Hosted by the National Academies for Science, Engineering, and Medicine
The work of the Global Center for Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Transboundary Waters focuses on understanding and mitigating an intensifying water crisis by addressing regional needs for water resources management guidance and preparing communities and ecosystems within transboundary water systems for hazards accompanying climate change. This work is motivated by significant gaps in the coordination of management processes, implemented throughout multiple jurisdictions, on a transnational level. The fragmentation of responsibility across decision making entities over water resources management is highly evident in transboundary water basins which intersect multiple sovereign nations, including those of Indigenous Peoples. Managing water resources in these multijurisdictional settings requires coordination of diverse governance structures, stakeholder groups, and management strategies to disseminate scientific resources including shared data and model development.
The work presented here focuses on increasing resilience of communities to impacts on climate change by integrating research across organizing clusters focused on 1) reliable projections of the expected frequency and intensity of climate change impacts; 2) understanding of climate change impacts on ecological and social systems and outcomes; and 3) building capacity for governance and management systems that increase resilience in communities across multiple scales. While the Global Center ultimately envisions working with communities on multiple continents, the focus of this presentation will be on recent advancements within the basins of the Laurentian Great Lakes and the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo.
Dr. Andrew Gronewold is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability with adjunct appointments in the University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Dr. Gronewold has served and continues to serve on multiple international water resources management boards and committees, and he is the lead investigator for the United States contribution to the Global Center for Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Transboundary Waters.