CLIMAS UpdateNews from the Climate Assessment for the Southwest Project

Volume 7, Numbers 2–3,October 2004

Integrating science, policy, and community

CLIMAS MissionCLIMAS was established to assess the impacts of climate variability and longer-term climate change on human and natural systems in the South-west. Our mission is to improve the ability of the region to respond sufficiently and ap-propriately to climatic events and climate changes.

CLIMAS assesses climate vulnerability of tribe, farmers in Upper Gila River ValleyBY BARBARA WOLF

In the Southwest, climate variation can include dramatic extremes, ranging from drought to flood. How different groups re-spond to, recover from and adapt to climate fluctuations—in other words, their vulnera-bility—depends on a variety of factors such as access to financial resources, alternate water sources, and social networks. The CLIMAS Climate Vulnerability Team has the task of assessing the vulnerability to climate variability and change of people with different livelihoods and in various geographic settings. The vulnerability team also seeks to understand what type of cli-mate information would help people whose livelihoods depend on climate and weather.

Since 2002, the team has been working in the Upper Gila River Valley, where the major stakeholders include cotton farmers and ranchers in Safford and the San Carlos Apache Tribe, near Globe.

CLIMAS principal investigator Tim Finan and postdoctoral research associate Mar-cela Vásquez-León lead and supervise the project, respectively. Both are also affiliated with the University of Arizona’s Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, which Finan directs. The ongoing Upper Gila River Valley project has supported seven graduate researchers over the years.

The Gila River’s flow depends mainly on snowmelt in the Gila Mountains of New Mexico and along the Mogollon Rim of Arizona, which varies from year to year depending on winter precipitation and spring temperatures.

Farming in the research area, how-ever, is affected not only by vari-

able precipitation, but by a complex legal and political climate. Farmers’ access to river water has been strictly regulated by the federal Globe Equity Consent Decree No. 59 since 1935. This limitation combines with the river’s variability to make the use of groundwater a necessity. In addition, the farmers’ right to pump groundwater is being challenged in a lawsuit filed by the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Gila River Indian Community, and other parties. The lawsuit argues that the groundwater that valley farmers pump actually is subsurface flow of the Gila River, to which the tribes have senior water rights under the Globe Equity Decree. Officials are negotiating an agreement.

Ranchers in the valley are vulnerable to drought and spatially variable (i.e., spotty) rainfall because their cattle depend mainly on rain-fed grasses. Most ranchers lease grazing land from state and federal agen-cies, including the Bureau of Land Man-agement (BLM) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, subject-ing them to regulation by these agencies.

Recent Publications by CLIMAS Researchers

• Abraham, J. S. and A. C. Comrie. 2004. Real-time ozone mapping using a re-gression-interpolation hybrid approach, applied to Tucson, Arizona. Journal of the Air and Waste Management Associa-tion, 54:914–925.

• Brown, D. B. and A. C. Comrie. 2004. A winter pre-cipitation “dipole” in the Western United States as-sociated with multidecadal ENSO variability. Geophysical Research Letters, 31:L09203.

• Jacobs, K., and G. Garfin. 2004. Arizona’s drought plan-ning: Focusing on adaptation. Water Resources IMPACT, 6(4):14–17.

• Kolivras, K. N. and A. C. Comrie. 2004. Climate and infectious disease in the southwestern United States. Progress in Physical Geography, 28:387–398.

continued on page 4

CLIMAS Update, page 2

CLIMAS researchers talk water policyat New Mexico meeting

CLIMAS researcher Bonnie Colby co-organized the first annual New Mexico Water Policy Conference that was held in Albuquerque in May. The conference theme was “Addressing Uncertainty.” Colby, a University of Arizona professor of Agricultural and Economic Resources, gave a presentation about new ap-proaches to securing dry-year supplies of water.

Researcher Andrew Comrie, a UA Geography professor, gave a presentation about “The top 10 questions on drought and climate in New Mexico.” The re-port, produced by graduate researcher Jenna McPhee, Comrie, and CLIMAS program manager Gregg Garfin, summarizes information from instrumental and long-term records of drought and climate for the general public.

About a dozen invited speakers addressed water policy specialists, lawyers, and government staff. The meeting, co-organized by Colby and Tim De Young, was hosted by the University of New Mexico School of Law and the New Mexico State Bar Center for Legal Education.

Submissions and Subscription InformationCLIMAS Update is published quarterly and welcomes the submission of items of interest. The editorial staff reserves the right to select and edit copy submitted for publication. All material in the newsletter may be reproduced, provided CLIMAS is acknowledged as the source. The newsletter is provided through the support of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

To subscribe to CLIMAS Update or make change-of-address requests, visit http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/climas/subscribe.html. From this page you can also subscribe to CLIMAS-NEWS, a listserv to receive periodic announcements about CLIMAS-sponsored events, publications, and the latest Southwest Climate Outlook.

Deadline for next issue: December 15, 2005Send to: Melanie Lenart at mlenart@email.arizona.eduCLIMAS, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth,The University of Arizona, PO Box 210156, Tucson, AZ 85721Newsletters are archived at: http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/climas/pubs.html

Printed on Recycled Paper

Drought team delivers information to Arizona Governor’s Drought Task ForceUnder the guidance of program manager Gregg Garfin, CLIMAS research-ers worked in coordination with the Arizona Governor’s Drought Task Force (GDTF) to provide basic research and information on drought that will help the task force initiate effective drought planning for Arizona.

Among the products delivered by graduate researchers to the GDTF were Sean Downey’s report on drought mitigation strategies used in other states and Susan Simpson’s summary of human and wildlife encounters at the urban fringe dur-ing drought. In his role as co-chair of the GDTF monitoring committee, Garfin continues to be involved in identifying drought triggers that could be used for mitigation and response.

In June, CLIMAS posted a web site that provides details on this ongoing project: http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/climas/research/drought/background.html. Also, a draft of the state drought plan is available for public viewing at the GDTF website, http://www.water.az.gov/gdtf/.

Morehouse works on fire survey research in GreeceBarbara Morehouse just returned from a three-month Fulbright fellowship in Greece where she collaborated with colleagues at the University of the Aegean on Lesvos and with a fellow Fulbright scholar from Evergreen State University in Washington on a survey of forest firefighters, forest managers, environmentalists, fire volunteers, and Civil Protection officials.

The survey collected information about respondents’ knowledge of the origins and causes of forest fires, effects of land abandonment on fire risk, use of scientific information to manage fires and fire risk, and policy influences on fire management. It covered the islands Lesvos, Chios, and Samos, all of which lie on the eastern boundary between Greece and Turkey. Additional infor-mation and insights were provided by a forest service scientist in Kalamata, on the southern mainland of Greece.

Morehouse is currently analyzing the information and plans to send a report summarizing the findings to all partici-pants this fall. Several peer-reviewed publications are also planned.

Subscribe to CLIMAS-News!We have created a new listserv to provide you with the latest news from the CLIMAS project. Subscribers will receive periodic announcements about CLIMAS-sponsored events and new publications, as well as the latest drought updates. To join visit: http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/cli-mas/subscribe.html.

Barbara Morehouse in Greece.

CLIMAS Update, page 3

Wildfire, flood responses could benefit from better planning effort at county levelCLIMAS graduate researcher Rahul Srivastava reported his findings on natural hazard mitigation planning in six counties in Arizona during the 29th Annual Hazards Research and Application Workshop in Boulder, Colorado held in July.

Srivastava added wildfire and drought indicators to the standard hazards, which include floods, tornadoes, and wind storms, and evaluated the effective-ness of ongoing efforts to mitigate the effects of these disasters. The research findings indicate that the comprehensive plans can be substantially improved to address these hazards and suggests that increased attention be giv-en to mitigation planning for floods and wildfires. Drought, on the other hand, is fairly well addressed because of the mandate by the state statutes on the “wa-ter element” in the comprehensive plans.

CLIMAS contributes to push for Mexican climate centerCLIMAS research associate Melanie Lenart and graduate researcher Car-los Rojas Salazar went to Hermosillo, Mexico, in April to meet with about a dozen climatologists and university researchers working with Mexican climate data. During the two-day workshop held to begin planning for a regional climate center in Mexico, Len-art gave a presentation on CLIMAS efforts to provide climate services to stakeholders.

Many workshop participants were interested in hearing about how CLI-MAS adds value to climate informa-tion in its products and publications and its work with stakeholders. CLI-MAS’ initiative on providing a season-al wildfire forecast for the Southwest attracted particular interest from some of the climatologists interested in ex-tending the forecast into Mexico.

Similarly, the monsoon was identified as a phenomenon that should be stud-ied on both sides of the border. Some workshop participants were involved in the ongoing binational North American Monsoon Experiment being conducted in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico.

Alejandro Castellanos Villegas, head of the University of Sonora’s Department of Scientific and Technological Re-search, suggested that the University of Sonora would be happy to house the fledgling center. He encouraged CLI-MAS to participate in cooperative ven-tures to help the center move forward.

The workshop was organized by Chris Watts of the University of Sonora in Hermosillo and Henry Diaz of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Boulder, Colorado, office with some assistance from the University of Arizona’s Udall Center and CLIMAS’ home office, the Insti-tute for the Study of Planet Earth.

Hello and GoodbyeCLIMAS bids a fond farewell to principal investigator Dan Osgood and graduate re-searchers David Patrick Brown and Noah Molotch, and welcomes into its fold prin-cipal investigator George Frisvold.

Dan Osgood was a member of the University of Arizona Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics since 2000, until departing in the fall for a position with the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction. His work with the CLIMAS team included research, with graduate student Ryan Sohm, into the relationship between precipitation and calf weight among the Hereford herd of the San Carlos Apache Reservation.

David Patrick Brown has assisted CLIMAS on numerous projects involving western U.S. climate variability over the years as a PhD student working with principal in-vestigator Andrew Comrie in the UA Geography Department. This fall, Brown starts a dual appointment as an assistant professor of Geography at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, and as the New Hampshire state climatologist. He plans to continue to do integrated science and assessments on climate issues as part of the Integrated Human Health and Air Quality Research (INHALE) research program at the university.

Noah Molotch, who worked with CLIMAS since 2000 as a graduate researcher with Roger Bales in the Department of Hydrology, will be working as a postdoctoral re-searcher with the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences (CIRES) in Boulder, Colorado. Moltoch’s research focused on understanding snow-pack processes, including evaluating the representativeness of snow water equiva-lent data from Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) sites, which is a primary source of input data for streamflow forecasts used by water resource managers. At CIRES, he will continue to do research on snow cover processes.

CLIMAS is happy to welcome George Frisvold to the CLIMAS team as a principal investigator. As a UA associate professor in Agricultural and Resource Economics and extension specialist, Frisvold has a background that includes acting as a visit-ing scholar at the National Institute of Rural Development in India, lecturing at John Hopkins University, and serving on the senior staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (1995–96). His research interests include domestic and inter-national environmental policy and the causes and consequences of technological change in agriculture. He serves as co-editor of the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

CLIMAS Update, page 4

For instance, the BLM issues 10-year grazing permits, basing the permitted stocking rates on a relatively small sampling of vegetation conditions on grazing allotments, along with long-term weather patterns derived from past weather data—not climate forecasts. The decisions made by BLM staff may have an immediate, drastic impact on a rancher’s livelihood, but neither ranchers nor BLM range man-agers consider existing forecast tools to be accurate or reliable enough for making such serious bottom-line deci-sions. Rather, they rely on observation, experience, and gut instincts.

The vulnerability team begins its re-search with an extensive literature review and internet search on the com-munities involved. Fieldwork follows, and consists of interviewing people from a variety of livelihoods. The team typically asks each interviewee for names of others who might be interested in participating, a method known as snowball sampling.

In general, contacting farmers, ranch-ers, and government employees is a relatively straightforward process. Working with an Indian tribe requires more formal procedures, however. After several visits to the San Carlos Apache Reservation, including an in-formal meeting to introduce the proj-ect and a formal presentation to the tribe’s Natural Resources Committee (which includes several Tribal Coun-cil members and the Tribal Chair), a Memorandum of Understanding was approved by researchers, the Tribal Council, and tribal and university legal departments. Only then could fieldwork on the reservation begin.

The fieldwork revealed that forestry, recreation, and ranching are the most significant contributors to the San Carlos Apache Reservation economy. The reservation forests during the current drought are subject to the same bark beetle damage (Figure 1) and heightened fire risk that threaten off-reservation forests (see sidebar on page 5).

The recreation sector also is impacted by the drought. The sale of hunt-ing licenses and fishing and boating permits on San Carlos Reservoir funds the operations of the tribe’s Recreation and Wildlife Department, which has the responsibil-ity of enforcing its regu-lations and monitoring and restoring habitat. The reservoir, and Coolidge Dam that creates it, are located on the San Car-los reservation, but they were built in the 1920s to ensure a supply of Gila River water to the Gila River Indian Community and non-Indian irrigators downstream. The rights to this water are subject to the Globe Equity De-cree, and are the source of conflict and litigation that currently occupy both the tribe and valley farmers upstream.

The drought of the past six years has lowered the reservoir levels dramati-cally. Over this time, lake-related income dropped to less than a quarter of that in non-drought years, affecting the Recreation and Wildlife Department’s ability to do its job. Fur-ther, the lowered lake level has ex-posed archaeological sites, including burial sites, making them vulnerable to vandalism and other damage.

Income from cattle ranching also has declined recently due to drought and other factors. It remains economically and culturally important, however, and the tribe is working on innova-tive measures to restore this sector. While some individuals and families had raised cattle since the late 19th century, ranching was introduced as a commercial enterprise in the 1930s.

The tribally owned R-100 herd of reg-istered Hereford beef cattle, developed for many years in collaboration with the University of Arizona’s College of Agriculture, the USDA, and other cooperators, was a million-dollar per year business for the tribe into the 1990s. Individual tribal members also own cattle, most of which are man-aged in five cattle associations and run on reservation ranges.

Farming was a culturally important activity in pre-reservation times, and

Vulnerability (continued from page 1)

Figure 1. Bark beetle infestation of Ponderosa pines on the San Carlos Apache Reservation was widespread in 2002, but a bit less severe on the remaining trees in 2003, as the maps above indicate. Drought reduces the pine’s capacity to “pitch out” beetles using sap. Source: Images by Jodi Perin, based on data from Arizona Land Resource Information System, San Carlos Tribe, and U.S. Forest Service.

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Arizona

CutterPeridot

Ellison Place

Aravaipa

Fort Thomas

Point of Pines

SenecaSawmill

Bear Canyon JunctionDehorn

Rocky Junction

San Carlos Reservoir

BylasEmery

Gila River

Winkelman

San Carlos

Geronimo

Bark beetle infestation and damage

White Mountain Reservation

San Carlos Reservation

2002

Arizona

CutterPeridot

Aravaipa

Fort Thomas

Point of Pines

SenecaSawmill

Bear Canyon JunctionDehorn

Rocky Junction

San Carlos Reservoir

BylasEmery

Gila River

Winkelman

San Carlos

Geronimo

Bark beetle infestation and damage

White Mountain Reservation

San Carlos Reservation

Credit: Jodi Perin Sources: Arizona Land Resource Information System, San Carlos Tribe, and U.S. Forest Service

2003

Ellison Place

continued on page 5

Vulnerability (cont. from p. 4)

became even more economically im-portant in early reservation days, be-fore access to Gila River water became limited. Now the tribe is making an effort to revive reservation agriculture, and has several hundred acres of hay growing and plans for expansion.

Another cultural and economic activ-ity is basket weaving. Several families earn income from this traditional Apache specialty, which depends on a reliable supply of willow and cotton-wood trees. In a recent talent pageant, contestants demonstrated various tra-ditional arts that rely on native plants, illustrating that these heritage arts are still valued in the reservation com-munity. Yet a master basket weaver observed that the areas where willows used to be plentiful are drying up and the plants are becoming harder to find.

After talking directly with tribal members and staff, area farmers and ranchers, USDA and university agri-cultural extension workers, and BLM and Forest Service land managers, the vulnerability research team is piec-ing together a complex picture of a set of interrelationships among these stakeholders, law, history, politics and a variable climate. Although the out-lines of the situation were visible in the research conducted prior to enter-ing the field, only conversations with stakeholders could fully bring to light the impact these factors have on hu-man livelihoods and decision making.

CLIMAS findings so far in the Upper Gila River Valley are consistent with those reported for the Sulphur Springs Valley—the role of climate, and the potential for climate information to make a difference to these stakehold-ers, are bound up in a much wider so-cial, cultural, and institutional context.

Barbara Wolf is a graduate researcher working on this project; others include Donald Nelson, Eric Pavri, Jodi Perin, Andrea Sturzen, and Colin West. For more about the Sulphur Springs study, see http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/ climas/pubs/update/feb2003.pdf

CLIMAS Update, page 5

BY KRISTEN NELSON

The tribal forests are a source of income, recreation, and celebration for the San Carlos Apache, but with drought and beetle infestation, forest managers have to weigh the impor-tance of mitigation strategies against traditional ceremonies.

In February, Victoria Wesley, a for-ester and entomologist for the reser-vation, visited CLIMAS to discuss the effects of drought on the forests. Wes-ley has been heading up the effort to study and help mitigate recent bark beetle infestations on the reservation.

While these infestations are not unique to the reservation—in fact, virtually every state west of the Rockies has been hit by the beetle epidemic—the Tribal Council and the forest managers have unique cultural influences affect-ing fire risk, mitigation strategies, and motivation for saving the forests.

The numbers of dead trees due to in-sects have been exacerbated by multi-year drought. Simply put, the lack of water makes the trees more vulnerable to beetle infestation by lowering their ability to produce enough sap to ward off insects. A greater number of trees are killed by the beetles than would be during non-drought conditions, which leads to an increase in standing fuel. This creates a higher wildfire risk.

Within the San Carlos reservation’s 175,250 acres of Ponderosa pine forest, there were 111,219 acres with mortal-ity in 2002 (with more than 405,000 dead Ponderosa pines) from Prescott scale, bark beetles, and other insect species. Several thousand piñon and true fir trees have also been killed by the beetles. Mitigation strategies in-clude thinning and prescribed burns.

Despite the increased fire risk dead trees pose, early forest closure is not a viable mitigation strategy, Wesley said, because of medicinal plant-gathering

Tribe manages forest to reduce fire risk, yet respect tradition

and traditional ceremonies that are an integral part of life on the Apache reservation. One ceremony in particu-lar, the Sunrise Dance (Na’ii’ees), cel-ebrates a woman’s transition to adult-hood during puberty. The significance of the dance is to prepare a young woman physically and emotionally to hold a position in her family and the Apache community, which is a matri-archy. The four day celebration, which is planned since the child’s birth, in-cludes a continuous bonfire, dancing, and extensive prayers.

“The ceremony isn’t just for the girl. It’s a lot of praying,” Wesley explained during a phone interview. “They pray for everything that happens out there. They pray for the war, they reflect on 9/11... Because we are in a drought, they have the girl pray for rain. In a lot of cases they don’t think of this as a fire hazard but that doing this will be good for the drought.”

The tribe also has reasons to value the forests beyond potential monetary gain. Protecting the trees for their children is “one of the tribe’s priori-ties in their forest management plan and a strategic goal,” said Wesley. “Everything that they do, they try to think about how it will affect our youth and generations to come.”

In 2003, tree mortality went down in terms of insect-damaged acres. They do not know for sure if this is due to mitigation strategies, but she said, “the beetles are moving north.”

An Apache sunrise dance in New Mexico, July 2002. Photo by Paul Guinan.

CLIMAS Update, page 6

Institute for the Study of Planet EarthThe University of ArizonaPO Box 210156Tucson, Arizona 85721-0156

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PERMIT NO 190

Colorado River management can adapt to climate, policy changesAndrea Ray, a scientist with the Na-tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-ministration’s (NOAA) Western Water Assessment in Boulder, Colorado, re-cently shared with CLIMAS her find-ings on the potential uses of climate information in the Colorado River basin. The Colorado River is an impor-tant water source for the Southwest.

Ray’s research involved the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s reservoir management in the Gunnison Basin in western Colorado. As in many other areas in the West, this basin is increas-ingly sensitive to climate variability because new demands for water are being incorporated into the system, such as requiring base flows for eco-systems and recreation. She assessed the constraints in operations and the potential for climate information to broaden flexibility to meet these ex-panding needs.

Operations in this system have been adjusted for many reasons to benefit the basin. For example, managers have responded to both the flow recom-mendations for endangered fish and the severe drought of 2002 by finding flexibility and new ways of operat-ing to benefit a diverse set of water uses. She concluded that the water management institutions in the basin have significant adaptive capacity to

respond to both policy changes and climate events, and also the capacity to respond to climate forecasts if the appropriate forecasts were available. Ray described entry points for climate forecasts in their decision-making pro-cess, and examples of information that would be useful and useable.

Her talk at a CLIMAS meeting in Tuc-son was part of an ongoing effort to coordinate activities among NOAA’s various “RISAs.” The Regional Inte-grated Sciences and As-sessments (RISA) program include the Western Water Assessment, the Climate Assessment for the South-west (CLIMAS) and six other regional groups.

The RISA program was es-tablished in the mid-1990s to help realign the nation’s climate research to serve society more directly and effectively. RISA efforts are unique in the empha-sis they place on research-ers working directly with decision makers in society (“stakeholders”) and the coupling of stakeholder partnerships with climate science and assessment research.

They are also unique in their “end-to-end” linking of research (both physical and social science), observation, pre-diction, use, and evaluation of climate knowledge and information. Since de-cisions regarding the seasonal to inter-annual (and longer) impacts of climate variability most often get made at the scale of a ranch, watershed or forest, RISA efforts are focused on making climate science “place-based” and thus more useful for decision support.

The Gunnison River, showing the Redlands Diversion Dam, which for decades blocked passage between the Colorado and Gunnison Rivers and endangered native fishes. On the left side of the river is a fish ladder, com-pleted in 1995, that gives fish access to about 50 miles of Gunnison River critical habitat. USBR reservoir manage-ment is changing to provide base flows and spring peak flows to this reach of the river to benefit the fish.