ALEXANDRIA, VA—April 11, 2011. Drs. Kate White and Jeff Arnold of IWR led a webinar on 16 March for USACE field offices entitled “Integrating Mitigation and Adaptation Approaches to Climate Change Challenges.” The webinar focused on mitigation and adaptation in the context of the Corps Civil Works mission. It was organized in partnership with the USACE Acting Sustainability Program Manager, Jane Mergler, and the Acting Environmental Community of Practice Lead, Chris Godfrey.
The webinar addressed the importance of recognizing multiple plausible futures when planning in water resources. It described the Corps comprehensive collaborative approach to adaptation and outlined current adaptation efforts. Potential tools for implementing adaptation approaches were discussed. The webinar also explained when an integrated approach utilizing mitigation and adaptation is warranted to address climate change impacts.
Mitigation and adaptation to climate change are critical for the resilience and reduced vulnerability of USACE projects to climate variability. Mitigation involves avoiding the unmanageable and adaptation centers on managing the unavoidable. USACE recognizes that water resources management must adopt a non-stationary paradigm to respond to physical and climatic changes and uncertainty. Providing tools and resources, such as potential indicators for adaptation decision-making, is an important function of IWR’s Responses to Climate Change Program.
More about the Responses to Climate Change Program
The mission of the Responses to Climate Change Program (RCC) is to develop, implement, and assess adjustments or changes in operations and decision environments to enhance resilience or reduce vulnerability of USACE projects, systems, and programs to observed or expected changes in climate. It provides planning and engineering guidance, and it assesses the effectiveness of adaptation strategies. Program staff at IWR collaborate with Federal, state and local agencies as well as non-governmental organizations to pursue these activities.
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