750 We talked about training sessions maybe, various ideas but yeah, you're right. 00:41:43.750 --> 00:41:45.490 This is an important need. 00:41:45.490 --> 00:41:48.010 Thanks for the comment. 00:41:48.010 --> 00:41:55.190 Ashley: Then the next question comes from Amber and says, "Thanks for the presentation, 00:41:55.190 --> 00:41:56.190 Shannon. 00:41:56.190 --> 00:42:01.109 I'm very impressed by your efforts and your collaborators that you have put into the two-way 00:42:01.109 --> 00:42:04.279 conversation with the Wind River tribal community. 00:42:04.279 --> 00:42:10.109 I'm wondering, was there much interest in long-term climate forecast such as 2015 in 00:42:10.109 --> 00:42:14.089 100 years among the communities that you worked with?" 00:42:14.089 --> 00:42:16.609 Shannon: Yes. 00:42:16.609 --> 00:42:26.680 This is something that has come up a lot, well, not a lot, some and we are doing climate 00:42:26.680 --> 00:42:29.200 projections as part of the assessment. 00:42:29.200 --> 00:42:34.240 I didn't mention that's one of the many aspects that the physical climate team is working 00:42:34.240 --> 00:42:35.240 on. 00:42:35.240 --> 00:42:39.960 Imtiaz Rangwala again is the lead on that. 00:42:39.960 --> 00:42:47.559 He has asked the question about what the best time frame for projections would be so we're 00:42:47.559 --> 00:42:49.890 still iterating on that. 00:42:49.890 --> 00:42:56.520 I actually asked him for our workshop next week to put some of this rain versus snow 00:42:56.520 --> 00:43:01.609 conversation into the context of the climate projections as well as some of the other climate 00:43:01.609 --> 00:43:03.559 assessment. 00:43:03.559 --> 00:43:05.839 The answer is yes that we're doing that. 00:43:05.839 --> 00:43:14.480 There is interest but we're still working through exactly what, when and how. 00:43:14.480 --> 00:43:20.090 The goal of the project is to go as far and as fast as we can and as far into the future 00:43:20.090 --> 00:43:24.559 as we can or is wanted, is relevant. 00:43:24.559 --> 00:43:26.859 Thanks for the question. 00:43:26.859 --> 00:43:30.430 Ashley: Thanks, Shannon. 00:43:30.430 --> 00:43:36.740 Ashley: Amber just responded and she says, "Thanks for the answer. 00:43:36.740 --> 00:43:42.340 I'm most curious to know what the tribal community themselves are interested in? 00:43:42.340 --> 00:43:46.140 On what timescales they make decisions. 00:43:46.140 --> 00:43:49.720 We would like to hear more about your work in the future. 00:43:49.720 --> 00:43:50.720 " Shannon: OK. 00:43:50.720 --> 00:43:58.380 A couple of different answers specific to that question, one is just the basic question 00:43:58.380 --> 00:44:03.220 of asking how far into the future should we do the projections. 00:44:03.220 --> 00:44:09.040 I think not surprisingly the answer was the shortest amount. 00:44:09.040 --> 00:44:16.520 [laughs] Imtiaz gave the option of I think it was 2025, 00:44:16.520 --> 00:44:23.039 2050, 2070 and the response was whatever the soonest is 2025. 00:44:23.039 --> 00:44:25.039 That's common. 00:44:25.039 --> 00:44:30.450 I hear that all the time not just for tribes but any managers. 00:44:30.450 --> 00:44:34.780 With that said, there are a couple of other things that I didn't mention that are going 00:44:34.780 --> 00:44:41.559 on in tandem with Wind River reservation that we are also interacting with and informing 00:44:41.559 --> 00:44:42.559 and vice versa. 00:44:42.559 --> 00:44:49.160 One of those is a water storage feasibility study. 00:44:49.160 --> 00:44:56.660 That study was funded by the State of Wyoming and has some consultants working on it and 00:44:56.660 --> 00:45:02.980 they're looking at various locations across the reservation for future storage, given 00:45:02.980 --> 00:45:08.230 the fact that they currently have water shortages in some parts of the reservation. 00:45:08.230 --> 00:45:13.700 They also have wet rights as part of their water adjudication, as part as of the Big 00:45:13.700 --> 00:45:15.059 Horn adjudication. 00:45:15.059 --> 00:45:20.079 Meaning, for people who aren't from paper rights, for people who aren't familiar with 00:45:20.079 --> 00:45:25.559 that term, about half of their settlements came in the form of wet rights in other words 00:45:25.559 --> 00:45:27.170 water that they can use today. 00:45:27.170 --> 00:45:33.970 About half of their settlement came in the form future rights in terms future use and 00:45:33.970 --> 00:45:34.970 production. 00:45:34.970 --> 00:45:43.540 I can't give you a specific time frame but you do know that when creating storage sites 00:45:43.540 --> 00:45:50.160 and looking at future production, you need to have future or you should have future projections. 00:45:50.160 --> 00:45:54.920 The storage study commissioned by the state did not include a climate analysis so we're 00:45:54.920 --> 00:46:00.420 hoping that, perhaps, at the very least, our assessment can inform that storage study and 00:46:00.420 --> 00:46:06.880 what they do with that storage study or perhaps we do a future assessment that incorporates 00:46:06.880 --> 00:46:09.660 the storage feasibility with climate projections. 00:46:09.660 --> 00:46:16.821 That would be more probably 30 to 50-year time frame or maybe even more given that how 00:46:16.821 --> 00:46:22.240 long it takes to actually build storage and get storage wet. 00:46:22.240 --> 00:46:29.170 The other thing that's happening in tandem is they're working on their agricultural resource 00:46:29.170 --> 00:46:33.970 management plan as part of the Agricultural Resource Management Act so they've got funding 00:46:33.970 --> 00:46:38.950 from the BIA to do an agricultural resource management planning process. 00:46:38.950 --> 00:46:45.069 That's another activity where they're thinking about looking out into the future and what 00:46:45.069 --> 00:46:49.990 that might look like in terms of tribal producers and other producers on the reservation and 00:46:49.990 --> 00:46:51.570 water needs and all of that. 00:46:51.570 --> 00:46:54.339 This is going to be a component of that. 00:46:54.339 --> 00:46:59.900 I don't have an exact date in terms of how far out that might mean but again, this is 00:46:59.900 --> 00:47:02.059 part of the ongoing iteration. 00:47:02.059 --> 00:47:08.850 In part, this is going to be part of discussion next week at the reservation so stay tuned. 00:47:08.850 --> 00:47:12.200 Ashley: Thanks, Shannon. 00:47:12.200 --> 00:47:21.180 The folks at the, South Central Climate Science Center, Mike, Kim, Aaron, Kim, and April made 00:47:21.180 --> 00:47:27.769 mention in the chat that they have a guidance document that's being drafted at the South 00:47:27.769 --> 00:47:31.730 Central Climate Science Center and it's on working in Indian country. 00:47:31.730 --> 00:47:36.809 They're going to share it in the next couple of months but the focus is building relationships 00:47:36.809 --> 00:47:43.330 between researchers and tribal communities and there are some of the key themes mentioned 00:47:43.330 --> 00:47:44.390 here. 00:47:44.390 --> 00:47:51.059 Also, they think it'll be interesting to compare working with different tribes in different 00:47:51.059 --> 00:47:54.420 parts of the country too. 00:47:54.420 --> 00:47:57.950 Shannon: Great, look forward to seeing that. 00:47:57.950 --> 00:48:05.849 Shannon: I'll just say in the interim that, like I said at the Rising Voices conference, 00:48:05.849 --> 00:48:14.900 we talked about the importance of this issue, this issue meaning working in Indian Country, 00:48:14.900 --> 00:48:22.220 tribal engagement of agencies and indigenous peoples. 00:48:22.220 --> 00:48:30.970 Not only the CSCs, but of course the other agencies and entities that do tribal engagement. 00:48:30.970 --> 00:48:37.369 If you guys at the South Central are interested in working on a session together for the National 00:48:37.369 --> 00:48:43.569 Adaptation Forum, I'd be happy to work on that with you guys, and bring in the other 00:48:43.569 --> 00:48:49.680 folks that we were having this conversation with at Rising Voices, indigenous peoples 00:48:49.680 --> 00:48:52.020 at Rising Voices. 00:48:52.020 --> 00:48:59.220 The call for session proposals is going to be released August 8th, so keep an eye out 00:48:59.220 --> 00:49:00.220 for that. 00:49:00.220 --> 00:49:06.200 I'm not sure when the due date is going to be, but that is when they are going to put 00:49:06.200 --> 00:49:07.769 the solicitation out. 00:49:07.769 --> 00:49:14.420 Ashley: That's going to be in May of 2017, correct, the National Adaptation Forum? 00:49:14.420 --> 00:49:15.420 Shannon: That's right. 00:49:15.420 --> 00:49:28.589 Shannon: Yeah, and there's been a pretty strong indigenous component. 00:49:28.589 --> 00:49:31.910 This is the third National Adaptation Forum. 00:49:31.910 --> 00:49:40.789 The first two had a lot of sessions on indigenous peoples and climate change adaptation. 00:49:40.789 --> 00:49:47.630 I think there's probably going to be a pretty good turnout again this year, and I mentioned 00:49:47.630 --> 00:49:52.589 I'm on the equity working group for the National Adaptation Forum. 00:49:52.589 --> 00:50:02.069 That's equity broadly, not just indigenous peoples, but less advantaged communities and 00:50:02.069 --> 00:50:04.650 people of color, etc., etc. 00:50:04.650 --> 00:50:09.891 Obviously, they have some big issues on their mind in Saint Paul that aren't indigenous 00:50:09.891 --> 00:50:17.390 peoples, but I've been really advocating to try and get more engagement with indigenous 00:50:17.390 --> 00:50:24.609 peoples across the forum so it's not just a siloed session series, as it kind of has 00:50:24.609 --> 00:50:25.609 been in the past. 00:50:25.609 --> 00:50:31.140 That's some of the feedback I've actually heard from indigenous people who have participated 00:50:31.140 --> 00:50:39.690 in past National Adaptation Forums, so I'm at least trying to advocate to bring in more 00:50:39.690 --> 00:50:47.599 indigenous involvement more broadly across the forum, including reaching out more to 00:50:47.599 --> 00:50:54.339 tribes in the area in Minnesota, and in the region. 00:50:54.339 --> 00:51:01.440 We'll see how well that goes. 00:51:01.440 --> 00:51:02.440 Ashley: Excellent. 00:51:02.440 --> 00:51:03.440 Thank you. 00:51:03.440 --> 00:51:09.029 The South Central was just commenting that as the climate science centers and other agencies 00:51:09.029 --> 00:51:13.930 try to operate like a network, hopefully this will help everyone as they enter in Indian 00:51:13.930 --> 00:51:19.220 country, and just compare notes down the road. 00:51:19.220 --> 00:51:23.710 Because every tribal culture and issues are different. 00:51:23.710 --> 00:51:28.519 Ashley: All right, we're just past four o'clock. 00:51:28.519 --> 00:51:33.150 I'm not seeing anybody else typing or any other hands raised. 00:51:33.150 --> 00:51:39.890 I'd like to extend a very warm thank you to Shannon for presenting today. 00:51:39.890 --> 00:51:42.039 It was a wonderful presentation. 00:51:42.039 --> 00:51:43.181 A lot of good discussion afterwards. 00:51:43.181 --> 00:51:48.411 Thank you to the South Central Climate Center as well. 00:51:48.411 --> 00:51:49.411 As well as NCCWSC. 00:51:49.411 --> 00:51:50.309 Thank you p.