TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council TI - Review of NOAA's Plan for the Scientific Data Stewardship Program SN - DO - 10.17226/11421 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11421/review-of-noaas-plan-for-the-scientific-data-stewardship-program PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Earth Sciences AB - To better understand our climate system, it is important that we have climate data records (CDRs)--time series of measurements of sufficient length, consistency, and continuity to determine climate variability and change--that possess the accuracy, longevity, and stability to facilitate credible climate monitoring. In 2004, the National Research Council (NRC) published Climate Data Records from Environmental Satellites to provide the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with initial guidelines on how to develop and implement an effective CDR program. NOAA used this book to draft a plan for a new Scientific Data Stewardship (SDS) program, and then asked NRC to review it. The new program will be responsible for processing, archiving, and distributing observations from satellite and supporting ground-based platforms for monitoring, diagnosing, understanding, predicting, modeling, and assessing climate variation and change. The NRC review outlines several ways in which to improve NOAA's draft plan, most importantly by clarifying advisory mechanisms, providing more detail about how NOAA will coordinate with important partners in generating CDRs, articulating how the program will prioritize its activities, and developing ways to realistically project future costs. However, the draft plan is sound overall and NOAA should immediately begin implementing the SDS program while revising the plan as recommended in the book. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council A2 - David W. Cash A2 - James Buizer TI - Knowledge-Action Systems for Seasonal to Interannual Climate Forecasting: Summary of a Workshop SN - DO - 10.17226/11204 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11204/knowledge-action-systems-for-seasonal-to-interannual-climate-forecasting-summary PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Earth Sciences AB - The National Academies' Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability hosted a workshop "Knowledge-Action Systems for Seasonal to Interannual Climate Forecasting" in 2004 to discover and distill general lessons about the design of effective systems for linking knowledge with action from the last decade's experience with the production and application of seasonal to interannual climate forecasts. Workshop participants described lessons they had learned based on their experiences developing, applying, and using decision support systems in the United States, Columbia, Brazil, and Australia. Some of the key lessons discussed, as characterized by David Cash and James Buizer, were that effective knowledge-action systems: define and frame the problem to be addressed via collaboration between knowledge users and knowledge producers; tend to be end-to-end systems that link user needs to basic scientific findings and observations; are often anchored in "boundary organizations" that act as intermediaries between nodes in the system - most notably between scientists and decision makers; feature flexible processes and institutions to be responsive to what is learned; use funding strategies tailored to the dual public/private character of such systems; and require people who can work across disciplines, issue areas, and the knowledge–action interface. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council TI - Flash Flood Forecasting Over Complex Terrain: With an Assessment of the Sulphur Mountain NEXRAD in Southern California SN - DO - 10.17226/11128 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11128/flash-flood-forecasting-over-complex-terrain-with-an-assessment-of PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Earth Sciences AB - The nation's network of more than 130 Next Generation Radars (NEXRADs) is used to detect wind and precipitation to help National Weather Service forecasters monitor and predict flash floods and other storms. This book assesses the performance of the Sulphur Mountain NEXRAD in Southern California, which has been scrutinized for its ability to detect precipitation in the atmosphere below 6000 feet. The book finds that the Sulphur Mountain NEXRAD provides crucial coverage of the lower atmosphere and is appropriately situated to assist the Los Angeles-Oxnard National Weather Service Forecast Office in successfully forecasting and warning of flash floods. The book concludes that, in general, NEXRAD technology is effective in mountainous terrain but can be improved. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council A2 - Patricia Jones Kershaw A2 - Byron Mason TI - Lessons Learned Between Hurricanes: From Hugo to Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne: Summary of the March 8, 2005 Workshop of the Disasters Roundtable DO - 10.17226/11528 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11528/lessons-learned-between-hurricanes-from-hugo-to-charley-frances-ivan PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Earth Sciences ER - TY - BOOK AU - Transportation Research Board AU - National Research Council TI - Water Resources Planning for the Upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway SN - DO - 10.17226/11444 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11444/water-resources-planning-for-the-upper-mississippi-river-and-illinois-waterway PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Earth Sciences KW - Environment and Environmental Studies AB - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently completed its feasibility study for the Upper Mississippi River-Ilinois Waterway, which was one of the agency's longest and most complicated studies in its history. The first two reports from this WSTB committee reviewed analytical aspects of the Corps feasibility study. Water Resources Planning for the Upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway considers the broader issue of managing the multiple resources of the Upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway, especially with regard to several, recently-issued NRC reports on Corps of Engineers planning procedures. The report finds that a key issue regarding planning decisions on these river systems is the ambiguity related to several different pieces of legislation and acts that govern river management, and thus recommends that the administration and Congress clarify the federal intent for managing this river and waterway system. The report recommends an independent, retrospective reivew of the experience with a federal inter-agency Principals Group, which was convened to provide guidance to the Corps study. It is also recommended that the Corps strive to incorporate flexible, adaptive management principles through its entire water planning program, including operations of the lock and dam system. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council TI - Valuing Ecosystem Services: Toward Better Environmental Decision-Making SN - DO - 10.17226/11139 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11139/valuing-ecosystem-services-toward-better-environmental-decision-making PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Environment and Environmental Studies KW - Earth Sciences AB - Nutrient recycling, habitat for plants and animals, flood control, and water supply are among the many beneficial services provided by aquatic ecosystems. In making decisions about human activities, such as draining a wetland for a housing development, it is essential to consider both the value of the development and the value of the ecosystem services that could be lost. Despite a growing recognition of the importance of ecosystem services, their value is often overlooked in environmental decision-making. This report identifies methods for assigning economic value to ecosystem services—even intangible ones—and calls for greater collaboration between ecologists and economists in such efforts. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council TI - Water Conservation, Reuse, and Recycling: Proceedings of an Iranian-American Workshop SN - DO - 10.17226/11241 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11241/water-conservation-reuse-and-recycling-proceedings-of-an-iranian-american PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Earth Sciences KW - Environment and Environmental Studies AB - In December 2002, a group of specialists on water resources from the United States and Iran met in Tunis, Tunisia, for an interacademy workshop on water resources management, conservation, and recycling. This was the fourth interacademy workshop on a variety of topics held in 2002, the first year of such workshops. Tunis was selected as the location for the workshop because the Tunisian experience in addressing water conservation issues was of interest to the participants from both the United States and Iran. This report includes the agenda for the workshop, all of the papers that were presented, and the list of site visits. ER - TY - BOOK A2 - John D. Cox TI - Climate Crash: Abrupt Climate Change and What It Means for Our Future DO - 10.17226/10750 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/10750/climate-crash-abrupt-climate-change-and-what-it-means-for PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Explore Science KW - Earth Sciences AB - As scientists carefully search for clues in the sun and storm patterns from our distant past, they are gradually writing a new history of Earth's climate. Layers extracted from cores drilled into glaciers and ice sheets, sediments collected from the shores of lakes and oceans, and growth rings exposed in ancient corals and trees all tell the same surprising story. It is now apparent that alterations in our climate can happen quickly and dramatically. Physical evidence reveals that centuries of slow, creeping climate variations have actually been punctuated by far more rapid changes. While this new paradigm represents a significant shift in our picture of Earth's past, the real question is what it means for our future. Many researchers are now quietly abandoning the traditional vision of a long, slow waltz of slumbering ice ages and more temperate periods of interglacial warming. While they've long recognized the threats posed by global warming, they must now consider that the natural behavior of our climate is perhaps a greater threat than we'd imagined. And though there is no need for immediate alarm, the fact that changes in our climate can happen much more quickly than we'd originally thought--perhaps in the course of a human lifetime--makes it clear that science has a lot of questions to answer in this area. What are the mechanisms for triggering a significant climate change? In what ways should we expect this change to manifest itself? When will it likely happen? Climate Crash seeks to answer these questions, breaking the story of rapid climate change to a general public that is already intensely curious about what science has to say on the topic. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council TI - The Science of Instream Flows: A Review of the Texas Instream Flow Program SN - DO - 10.17226/11197 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11197/the-science-of-instream-flows-a-review-of-the-texas PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Earth Sciences KW - Agriculture AB - Across the United States, municipalities, counties, and states grapple with issues of ensuring adequate amounts of water in times of high demand and low supply. Instream flow programs aim to balance ecosystem requirements and human uses of water, and try to determine how much water should be in rivers. With its range of river and ecosystem conditions, growing population, and high demands on water, Texas is representative of instream flow challenges across the United States, and its instream flow program may be a model for other jurisdictions. Three state agencies—the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB), the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ)—asked a committee of the National Research Council (NRC) to review the Programmatic Work Plan (PWP) and Technical Overview Document (TOD) that outline the state’s instream flow initiative. The committee suggested several changes to the proposed plan, such as establishing clearer goals, modifying the flow chart that outlines the necessary steps for conducting an instream flow study, and provide better linkages between individual studies of biology, hydrology and hydraulics, physical processes, and water quality. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council A2 - Barbara Entwisle A2 - Paul C. Stern TI - Population, Land Use, and Environment: Research Directions SN - DO - 10.17226/11439 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11439/population-land-use-and-environment-research-directions PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Behavioral and Social Sciences KW - Earth Sciences AB - Population, Land Use, and Environment: Research Directions offers recommendations for future research to improve understanding of how changes in human populations affect the natural environment by means of changes in land use, such as deforestation, urban development, and development of coastal zones. It also features a set of state-of-the-art papers by leading researchers that analyze population-land useenvironment relationships in urban and rural settings in developed and underdeveloped countries and that show how remote sensing and other observational methods are being applied to these issues. This book will serve as a resource for researchers, research funders, and students. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council TI - Developing a Research and Restoration Plan for Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim (Western Alaska) Salmon SN - DO - 10.17226/11080 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11080/developing-a-research-and-restoration-plan-for-arctic-yukon-kuskokwim-western-alaska-salmon PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Environment and Environmental Studies KW - Earth Sciences AB - Recent declines in the abundance of salmon in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim (AYK) region of western Alaska have created hardships for the people and communities who depend on this resource. In 2002, the AYK Sustainable Salmon Initiative (SSI) was created to undertake research to understand the reasons for this decline and to help support sustainable management in the region. This report makes recommendations for developing the research that the AYK SSI science plan should be based on, and relates the development of a restoration plan to the results of that research. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council TI - The Geological Record of Ecological Dynamics: Understanding the Biotic Effects of Future Environmental Change SN - DO - 10.17226/11209 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11209/the-geological-record-of-ecological-dynamics-understanding-the-biotic-effects PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Environment and Environmental Studies KW - Earth Sciences AB - In order to answer important questions about ecosystems and biodiversity, scientists can look to the past geological record—which includes fossils, sediment and ice cores, and tree rings. Because of recent advances in earth scientists’ ability to analyze biological and environmental information from geological data, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey asked a National Research Council (NRC) committee to assess the scientific opportunities provided by the geologic record and recommend how scientists can take advantage of these opportunities for the nation’s benefit. The committee identified three initiatives for future research to be developed over the next decade: (1) use the geological record as a “natural laboratory” to explore changes in living things under a range of past conditions, (2) use the record to better predict the response of biological systems to climate change, and (3) use geologic information to evaluate the effects of human and non-human factors on ecosystems. The committee also offered suggestions for improving the field through better training, improved databases, and additional funding. ER - TY - BOOK AU - Transportation Research Board AU - National Research Council TI - Polar Icebreaker Roles and U.S. Future Needs: A Preliminary Assessment SN - DO - 10.17226/11525 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11525/polar-icebreaker-roles-and-us-future-needs-a-preliminary-assessment PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Transportation and Infrastructure KW - Earth Sciences ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council TI - Review of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program's Synthesis and Assessment Product on Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere SN - DO - 10.17226/11285 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11285/review-of-the-us-climate-change-science-programs-synthesis-and-assessment-product-on-temperature-trends-in-the-lower-atmosphere PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Earth Sciences KW - Environment and Environmental Studies AB - The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), established in 2002 to coordinate climate and global change research conducted in the United States and to support decision-making on climate-related issues, is producing twenty-one synthesis and assessment reports that address its research, observation, and decision-support needs. The first report, produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in coordination with other agencies, focuses on understanding reported differences between independently produced data sets of temperature trends for the surface through the lower stratosphere and comparing these data sets to model simulations. To ensure credibility and quality, NOAA asked the National Research Council to conduct an independent review of the report. The committee concluded that the report Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Understanding and Reconciling Differences is a good first draft that covers an appropriate range of issues, but that it could be strengthened in a number of ways. ER - TY - BOOK AU - Institute of Medicine AU - National Research Council A2 - William H. Hooke A2 - Paul G. Rogers TI - Public Health Risks of Disasters: Communication, Infrastructure, and Preparedness: Workshop Summary SN - DO - 10.17226/11201 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11201/public-health-risks-of-disasters-communication-infrastructure-and-preparedness-workshop PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Earth Sciences KW - Health and Medicine KW - Conflict and Security Issues AB - The National Research Council's Disasters Roundtable and the Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine were established as mechanisms for bringing various stakeholders together to discuss timely issues in a neutral setting. The goal was not to resolve these issues, but to create an environment conducive to scientific debate. The members of the respective Roundtables comprise representatives from academia, industry, nongovernmental agencies, and government, whose perspectives range widely and represent the diverse viewpoints of researchers, federal officials, and public interest. This report is the summary of a workshop was convened by the two Roundtables as a contribution to the debate on the health risks of disasters and the related need to build capacity to deal with them. The meeting was strengthened by integrating perspectives from these two fields, so that the agenda represented information from both communities and provided an opportunity to look at some of the most pressing research and preparedness needs for health risks of disasters. ER - TY - BOOK AU - National Research Council TI - Endangered and Threatened Species of the Platte River SN - DO - 10.17226/10978 PY - 2005 UR - https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/10978/endangered-and-threatened-species-of-the-platte-river PB - The National Academies Press CY - Washington, DC LA - English KW - Earth Sciences KW - Environment and Environmental Studies KW - Biology and Life Sciences AB - The tension between wildlife protection under the Endangered Species Act and water management in the Platte River Basin has existed for more than 25 years. The Platte River provides important habitat for migratory and breeding birds, including three endangered or threatened species: the whooping crane, the northern Great Plains population of the piping plover, and the interior least tern. The leading factors attributed to the decline of the cranes are historical overhunting and widespread habitat destruction and, for the plovers and terns, human interference during nesting and the loss of riverine nesting sites in open sandy areas that have been replaced with woodlands, sand and gravel mines, housing, and roadways. Extensive damming has disrupted passage of the endangered pallid sturgeon and resulted in less suitable habitat conditions such as cooler stream flows, less turbid waters, and inconsistent flow regimes. Commercial harvesting, now illegal, also contributed to the decline of the sturgeon. Endangered and Threatened Species of the Platte River addresses the habitat requirements for these federally protected species. The book further examines the scientific aspects of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s instream-flow recommendations and habitat suitability guidelines and assesses the science concerning the connections among the physical systems of the river as they relate to species’ habitats. ER -