Celebrating Milestones: 10 Years of Supporting Resilience

This month we are celebrating major milestones and want to share those with you. The Climate Hub network just celebrated its 10 year anniversary. As part of that anniversary our partners recorded short stories about some of their favorite projects. We have compiled a selection of those for this episode to kick off the new year.

Relevant links:

USDA Climate Hubs: Stories from Our First 10 Years
USDA Climate Hubs: Celebrating 10 Years!

If you’re enjoying this podcast, please consider rating us and/or leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts, Podcast Addict, or Podchaser Thanks!

Follow us on X @RainShinePod
Never miss an episode! Sign up to get an email alert whenever a new episode publishes!
Have a suggestion for a future episode? Please tell us!

Come Rain or Shine affiliate links:
DOI Southwest CASC: https://www.swcasc.arizona.edu/ 
USDA Southwest Climate Hub: https://www.climatehubs.usda.gov/hubs/southwest 
Sustainable Southwest Beef Project (NIFA Grant #2019-69012-29853): https://southwestbeef.org/ 

Transcript

[Emile Elias] Welcome to Come Rain or Shine, podcast of the USDA Southwest Climate Hub

[Sarah LeRoy] and the DOI Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, or Southwest CASC, operated by the USGS. I’m Sarah LeRoy, Research Coordinator for the Southwest CASC.

[Emile Elias] And I’m Emile Elias, Director of the Southwest Climate Hub. Here we highlight stories to share the most recent advances in climate science, weather, and climate adaptation and innovative practices to support resilient landscapes and communities.

[Sarah LeRoy] We believe that sharing some of the most innovative, forward thinking, and creative climate science and adaptation will strengthen our collective ability to respond to even the most challenging impacts of climate change in one of the hottest and driest regions of the world.

The contents of this podcast are for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as endorsement for any of the products, technologies, or strategies discussed. 

[Emile Elias] Happy New Year! This month we are celebrating major milestones and want to share those with you. Come Rain or Shine is 5 years old! As you know this podcast comes to you via a partnership of the Southwest Climate Hub and the Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center - both of which celebrated milestones last year. The CASC network came online first and is now 15 years old, and the Climate Hub network celebrated its 10 year anniversary. As part of that anniversary our partners recorded short stories about some of their favorite projects. 

[Sarah LeRoy] We picked four of our favorite stories especially relevant to the Southwest, including a clip about wine growers in California, one on the Southwest Drought Learning Network, another discussing rainwater harvesting on Tribal lands, and lastly, a story about Grass-Cast, a grassland productivity forecasting tool that we have discussed on a previous episode of this podcast. If you are interested in listening to the other clips recorded as a part of the Climate Hub’s 10th Anniversary celebration, including a clip about this podcast, check out the link in the description of this episode. We hope you enjoy listening to these stories, and we will be back with a full episode in February where we’ll begin a short series talking about pollinators!

[Allison Jordan] Hi, I'm Allison Jordan. I'm the Executive Director of the California Sustainable Wine Growing Alliance, a non profit organization founded by Wine Institute and the California Association of Wine Grape Growers 20 years ago to promote sustainability in the wine industry from grapes to glass. The mission of the alliance is to be recognized globally as a leader in sustainable wine growing through the development and promotion of sustainable practices, tools for education and outreach partnerships with stakeholders, and prioritization of research.

 I first became aware of the California Climate Hub as a board member of the National Grape Research Alliance, and that's an organization that drives research to maximize the productivity, sustainability and competitiveness of US grape industries. As the California Sustainable Wine Growing Alliance began to work on a new climate smart agriculture project. I knew that the hub was going to be a perfect partner for us. Given the climate crisis and related pressures and potential impacts, we felt it was really important for California wine growers to be able to mitigate and adapt to climate change. We've been working on this issue for about 20 years. 

I'm really looking back at our code of sustainable wine growing, which covers things like energy and water use efficiency and healthy soils - some really key elements to climate smart agriculture. We also knew that we had to have the science behind it. So back in the early 2000s, we worked with the University of California-Davis to do a literature review to understand the state of the science. And at the time, it was really quite sparse for specialty crops for perennial crops.

And so we did what we could with what we had. Um, we also had done a carbon footprint for California wine, which really was essential to understand where our hotspots are. And so we've continued on, but this has become more and more of an important issue for our industry. And so with this new project, we felt it was again, really important to have that understanding of potential impacts, climate beneficial practices that would help with both mitigation and adaptation, and then really having this actionable guidance and sound strategies and training tools, resources that are needed to expand climate smart practices in both vineyards and in wineries. And so that's really what our project is all about.

It's about working with the California Climate Hub to do a literature review as a starting point, and also they've done an impact assessment for us, so we can really understand what are potential impacts in varying regions around the state, we have such a large state with really, really different climate and geography and conditions and so really understanding what impacts might be in different wine growing regions, and also for different varietals. It's not as if we have a single crop that's very distinctive. We have a lot of variation. And so we wanted to understand those differences, too. And then for the literature review, we were envisioning that we'd have a scientist or 2 sit down and review the literature and write a report.

But instead, they created this very dynamic process where they brought in issue area experts and had a workshop, a two day workshop. And then it's been ongoing where they're working together to develop a paper on the latest science and that's going to be foundational for lots of different things, educational materials. We're creating this idea of a toolbox that includes climate smart practices, resources, case studies, videos. Um, and so all of the work that we're doing with the Climate Hub is really going to feed into that toolbox, which then, of course, will disseminate through workshops and lots of different ways that we get that word out through outreach and education.

It's really important for wine grape growers and vendors to understand the climate change impacts they can expect and also to have the information they need to develop their own strategies for both mitigation and adaptation. And it's really important that that information is grounded in science. So we are thrilled to have the California Climate Hub as a partner.

California is the fourth largest wine producing region in the world. We have 5,900 wine grape growers, more than 6,000 wineries. So the potential impact for the work that we're doing with the hub is just tremendous. I just want to thank Dr. Steve Estoya and Dr. Lauren Parker for all they've done, all the work they've put in and their, their ability to go above and beyond what we expected for the project.

[Brian Fuchs] My name is Brian Fuchs and I'm a climatologist by training and I'm on the faculty at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, and I work with the National Drought Mitigation Center. And through the last 14 years or so, the National Drought Mitigation Center has worked directly with USDA's Office of the Chief Economist on several different cooperative agreements.

And through that time, the development of the USDA Climate Hubs came on board. So congratulations on 10 years of being around. And during that time, the NDMC has really become big partners with the USDA Climate Hubs. And the reason being is the mission of the hubs and the mission of NDMC are very similar.

The National Drought Mitigation Center, we are a national entity and working on regional problems through the Climate Hubs has been a great opportunity and one that we have really cherished and built upon over the last 10 years. So with the Southwest Climate Hubs, some of our earlier work, I met Emile and Katie, and we did some stakeholder workshops, and it was a good introduction of knowing what the hubs were trying to do, and what NDMC was trying to do, and how we could put those synergies together.

So in talking with Emile over time, not only had we been dealing with a very significant drought in the Southwest, uh, one that some say was, was historical in nature. And during these discussions, we decided that, you know, the approaches that have been ongoing, especially with the duration of that drought may not be sufficient and meaning that we were seeing stakeholder fatigue, we were seeing that messages were not getting across as accurately as they could.

And so the idea was how can we better work with decision makers and resource managers, as well as information providers like the hub and [00:02:00] NDMC to reach out to these folks and give them an opportunity to come together and learn from each other. And that was really the basis of what the drought learning community came about from was how can we take the information and, and what we are already doing, but interact with the stakeholders and those that are making decisions, the resource managers, all those that are basically what I would call the boots on the ground. How can we come together with them and have them work together with us to do a better job of addressing drought and in the four corners region, again, that drought really was the catalyst of why we wanted to come together with this.

The idea was the whole basis of the drought learning community would be peer to peer learning. And to me, that was most important concept. We had been working in this arena for, for years at the NDMC and this concept never did come up. [00:03:00] We always felt a high level of success by going out into the field meeting with these folks, delivering them information and how to use this information, getting feedback from them of what their needs were, but we kind of left it at that. And so this new approach of a drought learning network and this peer to peer learning was very innovative. It was addressing a problem that that needed attention.

It wasn't putting the responsibility on any one particular group. We were going to look at all of our resources and connections that we had, but we were going to invite those folks who are being impacted the most to participate. So not only did we want them involved with this process, but we wanted them to share their experiences, we wanted people to learn from them. We wanted to build an arena where not only could you go and obtain information, but you could also go and share experiences. And what we also found out during this time is there were [00:04:00] challenges throughout the entire Southwest. Some of these resource managers were encountering things that they'd never seen in their professional careers or even in, in, uh, the near term that they were having to address and having to deal with as well.

And so with this, we felt this approach of having these resource managers and decision makers share both positives and negatives. You know, some of these folks were very innovative and came up with some very good ideas. And so the NDMC, the USDA Climate Hub, and then even NIDUS came in on board, too, came together with, with this concept of, of, hey, we're going to set up this network, we're going to bring people together, but it's really going to be led by those who are, that are involved.

And I think that was another key point, too, is we weren't dictating what we thought decision makers and resource managers should do. We wanted them to come together, discuss the problem, find the solutions. And I think that's where we have had some [00:05:00] success. Again, we're early on in this process. We're only about three or four years in along with a COVID break where some of this was was very challenging, but each time we come together as a group with our annual meetings, I become more and more encouraged that the approach that we're taking is the right one, especially for this area, and especially for an area that is constantly dealing with drought. And in the last decade or so it has been significant drought and unprecedented in some areas so I do think that approach is great, you know.

What can we do next? I think that's always where, where I, uh, sometimes try to, uh, again, think outside of the box. The whole DLN and peer to peer learning concept is definitely outside of the box. We haven't seen too many other examples, but what I'd like to see is this group continue to build. Uh, continue to reach out to people who may not have been involved yet.

And I think we need to continue to be very open to changes, pivoting on the fly that if something, uh, didn't work out, Hey, let's go another direction. And I think we've already seen that with our working groups. I think the working groups have been a key component of the Drought Learning Network and bringing together these, these peers, because these peers brought up the ideas being addressed in the working groups.

I think the work with indigenous people is great. I think that's something more that we can do. I think reaching out to agricultural stakeholders. And again, where was that fatigue early on and have we helped, uh, reduce that fatigue of us as a stakeholder. And I do like the coordination. It's not coming on either any of the three groups that are overseeing us, but we're sharing that responsibility.

And I, I think we can even continue to do that in the future with more partners, as we see the DLN effort grow and continue, and, you know, the outcomes to me have been great. Uh, not only have we seen other regions and other, uh, hubs come together and say, Hey, we want to do our own drought learning network, or can we be part of yours, I think that alone has shown the success of this approach.

And it is interesting to see some of the other hubs now trying to go in that direction and you know I wish them success, and not to give up, because this hasn't been an easy process. We have had some very deep discussions and we've always, always have thought about, you know, the decision makers, the stakeholders, resource managers, and what we can do to help them best interact with each other.

And to me that that's kind of been the gold star of this whole process. And I very, I'm very proud to be part of it. I'm very proud to have worked over these last 10 years, not only with the Southwest hub, but all of the hubs and I foresee in the future that the NDMC and the relationship with all of the USDA Climate Hubs will continue to grow and continue to strengthen and I'm encouraged by all that.

[Jacob Shaffer] Howdy, my name is Jacob Shaffer, currently with the USDA NRCS here in Weatherford, Texas, and I served on a work detail as the Tribal Environmental Support Specialist for the Southern Plains Climate Hub from January to September 2023. The climate problem that we faced was the ongoing droughts on tribal land, needed some extra water for fire, potable water, livestock, irrigation.

And so I pitched the idea to the Climate Hub as well as to the Bureau of Indian Affairs on a rainwater partners project where we would capture rainwater from powwow pavilions, barns, other facilities, and collect it, treat it, and either use it as potable water or to uh, use as extra water for fire protection, irrigation and livestock. 2023 was pretty, pretty bad year as far as drought goes. It was received pretty well among the tribal nations. So we started here in Texas with the Alabama Kishawda Tribe of Texas down in Livingston and had a meeting with their council and the BIA and myself and presented kind of our ideas and they accepted it.

And so we went to BIA and BIA approved it as well to get, to fund the first project of a 65,000 gallon facility off their 200 foot by 200 foot pavilion. And that's currently been installed just within the last few months. And then from there, it's spread up to Oklahoma with the Caddo Nation, Caw Nation, Caw Paw Nation, Absentee Shawnee, and the Wichita Affiliated.

So it's, it's taken off more than what we anticipated. We also were able to work with the Southwest Climate Hub and had some programs over there with the Santa Ana Pueblo in Albuquerque, and they were interested as well as working with BIA to get some water facilities over in that area. Water harvesting has been used as water conservation practice for thousands of years.

And so this just to help mitigate again, the drought effects, it not only addressed the water quantity and quality effects, but also was able to outreach to tribal nations, work with other partner agencies, such as BIA, EPA, NRCS, FSA, RD, and even some 1890s college programs, while also building relationships among tribal partners.

And everyone involved has benefited from the cohesiveness and energy that everybody's brought to the table. Not only is this spread in the Southern Plains, but we've, we've had tribes as far as South Dakota express interest, Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana. We also hosted several workshops in the Southern Plains.

To date, we've reached, I believe, over seven states. We've had six funded BIA water harvesting projects, had 10 program workshops, and reached over 1,800 clientele during this short work detail with the Climate Hub. And we were also able to help change policy with the BIA and EPA as well.

[Julie Elliott] My name is Julie Elliott. I retired from the Natural Resources Conservation Service after 32 years serving as a Rangeland Management Specialist in Eastern Colorado. First became aware of Grass-Cast in 2017 when the Northern Plains Climate Hub had a special session with the NRCS Range Specialist after a Colorado section meeting of the Society for Range Management.

Because of my involvement in planning the 2020 Society for Range Management meeting in Denver, I got to know Windy Kelley, who is the coordinator for the Northern Plains Climate Hub. She shared with me a call for proposals for a liaison position between NRCS and the Climate Hubs. We collaborated with Dannele Peck, who's director of the Northern Plains Climate Hub, to draft a project proposal centered primarily on Grass-Cast and drought management education.

That proposal was accepted by NRCS, and I started the position in January of 2021. Grass-Cast addresses the challenges grazers face of predicting how much grass there might be in the coming growing season. Grass-Cast takes the soil's information, the plant community's growing there, and recent weather to create a soil water profile.

It then adds in future weather scenarios to create a total production prediction. But, because we never know what kind of weather we're going to have. Grass-Cast uses three different weather scenarios. What if we actually have above average precipitation? How much grass might we expect then? What if we have near normal precipitation?

What might total production look like in that case? And what if the spigot shuts off and we have less than normal precipitation? How much grass production might we expect then? Grass-Cast then creates three different maps based on each of these weather scenarios to help grazers anticipate how much total production might be possible compared to the long term average.

With these three different future weather scenarios, Grass-Cast is only available on the Great Plains and the Southwest, New Mexico and Arizona, which is a large front. But compared to the whole United States, it's relatively small area of influence. And because Grass-Cast is a relatively new tool, most of the potential users don't know about it.

With a very limited staff and many demands, the education and promotion of the tool is challenging. I became the face and voice of Grass-Cast in 2021 and 2022, participating in many drought related webinars and meetings. Grass cast is a model, and it cannot know the actual conditions on the ground, but if two or all three scenarios above, near, or below normal precipitation lean in the same direction, it can really help a grazer A grazing advisor, such as an NRCS professional, or an extension, or a land manager, anticipate how much grass there might be and make changes on the range before it shows up, well, before cattle prices tank, before hay prices go sky high.

And before there's damage on the rangeland, that's the real value of Grass-Cast is being able to look into the future and see what might be coming so you can take those preemptive steps instead of waiting until it's blaring you in the face and you're also facing all these financial troubles. The Grass-Cast team is always looking for more long term production data to refine the model in the current coverage area and for potential expansion.

[Emile Elias] Thanks for listening to Come Rain or Shine, podcast of the USDA Southwest Climate Hub

[Sarah LeRoy] and the USGS Southwest CASC. If you liked this podcast, don’t forget to rate or review it and subscribe for more great episodes. A special thanks to our production crew, Skye Aney and Reanna Burnett. If you want more information, have any questions for the speakers, or would like to offer feedback, please reach out to us via our website.