From Potential to Practice: How Weather and Climate Forecasts Can Be Effectively Used in Water Resources Management Decision Making

Abstract:

The last decade has witnessed tremendous scientific and technological advances in our ability to forecast climate variability and extremes, which are potentially useful to help operate and manage water resources systems with larger reliability and efficiency. However, many forecasts are rarely effectively used in practice and there is little evidence of incorporating them in real-world decision making. One of the main barriers of the uptake of forecasts, which is often cited by studies, is related to forecast uncertainty; however, even reliable forecasts alone are not sufficient to ensure the expected response. There exist other barriers that affect effective use of forecasts such as water managers’ behavior and institutional impediments. In fact, water managers make decisions in a sophisticated setting, which is on one hand affected by uncertainty and on the other hand constrained by regulations and policies. Therefore, it is not only important to recognize the various key individual challenges, but also critical to understand the interdependencies among them (Figure 1) in order to properly address the effective use of forecasts. This understanding is also essential to assess the expected value of forecasts information which is of high importance for decision makers prior to incorporating forecasts. The main objectives of this talk, which builds upon an extensive literature review of using forecasts in water resources and agricultural decision making, are to 1) address the key challenges limiting the uptake of forecast, 2) highlight the interdependency among different factors, and 3) shed light on how these insights can help improve the use of forecast in real-world practices.