On-line WEBINAR: Can collaboration between climate scientists and land managers lead to more useable climate tools?
Melanie Brown presents results from a research project entitled "Can collaboration between climate scientists and land managers lead to more useful and useable climate tools for land management?"
We conducted a series of interviews during which sagebrush land managers from Oregon, Idaho and Utah were asked to identify the most relevant variables, threats and management strategies relevant to their specific sagebrush management areas. Managers were also asked to assess a series of web-based climate tools, providing feedback about what features of the tools were most intuitive, interesting and useful, or complicated, unnecessary, and in need of revision. Results from the first phase of the project suggested several directions to improve existing climate tools.
In the second phase of the project we have further developed relationships with early interviewees but have also expanded our reach. We are now testing new climate web tools designed at CBI with managers' requests in mind. In particular we have added near-term climate forecast in the CBI's climate console, since it was requested by most managers. We are now developing the blueprint for a tool dedicated to visualize the impacts of climate on vegetation cover.