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September 19, 2023
Last season, in Episode 5, we talked about the U.S. Geological Survey’s Climate Adaptation Science Centers, or CASCs. These regional consortiums facilitate partnerships between universities, tribal nations, and other institutions to deliver science that helps fish, wildlife, water, land, and people adapt to a changing climate. In this episode, Dan and Anna explore the South Central CASC and its work on the Red River Basin. They are joined by Barney Austin, president and CEO of Aqua Strategies Inc, and Newakis Weber, water resource manager for the Chickasaw Nation, to talk about why the Red River is so critical and how decision-makers in the region can increase resilience to the projected impacts of climate breakdown.
Show notes:
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Episode Transcript:
Dan Bresette: Hello, and welcome back to The Climate Conversation. I'm Dan Bresette, president of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. And joining me for the conversation today is our very own policy manager, Anna McGinn. Hi, Anna!
Anna McGinn: Hi, Dan! I'm excited to be hosting with you today and especially excited that we'll be talking about adaptation science. I seem to show up on the podcast when we're talking about adaptation, which is alright with me. Some of our listeners might remember that last season, we had an episode dedicated to the U.S. Geological Survey’s Climate Adaptation Science Centers—or CASCs—which are the regional consortiums that deliver science to help fish, wildlife, water, land, and people adapt to climate change. Today, we'll be focusing on the South Central CASC, and specifically its work regarding water management in the Red River Basin.
Dan: I think it's fair to say that we here at EESI love the U.S. Geological Survey, and we have a lot of admiration for the really cool work that's done in CASCs all over the country. But today, like Anna said, we're going to focus on the South Central CASC, and the South Central CASC encompasses Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico, and its consortium members include five state universities and two tribes: the Chickasaw Nation and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. One thing that's so great about the CASCs is that each of the nine centers has a tribal resilience liaison to facilitate collaboration with tribal nations. The South Central CASC has prioritized strong communication with the 68 tribes in the region, and this outreach is especially crucial for the CASC’s work in the Red River Basin, which encompasses 74 percent of the jurisdictional boundaries of the Chickasaw and Choctaw Tribes.
Anna: The Red River is the second largest river in the Southern Great Plains and a vital source of water in the South Central United States. It supports municipal water supplies, ecosystems, agriculture, and recreation from the High Plains of New Mexico all the way to the Mississippi. In recent years, the Red River Basin has seen extensive periods of drought punctuated by exceptional flooding, which has caused concern among scientists, water resource managers, and other stakeholders, which is why we're so excited to talk to our guests today.
Dan: So because of all that, scientists from the South Central CASC partnered with Aqua Strategies, Inc., a water planning and engineering firm, to produce a foundational report on the Red River Basin back in 2016. The purpose was to project trends in hydrologic conditions and water availability based on climate change impacts through the end of this century. Here with us today from Aqua strategies is Barney Austin. Barney has worked in the field of water resources for more than 30 years specializing in water supply planning, hydrology, hydraulics, and environmental flows. He was an active participant in the development of state water plans in Texas, Oklahoma, and California, and now he serves as president and CEO of Aqua Strategies.
Anna: We’re also joined by Newakis Weber. Newakis is a Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal citizen serving as water resource manager for the Chickasaw Nation. She started her career with the Chickasaw Nation Office of Natural Resources five years ago as a water resources planner and now works as the water resources manager to ensure water sustainability within the Chickasaw jurisdictional boundaries. Thank you both for joining us on The Climate Conversation today.
Newakis Weber: Well, thank you very much for having us.
Barney Austin: Yeah, my pleasure.
Anna: So let's jump right in. We're really excited to learn from both of you about the impacts of climate change on the flows in the Red River Basin. That report was published back in 2016 and it seems like it has formed the basis for much of the work that's happening in the region today. We're curious if you could tell us more about the data that was collected, what types of technology you used to acquire this data, and any other kind of key points to share with us about the report and how it's impacted your work to date.
Barney: Yeah, sure. So there are about 50 general circulation or global climate models that are available for download—they're available to the public, anyone can download those—but we wanted to make sure that the GCMS that we were using for this area were appropriate. And, gosh, those climate models produce different results in different parts of the country. Some of them produce really good results, really close to historical observations in some areas, and don't perform very well in other areas. So we spent a fair amount of time identifying three models that do perform particularly well for the Red River Basin. And then we worked very closely with the Climate Adaptation Science Center at OU to download those models and also downscale those models so that we refined the resolution and adjusted further those models to reflect a better correlation with historical observations. Now, those GCMs are really good at telling us what future temperature and precipitation are going to look like. They're not very good at telling us—in fact, they don't tell us at all—what future flows are going to look like. And that's really, the water resources of the region is what we were really interested in. So we had to build a couple of more models, and we had to download additional sets of data in order to build those models, to be able to answer those questions. So we had to get information on historical streamflow, and that's the U.S. Geological Survey that has that information. We also were able to obtain a lot of physical information for the watershed—so soil type, soil physical properties, vegetation type, land use—all those things are super important for translating that precipitation into flow. Ultimately, though, we wanted to look at what impacts there were to, or there will be to water availability. So we needed information on, you know, existing water rights and reservoirs and things like that. So we had to download or identify all that information as well. And the basin, of course, extends all the way from New Mexico to the Mississippi River, and so we were getting information from different states. Typically, water resources is managed at the state level, and so we had to coordinate or get that information from different state agencies on water rights and information on reservoirs. We also work closely with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who have built a set of water availability models in the RiverWare software, which they use for managing flood situations, but we used and adapted for our water availability studies. So the Corps of Engineers gave us a head start on this, which was very useful.
Anna: So Barney, you mentioned the localized climate projections and how you sort of scaled it down from these global models to being applicable to the Red River Basin. I'm curious if you can just dig into that a little bit more for us. How do you do that? And where does that create maybe more uncertainty in the work that you're doing? And maybe how does that increase certainty about some of the findings you had? And then if you could talk us through what were a couple of the key findings about what is going to happen in the Red River Basin, as it relates to the flows.
Barney: You know, there's a couple of really eye-opening things for me, and one is that there's a huge range of predictions from these global climate models. Some are predicting it to be more dry in the basin, and some of them are predicting it to be more wet. When I say “dry” and “wet,” I'm strictly talking about precipitation. They're all, without exception, expecting it to be warmer in the future. So whether that's two degrees or six degrees by the end of the century kind of depends on the emission scenario that is chosen, and then there's a little bit of variability between the models, but where the highest variability exists is on the precipitation. And of course, that's really important for, you know, determining what that future water condition will be, what the flows and lake levels will be in the future. So we spent a good amount of time figuring out which models, which of these 50-plus models that are available, perform best in the Red River Basin. And ultimately, we chose three different models and we worked on this project with those three different models so that we had a little bit of an understanding of what that uncertainty really is. So you know, one of the models showed it to be a little bit drier in the future compared to one of the other models, and so that gave us a sense of what that uncertainty in the future water resources will be in the basin. One of the biggest mistakes that scientists and engineers make is that they choose just one model and just say, you know, “Let's use the model results over here and, you know, assume that's going to be the gospel truth in the year 2060, or the year 2100.” Whatever they're looking at. It's super important to know that range of, you know, expected precipitation or expected flows, wherever you're looking at, by doing a really thorough job of looking at the range of results from these different models, which is what we did. Interestingly, when you do the downscaling—which is typically what you'd want to do if you're studying a particular basin rather than a whole continent—there's a couple of different ways you can downscale or refine the resolution of those models. Typically, people use a statistical downscaling approach, which is a numerical process for refining the resolution and adjusting to historical observations. Not all downscaling techniques are the same. And so it's worth spending a little bit of time figuring out what downscaling technique is the most commonly used right now and which one is the most appropriate to use in your instance. In our particular case, we also looked at three different downscaling techniques so that we would incorporate or at least understand what the uncertainty is associated with that process as well. And I think you asked a little bit about what those results were as well. And it's hard to generalize, right? Because we're dealing with a range of uncertainty or a range of results on all of this, and it depends on the emission scenario, and it depends which model you're using. But generally, we're finding that it's going to be drier in the western parts of the basin, and either the same or even slightly wetter on the Mississippi side of the basin (on the eastern side of the basin). Again, it depends on the model, it depends on the emission scenario that's chosen, but that's generally the finding. I think one of the things that was really interesting and what we were looking at is that temperature is really important. So even though some areas might get slightly more rainfall in the future, the fact that it's warmer causes evaporation to increase, and you might end up with less water in the river and less water in your lakes as a result of those warmer temperatures, even though you're getting more precipitation. So that was kind of one of the interesting findings for us.
Anna: That is really interesting. I've actually participated in the South Central CASC’s workshop on downscaling climate projections and getting the piece of paper that gives you all the nine or 12 different options and asking you: If you were the decision-maker, kind of, which ones would you select to make your decisions based off of for the water resources? And it definitely just presents the complexity and challenges of both climate projections, but then also the decision-making and the stakeholder engagement that goes along with it. So it's exciting to see both the work happening and being put to use, and then also the great education work that the CASCs are doing to kind of help educate people on it more broadly.
Barney: Yeah, you know, and in our choice of models, we wanted to make sure that we chose models that perform well in that particular area, but we also wanted some that had a little bit of a spread, right? We didn't want some that had almost exactly the same results. We wanted to show, to help us understand what that range of uncertainty is on future flow.
Dan: So I'd like to learn a little bit more about what the level of engagement was from the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and other South Central tribal nations throughout the process that led to the Red River report. And specifically, I'm also really curious what the role of the CASC was in facilitating that engagement.
Newakis: So the Chickasaw Nation and the Choctaw Nation have a really strong relationship with the South Central CASC as consortium members. So we coordinated with April Taylor, who was the previous tribal liaison, she was able to connect us with researchers who were interested in this work for the study area. So in particular, the nations coordinated with Aqua Strategies on the inputs into the model and doing some QA/QC (quality assurance and quality control) on the model. I really think this involvement allowed us to have a better understanding of the study as a whole and then relay some of that critical information back to our tribal leadership.
Barney: One of the one of the cool things with this particular project is that there was enough time in there built in to write reports, prepare papers, do presentations, and things like that, which included presentations and training sessions to other tribes and other folks that either were partners with the CASC or just an affiliation with the CASC or just interested in participating in the future. So the CASC was really good at facilitating those conversations and those dialogues.
Dan: So the report we're talking about dates back to 2016. How has the South Central CASC worked with tribal nations in the region to leverage and build on that data in the years since it was released? And is there anything we should be on the lookout for with respect to projects underway, or projects being planned, that we might be looking for in the near future?
Barney: Yeah, that's a great question. So you know, as a consultant, we end up doing a lot of work for particular clients who have an interest in that report, or in that model, or in those results, but they don't share that with the broader community. One of the really nice things about this project, working with the CASC, is that they have an interest and a desire, you know, a scientific hunger to share those results with other people. And it's been amazing, frankly, how many people have approached the Choctaws or the Chickasaws or me personally asking for results or asking for a paper or asking for just an opinion. In some instances, maybe they're working in the Red River Basin, maybe they're doing something similar in another basin, want some sort of guidance or advice or just experience, lessons learned. But there's been a large number of those types of communications, I would say. And the CASC, you know, they have their annual science meeting, but they've also sponsored or encouraged the Choctaws and Chickasaws and myself to go present this particular project to other folks or do training sessions on this to other folks, it's been really good. And we've actually, you know, have some publications out there that are pretty broadly disseminated. Another interesting thing—and I really like this, although at the time, it was super tedious—is there's a data management plan associated with this project, unlike most of my clients. And that is sort of a documented process for generating the data, it is a documented format for providing that data. And then that data is then made available to the community at large and so folks that are interested in, you know, not only our model results, but our process and in other pieces of information, including the report, can go and get that without having to bug me or other people for that data. So having that data in the public domain so readily accessible is very beneficial.
Newakis: I feel like the Red River Project really helped us understand the importance of conducting these types of studies. And that spurred us to make a request to the CASC in 2021 to do a study on the Canadian River, which we anticipate to be completed at the end of this month. So the information that's gathered in these studies gives us greater insight into the water resource management needs and helps us prioritize projects so that we can look for funding in the future to adapt to these impacts.
Barney: You were talking about whether the Red River project has led to anything else. There's one major initiative that's just getting underway now, looking specifically at the Red River Basin and Lake Texoma. Lake Texoma is a huge reservoir, it benefits both Oklahoma and Texas, has huge recreational opportunities, produces hydropower. It's also water supply for Texas, and probably will be water supply for Oklahoma as well. But the states of Texas and Oklahoma haven't been on very friendly terms, especially on water, for quite some time, probably 20 years or more. But this project has been a first step to bringing these two states together. And there's now an ongoing project, funded by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the State of Oklahoma, looking at bringing stakeholders from both sides of the Red River together to figure out ways to protect Lake Texoma and all the benefits—billions of dollars of benefits—that that lake brings both states. And so the meetings are already ongoing between Texans and Oklahomans and we're expecting good things to come out of that project in the future.
Dan: So, Newakis, that kind of leads into the next question I wanted to ask you about, which was, how have the Chickasaws and Choctaws and other tribal nations adjusted their water policy in response to the data that's been compiled? Has there been shifts in, say, agricultural practices or other efforts underway that perhaps have made farms or communities more adaptable to anticipated climate impacts like drought, flooding, extreme heat, the kinds of things we've experienced this summer?
Newakis: Yeah, I think the study really emphasized the importance of the water resource management work that we're doing within the nation and kind of helped us figure out where we should prioritize some of these things. So it really is allowing us to see a more strategic view of how we go about implementing things that we had been implementing and prioritize. The nation has been working with landowners and watersheds for years. And so we have seen the impacts of good land management practices and improvements for water quality and quantity from implementing those. And the Red River study gives us a clearer picture on those potential impacts to water availability. So we're working with watershed organizations to help them obtain federal funding so they can implement best management practices. And that can include improved soil health practices, prescribed fire, sometimes mechanical removal of Eastern redcedar, and then help them develop land management plans.
Barney: Yeah, I'd like to add as well that the State of Oklahoma—and they know this, and they won't be offended—but they have a fairly primitive system for understanding water availability. Their decision-making process on new water rights is based on the average annual flow in rivers, and as we all know, flow in those rivers varies a lot. And one of the good outcomes of this project is that we now have a much more sophisticated water availability model for the entire Red River Basin, which covers half of Choctaw and Chickasaw territory, that we can use for more informed decision-making. With the advent of this second project, which is looking at the Canadian River Basin, that entire southeast quadrant of Oklahoma will be covered with water availability models, which we can refine and answer some very specific questions about individual water rights and sort of longer-term planning decisions and strategies for dealing not only with climate change, but everyday problems, like, “How are we going to meet the water needs in the next 10 years as this community is growing?” Things like that.
Anna: So as we look to the end of the report and its recommendations, we see that it talks about the fact that changes to reservoir operating rules could make the region more resilient in the face of longer droughts and more extreme floods. It also mentions that such a change, and some other changes that are discussed, would require an act of Congress. So we are curious what sorts of changes you might specifically recommend Congress think about. We have a lot of Congressional staff in our audience and are always trying to share really relevant resources for them to consider in their work. And if there's also other federal policy changes that could make the Red River Basin more resilient to climate impacts.
Barney: That's an interesting question, or maybe it's an interesting opportunity, is what we should talk about. So most of those large water supply reservoirs across the U.S. have both a flood-control and a water-supply purpose. That's what they were originally authorized by Congress for, and that's how they're run today. And both of those things are critically important, right? The flood-control aspect allows folks to build near the river—downstream of the reservoir, without risking being flooded out—but also could provide hydropower, but often have a major water-supply role as well for providing water to large communities as they grow. So in the future, in areas that are becoming drier, let's say, there's an opportunity to perhaps reallocate that reservoir and reduce the amount of flood pool that it has—flood retention capabilities—and increase the capacity or the volume of that reservoir that's used for water supply. That's a little bit of a difficult concept, right? But part of that reservoir is dedicated to flood control, and part of those reservoirs are dedicated to water supply. And you can adjust the balance between the two, if our models are predicting that we don't need as much flood-control capability, but we need more water supply. Now you can make small adjustments to that balance without going to Congress, but because those structures were authorized by Congress in the first place, there has to be Congressional approval to make a major adjustment to the balance between those two things. It's a lengthy process, but folks aren’t really thinking about it so much, at least not in the context of climate change. But I think it is a particularly good opportunity in some areas, particularly those areas that we're expecting to be drier, where water-supply needs are increasing and flood-control requirements are perhaps reducing. So that's just one example. Of course, in areas that are expected to get wetter, we may have the reverse situation and that would be something we would have to look at as well.
Newakis: I think it would be really important for Congress to understand the importance of the relationship between the CASC and the funding opportunities and the impacts it has, and it creates space for the nations to make more informed decisions about water resource management within our territories.
Dan: So Newakis, I’d like to circle back to something that you just said, and you are a water resource manager. I'm curious if you have experiences or things that you've learned from this particular report that you might share with water resource managers in other parts of the country. How much of this is really specific to the Red River Basin? How much of this is applicable to other parts of the country? How much of it is applicable to communities that are not located in tribal areas? Or is this something that is especially relevant to other tribal communities?
Newakis: I think this is something that's replicable. And we're doing that in the Canadian River Basin as well. And I think the biggest thing it does for us is it allows us to give this information to our tribal leaders who can make decisions about prioritizing these land management practices or assisting communities with alternative water supplies and ways that we can adapt to these changes.
Dan: Well, thank you very much, Barney and Newakis, for joining us. It's been a pleasure to meet you and learn about all of the really cool work you have underway in the Red River Basin. Thank you so much for joining us.
Newakis: Thank you for having us.
Dan: Well, Anna, at the beginning of the podcast, you said something along the lines of—you seem to show up when we talk about climate adaptation. It's a really important topic and listening to Barney and Newakis talk about their work today was super interesting. The first episode of the season was about The Octopus in the [Parking] Garage, the Robert Verchick book about climate adaptation and resilience. And then this episode is about data, and modeling, and understanding sort of how the environment is changing, and how that impacts agriculture and communities and economic development, everything. Super interesting stuff. But also it feels to me like this was a great—well, “great” might not be the right word—an especially timely topic, given all the extreme weather and severe weather that we've experienced. There's been incredible flooding, there's been terribly dry conditions and wildfires, there has been drought, there's been extreme heat. We're recording this a little while before it comes out, it was 99 yesterday in Washington, I think it's going to be like 99 today. And there are other parts of the country, including parts of the country covered by the South Central CASC, where, you know, they will look at 99 degrees, and they would be wearing their snow suits on days like that, compared to some of the extreme heat they've suffered. So really important, and I'm glad that we're focusing on climate adaptation so far this season. I know we'll cover other things as the podcast moves on this season, but I think this was a really timely way. And I'm glad that the work that Barney and Newakis described is underway because these impacts are only going to get worse, and one of the things we always say is, “You can't plan for the climate of the past, you have to plan for the climate of the future.” And you could only do that after doing the kinds of work, and analysis, and report-writing, and recommendation-making along the lines that was in this report.
Anna: I absolutely agree. I think almost everyone is seeing climate impacts in their backyard this summer and leading into this fall. And so, it’s so important that we are having these conversations and that people like Barney and Newakis are on the ground doing this really important work. And there are other people at the CASCs and elsewhere doing this really important adaptation science and adaptation practitioner work all over the country, and excited to keep lifting up those stories as we go throughout this podcast season and in EESI resources overall. If you want to learn more about EESI’s work on climate adaptation science, head to our website at eesi.org. Also follow us on social media @eesionline for all of our recent updates. The Climate Conversation is published as a supplement to our bi-weekly newsletter, Climate Change Solutions. Go to eesi.org/signup to subscribe. Thanks for joining us and see you next time!
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