A Training Partnership Focused on Climate Change Impact on Water Resources and Coastal Vulnerabilities

Abstract:

Beginning in 2010 the COMET^® Program (www.comet.ucar.edu), a part of the UCAR Community Programs (UCP) at UCAR, entered into partnership with several Climate Change and Water Working Group (CCAWWG, http://www.ccawwg.us/) agencies to pilot a new training program. With funding coming from the Bureau of Reclamation and the US Army Corps of Engineers, a series of self-paced online lessons and live courses targeted at technical climate change and water science professionals have already been delivered. Since it’s release in 2012, the first self-paced lesson developed under this partnership entitled, “Preparing Hydro-climate Inputs for Climate Change in Water Resource Planning”, has been taken over 2600 times. Users have come from federal, state, and local agencies as well as academia, government and private sectors around the US as well as from other countries. Additionally, the most popular multi-day course, Hydrologic Impacts Under Climate Change (HIUCC), has been offered to a diverse audience in both residence and virtual formats.

This presentation provides an overview of the training materials developed through this partnership as well as plans for future offerings. A recommended set of lessons for all users who wish explore the open materials will be highlighted, including excerpts from the newest materials covering climate change influences on water temperature for inland streams and watershed and channel sedimentation. These self-paced, online materials are currently freely available on the of the MetEd Web site (http://www.meted.ucar.edu) via the “Education & Training”, “Climate” topic area. Users interested in directly accessing the materials can take these and many other lessons at http://meted.ucar.edu/climate. Additionally, the presentation highlights opportunities for learners to register for ongoing multi-day courses taught both live in person and at a distance.

Now, in the beginning of the 6^th year of partnership, new initiatives to train non-technical staff in many areas of climate science and water change management as well as training technical staff in topics related to coastal vulnerabilities and sea level change are underway. New self-paced training and live instructor courses will be developed to support these efforts and details will be provided in the presentation.