Climate Variability and Change in the Southwest

Part I: Overview

Chapter 1

Background

At the request of the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and other units at The University of Arizona organized and hosted the Southwest Regional Climate Change Symposium and Workshop in Tucson, Arizona, on September 3-5, 1997.

The intent of the symposium and workshop was to bring together important stakeholders—representatives from the private sector, government agencies, educational institutions, and interested citizens—to determine the state-of-knowledge, information and research needs, and possible policy strategies related to the impacts of and responses to climate variability and change in the Southwest. The event was one in a series of some two dozen such regional climate-change conferences hosted under the auspices of the USGCRP and various federal agencies.

For the purposes of the symposium and workshop, the Southwest was defined as the states of Arizona and New Mexico, as well as adjacent portions of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Texas. This area corresponds roughly to that encompassed by the lower Colorado River and upper Rio Grande basins, and includes the relevant portions of the U.S.-Mexico border region and Indian Country.

Organization

The organizational and logistical operations for the event were based at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, an applied research and outreach unit of The University of Arizona. Robert Merideth, coordinator of the Center's Global Change and U.S.-Mexico Border Programs supervised the operations. Jon Unruh served as conference manager and organizer, working with several graduate student assistants, David Adams, Emma Olenberger, and Mark Patterson.

The organizers established a local planning committee that met regularly throughout the summer (1997) to advise and assist with these efforts. These committee members (all from The University of Arizona or the Tucson area) were:

• Mark Anderson, U.S. Geological Survey/Water Resources Division
• Roger Bales, Interim Director, UA Institute for the Study of Planet Earth
• David Goodrich, USDA/Agricultural Research Service
• William Halvorson, UA Cooperative Park Studies Unit/USGS Biological Resources Division
• William Harris and Michael Molitor, Columbia University/Biosphere 2
• Christopher Helms, Director, Morris K. Udall Foundation
• Malcolm Hughes, Director, UA Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research
• Charles Hutchinson, Associate Director, UA Office of Arid Lands Research
• Diana Liverman, Director, UA Latin American Area Center and Associate Professor of Geography
• Mitchel McClaran, Associate Professor, UA School of Renewable and Natural Resources
• Margaret McGonagill, Director, UA Federal Relations Program
• Steven Mullen, Associate Professor, UA Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences
• Soroosh Sorooshian, Professor, UA Dept. of Hydrology and Water Resources
• Robert Varady, Interim Director, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy
• Marvin Waterstone, Associate Professor, UA Department of Geography
• Robert Webb, U.S. Geological Survey/Desert Laboratory

Format

The organizers and planning committee decided upon a three-level format for the program (see Appendix A):

• A one-day symposium open to the public.
• A one-day workshop for about 100 invited participants in a series of thematic breakouts to define the research agenda and information needs for each of several sectors and crosscutting issues.
• A half-day wrap-up session of about 30 persons to begin to fashion a draft outline and text for a conference report based on the previous days' activities.

In addition, the organizers and members of the planning committee for the September program participated in an online Web workshop (http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/) developed and organized by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and held in July 1997 (see Chapter 2). The Web workshop was intended to initiate a discussion--prior to the September symposium and workshop--on the effects of climate variability, possible natural and human-related long-term climate change, and land-use change in the rapidly growing southwestern United States.

Logistics

Planning and organization for the September event began in May 1997 and continued through the conclusion of the symposium. The first steps involved using the networks of the various planning-committee members to begin contacting potential speakers and panelists for the symposium and developing a list of persons to be invited to the workshop and wrap-up session.

An initial mailing advertisement for the symposium went to the Udall Center's mailing list of some 2,500 names (a broad collection of stakeholders: academics, government-agency persons, elected officials, and private citizens interested in public policy and natural-resources management issues). The Center's list was supplemented by names and mailing lists provided by members of the planning committee. The timing of the first mailing coincided with the start of the USGS's Web workshop.

Additional smaller mailings were done throughout the summer as more names or lists were acquired, and a final-reminder mailing was sent to the entire list again two weeks prior to the symposium.

A similar strategy—with fewer, but more-targeted names—was used to invite participants to the workshop and wrap-up session, in addition to the symposium. Approximately 250 individualized letters of invitation were sent to persons around the region. (For those invited to participate in the workshop, the organizers were able to offer the incentive of a modest stipend to cover travel, lodging, and meals.) Several of the conference staff were assigned to follow up the written invitations with a telephone call until a verbal contact was made with each individual invited.

We believe that the combination of the broad mailing and notification, a stipend to cover travel and related expenses for workshop participants, and persistence in trying to contact each of invited participants contributed to the diversity of stakeholders that attended the series of events (see Chapter 3).

As an attachment to the Udall Center's Web site, (http://udallcenter.arizona.edu) the organizers created a homepage for the symposium and workshop containing: the symposium registration form; the conference and workshop agendas; a listing and online copies of relevant articles in the media; seven commissioned position papers; and a link to the USGS Web workshop.