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Oregon basin-scale climate change preparation pilot projects
Preparing Local Communities and Ecosystems for Climate Change
The National Center is working with the Climate Leadership Initiative at the University of Oregon in the Rogue, Umatilla, Klamath, and Upper Willamette River basins to implement four basin-scale 
climate change preparation planning pilot projects. The goal of these pilot projects is to
- Predict the range of adverse impacts of climate change to natural ecosystems and focal species (like salmon) as well as to the built, human, and economic environments of the target basins.
- Identify strategies and policies for increasing ecological and community resiliency to help the region prepare for the impacts of climate change.
- Make specific recommendations to guide communities in making the lifestyle changes necessary to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas pollution in a manner that is safe and comparatively benign in terms of environmental impacts
- Identify scientific data gaps, research needs and monitoring processes
Our work with the communities in the pilot basins will help create integrated climate change preparation plans that 
increase resiliency for ecological, social, economic, and built systems. Climate change predictions indicate that we are likely to see larger and more frequent fires, floods, and droughts. By increasing the resiliency of those four systems, we hope to bring as much biodiversity as possible through the climate change bottleneck while preventing ecologically destructive reactions from panicked communities.
In each basin, the project will host a series of workshops bringing together scientists, planners, emergency responders, and policymakers to identify and recommend preparation strategies that can be taken to reduce the impacts of climate change on local ecosystems and residents. We will begin in each basin with a science workshop to examine likely climate change scenarios, identify potential impacts, and develop recommendations to protect and restore ecosystem resiliency.
Follow-up workshops will bring together scientists with planners, emergency responders and
decision-makers to build on the ecological recommendations from the science workshop. The goal is development of specific recommendations related to natural ecosystems, built environment (critical infrastructure), human systems (public health, emergency management, social services), and economic systems (forestry, agriculture, high tech and other industries).
The first science workshop is scheduled for April 11-12, 2008, in the Rogue Basin, with the full pilot project effort slated to be completed by fall of 2009.
