Identifying stakeholder-relevant climate change impacts - Springer Link

Climatic Change (2014) 124:371–384 DOI 10.1007/s10584-013-0806-4

Identifying stakeholder-relevant climate change impacts: A case study in the Yakima River Basin, Washington, USA K. Jenni & D. Graves & J. Hardiman & J. Hatten & M. Mastin & M. Mesa & J. Montag & T. Nieman & F. Voss & A. Maule

Received: 22 June 2012 / Accepted: 24 May 2013 / Published online: 20 June 2013 # U.S. Government 2013

Abstract Designing climate-related research so that study results will be useful to natural resource managers is a unique challenge. While decision makers increasingly recognize the need to consider climate change in their resource management plans, and climate scientists recognize the importance of providing locally-relevant climate data and projections, there often remains a gap between management needs and the information that is available or is being collected. We used decision analysis concepts to bring decision-maker and stakeholder perspectives into the applied research planning process. In 2009 we initiated a series of studies on the impacts of climate change in the Yakima River Basin (YRB) with a four-day stakeholder workshop, bringing together managers, stakeholders, and scientists to develop This article is part of a Special Topic on "Stakeholder Input to Climate Change Research in the Yakima River Basin, WA" edited by Alec Maule and Stephen Waste. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0806-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. K. Jenni Insight Decisions LCC, 2200 Quitman Street, Denver, CO 80212, USA e-mail: [email protected] D. Graves Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, 729 NE Oregon Street, Suite 200, Portland OR 97232, USA J. Hardiman : J. Hatten : M. Mesa : A. Maule (*) U.S. Geological Survey, WFRC, Columbia River Research Laboratory, 5501A Cook-Underwood Road, Cook, WA 98605, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. Montag U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, 2150 Centre Avenue, Building C, Fort Collins, CO 80526, USA T. Nieman Decision Applications, Inc., 1390 Grove Court, Saint Helena, CA 94574, USA M. Mastin : F. Voss U.S. Geological Survey, Washington Water Science Center, 934 Broadway, Suite 300, Tacoma, WA 98402, USA

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Climatic Change (2014) 124:371–384

an integrated conceptual model of climate change and climate change impacts in the YRB. The conceptual model development highlighted areas of uncertainty that limit the understanding of the potential impacts of climate change and decision alternatives by those who will be most directly affected by those changes, and pointed to areas where additional study and engagement of stakeholders would be beneficial. The workshop and resulting conceptual model highlighted the importance of numerous different outcomes to stakeholders in the basin, including social and economic outcomes that go beyond the physical and biological outcomes typically reported in climate impacts studies. Subsequent studies addressed several of those areas of uncertainty, including changes in water temperatures, habitat quality, and bioenergetics of salmonid populations. 1 Introduction Climate scientists and climate change researchers face a tremendous set of challenges, extending from the fundamental difficulties of modeling the global climate system to questions of how to make their data and analyses useful to resource managers and decision makers who need to take potential climate impacts into account. Numerous ways of making this information more useful are being explored, including the use of regional climate models and downscaling of global models to more accurately project local and regional changes (Pierce et al. 2009), learning what laypeople know and understand about climate change and tailoring risk communications to their mental models (Reynolds et al. 2010), improving the ways we communicate about climate change and related uncertainties (Webster 2003), and including stakeholders in local climate-related modeling and decision-making (Tidwell et al. 2004). From the decisionmaking perspective, there is also recognition of the need to take climate change into account in planning and management (Washington State Department of Ecology 2008; Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force 2011). The impacts of climate change on water quantity and quality (including water temperature) exacerbate the difficulties faced by water and natural resource managers and by modelers (Milly et al. 2008). Perhaps because water management issues are so often contentious, there is a trend towards comprehensive integrated assessments with direct stakeholder involvement in water modeling and management (Tidwell et al. 2004; Holzkämper et al. 2012). The first action plan from the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force (2011) focuses on managing freshwater systems, and one of the key recommendations is “improve water resources and climate change information for decision-making.” The Western Governors’ Association (2008) states that “water managers should take the initiative to clearly communicate their needs for applied science to the climate research community…” A significant amount of work has been done on modeling climate change and the impacts of climate change on hydrological systems in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) region of the United States (Mote et al. 2003). The Columbia River Basin (CRB) dominates the PNW and is characterized by diverse hydroclimatic, physiographic, and ecologic regimens. Biologic-and water-related issues are influenced by a multitude of factors including economic, social, Federal and State interests, and Tribal trust interests. To prepare for the effects of climate change in the PNW, it is imperative to forecast the effects of climate change on aquatic habitats, fish health, fish and wildlife populations and vegetation in the basin. Furthermore, to make that work meaningful to those most affected by the changes, it is important to connect those physical and ecologic changes to economic and social factors that affect the day-to-day lives of the local human populations. The objective of this study was to develop a conceptual model of potential climate change impacts on stakeholder objectives to provide direction for a series of physical, biological, social and economic studies that addressed climate change in the Yakima River Basin (YRB).


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2 Methods We used Decision Analysis (DA) methods to frame and structure a conceptual model of water resource and water management issues within the YRB, with the direct involvement of decision-makers and stakeholders. DA approaches have been used in similar contexts elsewhere, generally focused on using the methods to better understand stakeholder objectives to inform specific policy decisions (Marttunen and Hämäläinen 2008). 2.1 Decision analysis DA is a broadly accepted and widely used method for evaluating complex decisions involving uncertainty and multiple competing objectives (Clemen 1996). Three main steps in the DA process are framing, modeling, and execution. In practice there is interaction between these steps and the process is iterative. In framing, the focus is on developing a robust picture of the decision problems: understanding who the decision-makers and stakeholders are, what types of decisions each can make, and what are the outcomes of interest to each. This stage typically includes defining the specific decision options to be considered and developing a set of detailed attributes that can be used to value and compare the options. Modeling includes both conceptual modeling, where the structure of the problem is defined to make explicit connections between decisions and outcomes and to identify the uncertainties that affect the outcomes, and quantification of the model. The DA model is designed to provide information and support for the final step, where decision-makers choose and implement management actions. Careful attention to detail in the framing step and active engagement with decision-makers and stakeholders helps to streamline the analysis and reduces the chances of developing a decision support model that is disconnected from the actual decisions it is intended to support. Traditional DA studies are designed to evaluate and compare well-defined decision options under conditions of uncertainty. The DA application described herein differed from the traditional DA study in two important ways. The primary difference was that the ultimate goal of this study was not to build a complete model that could make recommendations for one or more specific decisions. Rather, we framed the problem from the perspective of water resource managers, but the goal was to help applied scientists design and tailor their studies to produce results that would be broadly useful to those decision-makers and relevant to the stakeholders affected by climate change, across a range of decisions that might be considered. The second difference is the treatment of uncertainty. As noted by Polasky et al. (2011), a traditional, complete decision analysis requires that all major uncertainties be quantified probabilistically, while uncertainties in future climate are not typically modeled that way. Indeed, most climate projections are done for a set of standard emission scenarios using a suite of models, and neither the models nor the scenarios are assigned probabilities (IPCC 2000), and that is how uncertainties were treated in the development of the conceptual model described below. While textbook descriptions of DA often emphasize fully quantified analyses of individual decisions, the DA process can be highly effective in identifying decision-maker information needs, and used effectively in structuring and integrating models even absent the ability to fully quantify all relevant uncertainties (Gregory et al. 2005; Coleman et al. 2006). 2.2 Framing and conceptual modeling In the context of framing local and regional water management decisions, the first step was to identify decision-makers and stakeholders and the types of decisions they make regarding managing water and adapting to climate change. This focus on and inclusion of the

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perspectives of stakeholders and decision makers in is becoming more common in environmental analyses (e.g., Voinov and Bousquet 2010, Liu et al. 2008, Marttunen and Hämäläinen 2008). For this case study, the first step established the context for a conceptual decision-support model, and for identifying what additional science might be useful. The next step was to identify a set of objectives that represent what the decision-makers and stakeholders would want to know in order to make decisions. As is common practice in DA (Keeney 2007), multiple approaches for generating objectives were used, including brainstorming, structuring objectives into categories and expanding, and discussing both the common and dissimilar objectives from various stakeholder perspectives. The focus of the discussion was more on the breadth of the objectives identified than on defining any particular objective in great depth, consistent with the goal of this study to help design and tailor better applied science projects. Had the goal of the study been to support specific water management decisions, more detailed objectives would likely have been required. Early in the framing process each outcome that is of interest to the decision-makers is specified independently. While no single management alternative is likely to achieve all objectives, it is useful to clearly identify the characteristics of an ideal solution first, and to defer discussion of the tradeoffs or balancing of different objectives to later in the process. The frame was completed by identifying some of the major uncertainties that make it difficult to predict decision outcomes. Once a decision framework was established, problem structuring and modeling tools, including influence diagrams, assessment techniques, and simulation-based modeling could be used to create a conceptual model linking climate change and associated environmental stressors to their impacts on the objectives and outcomes of interest identified in the framing steps. In the course of this project, we used influence diagrams to develop a conceptual model, and then developed some simplified quantitative modeling using estimated data based on the knowledge of stakeholders present, to illustrate how the overall conceptual model could effectively link climate change impacts and decisions to outcomes of interest to decision-makers. This process and the resulting conceptual model highlighted areas of uncertainty that could be topics of future research. This is similar to the process used by Young et al. (2011) in its use of conceptual models to identify scientific uncertainties, and differs by explicitly recognizing stakeholder interests within the conceptual model structure and the need to connect technical questions to decision-maker interests. 2.3 The case study: Yakima river basin To test and illustrate the usefulness of direct stakeholder involvement, DA framing and conceptual modeling early in the design of research, we conducted a four-day framing workshop involving representative decision-makers and stakeholders interested in water management issues in the YRB, along with members of our research team, who together created a conceptual model of water management issues. That conceptual model, and the workshop discussion themselves, were then used to redesign and focus on a set of connected, interdisciplinary studies of the effects of climate change on flow, habitat, and fish population health so that the results of those studies could be more clearly connected to local economic and social impacts of those changes. Our ultimate goal as a research team was to design the studies that followed this workshop so that they would produce information of value to the decision-makers and stakeholders across a variety of water and natural resource management decisions. 2.3.1 Study location and climate impacts The Yakima River is a tributary of the Columbia River in arid eastern Washington State. The CRB stretches from British Columbia through Washington State, forming much of the


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border between Washington and Oregon, and Oregon and Idaho (via the Snake River), before discharging to the Pacific Ocean. The YRB covers over 16,000 km2, with its headwaters in the snowy, high Cascade Mountains (annual precipitation >250 cm) and its mouth in the desert (annual precipitation ~15 cm) (Fig. 1). Currently the YRB has water storage capacity of 1.23 km3 (1 million acre-feet), which represents about 30 % of annual runoff. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, however, is committed to supply 2.09 km3 to irrigate over 182,000 ha (450,000 acres) of crop lands and, in dry years they cannot meet that commitment (Washington State Department of Ecology 2009). Since 1990, the population of Yakima County has increased by about 29 % and that growth is projected to continue into the foreseeable future (U.S. Census Bureau 2012). Population growth has an impact on water balance in the YRB as many new homes and developments rely on water from unregulated wells (Washington State Department of Ecology 2009), resulting in potentially significant, but unquantified, withdrawals from groundwater. All of these factors mean that water management in the YRB is quite challenging even under current climate conditions, and projected changes will only increase those challenges. Two comprehensive summaries (Miles et al. 2000; Mote et al. 2003) describe some of the anticipated effects of climate change in the PNW. Since 1900, average temperatures in the PNW have increased by 1.0 °C, which is 50 % greater than the global average. Global climate models predict that in the next 30 to 50 years the PNW will experience slight increases in winter precipitation and decreases in summer precipitation, and about a 0.5 °C increase in average temperature per decade. The temperature increase means that more of winter precipitation will come as rain rather than snow, leading to significant changes in water storage and runoff timing and patterns. Imposed on these general trends in the future will be the El Niño/Southern Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which determine warm and dry or cool and wet trends in the PNW. Recent rapid, sustained declines in mass of glaciers in the Cascade Mountains suggest that climate change is having a greater effect than past PDO-induced variations in glacier mass-balance records (Miles et al. 2000; Mote et al. 2003) Climate-induced changes in flow regimes will affect aquatic ecosystems that are dependent on surface water runoff patterns and groundwater recharge potential, as well as water available for other uses. In general, watersheds of the CRB in eastern Washington, Oregon, and southern Idaho (such as the YRB) are predicted to be the most vulnerable as they are generally composed of wide, shallow streams at lower elevation and often lack riparian cover in a relatively arid region (Miles et al. 2000; Mote et al. 2003). In the CRB about 25 stocks of salmonids are listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) indicating populations of these important species of the aquatic ecosystems are already stressed (NOAA 2011). In the future, Pacific salmon will be subjected to continuing and potentially increased predation pressure from non-native game fish and other invasive species which may thrive under altered habitat conditions. Recent reviews of climate change in the CRB suggest that habitat restoration is the most likely action to successfully mitigate the effects of climate change (Mantua and Francis 2004). Irrigated agriculture is one of the primary economic activities in the YRB, and Yakima County is the nation’s leader in apple production and the state’s leader in pear, cherry, peach, plum, asparagus, and sweet corn production. Vano et al. (2009) conducted a detailed evaluation of the effects of climate change and changes in water availability on irrigated agriculture in the YRB, with an emphasis on the economic impacts of those changes on apple and cherry farming. Vano et al. (2009) found that water allocations are likely to be reduced by an amount sufficient to affect crop productivity much more frequently in the future than they have been in the past, leading to a reduction in the annual value of apple and cherry production in the YRB by 4 % to 25 % under various climate scenarios.

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Fig. 1 The Yakima River in south-central Washington State. Notes: Rectangles (on the left) represent water management decisions, and hexagons (on the right) represent outcomes of interest to Yakima River Basin stakeholders. Oval nodes are values which are fundamentally uncertain, rounded rectangles represent values calculated from other variables, and bold rounded rectangles represent sub-models. Arrows represent the relationship between the various factors and small arrow heads indicate a relationship between the factor shown and variables outside of the submodel

2.3.2 Stakeholder workshop The inclusion of representative decision-makers and stakeholders in development of an integrated conceptual model of the YRB was a key element for ensuring that subsequent research products were relevant, useful and usable for making important decisions. To insure broad representation, workshop invitations were extended to members of the Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project working group (USBR United States Bureau of Reclamation 2009). This group includes representatives from municipal, county, State, Federal and Tribal governments, leaders of irrigation districts, and several non-governmental organizations. Twelve members of this group, five members of our research team and two decision analysts participated in the workshop, which was held in July 2009 in Yakima, WA. The goals of the workshop were to (1) develop a shared conceptual framework for conducting and integrating climate-related research in the YRB, (2) use the resulting conceptual model as an organizing framework for ongoing and planned work by our research team in the YRB, and (3) ensure that subsequent modeling focused on issues of most relevance to the decisions being considered and to stakeholder goals. In developing the framework, our aim was to identify relevant climate-related environmental stressors affecting YRB ecosystems, as well as land-owner and policy-maker objectives for water


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management, the various management approaches and changes that are considered possible and for which forecasts and information would be useful, and relationships between those changes and changes in ecosystem services.

3 Results The result of the workshop was a conceptual model of how the stakeholders view the relationships between broadly stated objectives for water management, the actions or decisions they could take toward meeting those objectives, and the effects of climate change on the effectiveness of those actions and on outcomes of interest to them. The specifics of the conceptual model (Fig. 2) are described in the sections below. 3.1 Framing Dozens of decision-makers and stakeholders were identified, ranging from those whose decision-making authority is obvious (e.g., the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation manages flow on the Yakima River) to those who are likely to be significantly affected by climate change and water management decisions, but who do not have the ability to make management decisions directly (e.g., current and future business owners and residents of municipalities in the YRB, whose water rights and water costs will be affected). We identified decision-makers in four categories: (1) regulators, (2) intermediaries, (3) water users, and (4) recreational industry and environmental advocacy groups. The Supplementary Material (SM Table SM-1) includes examples of specific decision makers and the types of decisions they make. Participants spent half a day in facilitated discussions of water management objectives from the perspective of several different stakeholders, and then developed a combined list of high-level, broadly stated objectives (Right side of Figure 2), which, if all could be accomplished, would maximize the benefits of water use in the YRB:

& & & & & &

Maximize environmental benefits, including water and habitat quality and quantity, and species health for plants and animals dependent on the river Minimize adverse impacts on public health, both directly through ensuring safe and sufficient water supply and indirectly by maintaining food availability Maximize economic benefits, including economic benefits from agriculture, recreation, and community development Maximize social benefits Minimize costs of water and water management for management agencies and end-users Maximize ability of Tribal and other groups to exercise their water-related rights (i.e., specific legal rights to volume and timing of water use, and to a portion of the salmon fishery).

Workshop participants were familiar with the ongoing work associated with the Final Environmental Impact Statement: Yakima River Basin Integrated Water Resource Management Alternative (FEIS; Washington State Department of Ecology 2009), released just prior to the workshop. They viewed the seven elements of a water resource plan identified within the FEIS as potential decisions that the management agencies could control and take action on. Those seven elements were: (1) fish passage at existing reservoirs; (2) structural and operational changes to existing hydro facilities; (3) new or expanded reservoir systems; (4) ground water storage; (5) fish habitat enhancements; (6) enhanced water conservation; and (7) market-based reallocation (i.e., buying and selling water rights) of water resources. These seven

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Fig. 2 Conceptual model illustrating Yakima River Basin water uses, water management options and objectives and key uncertainties. Notes: Light grey highlights factors that are directly influenced by climate, and darker grey highlights factors that can be directly affected by one or more of the management options identified in the framing step

elements were examples of the types of decisions that would need to be evaluated in the YRB and for which additional science might be useful. Participants included these concepts in the broad context of water management decisions and climate change impacts over the next 50 years. These elements are represented in the full conceptual model as four categories of


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decisions about: (1) new or expanded reservoir systems, (2) reservoir management, (3) potential habitat enhancements, and (4) ground water management (Fig. 2, rectangles on left). Arrows in Fig. 2 show influences between the various factors and sub-models: the light grey colored submodel labeled “Future climate” on the left of the figure represents uncertainty related to global climate change and, as illustrated by the numerous arrows from this box, this uncertainty affects almost every element of the conceptual model. 3.2 Conceptual model After defining the decision framework, we focused on identifying critical uncertainties that will determine how outcomes would unfold under different decisions, strategies and climate scenarios. The conceptual model shown in Fig. 2 was developed by constructing influence diagrams interactively during the workshop. Participants organized the model by first considering the flow of water through the basin: from snowpack, rainfall, groundwater return flows and the tributaries through the reservoirs (Total water supply is on the left of the figure, with detail in the bottom left), through the main stem Yakima River, with water stored, removed, and returned to the river for agricultural, municipal and residential, and other uses (the submodels in the middle portion of the figure, with some details in the bottom right, and additional detail in Fig. 3). The various water uses, including in-stream flows and its effects on fish populations lead to impacts on the water management objectives, or outcomes of interest to stakeholders in the YRB. This water ultimately flows to the Columbia River and to the ocean, and factors outside of the YRB do have some effects on conditions within the basin (illustrated with the left-to-right flow of Fig. 2). Given this basic flow, we added detail to several of the water uses and connected water availability and use to the fundamental study objectives by adding climate-affected factors

Fig. 3 Conceptual model (sub-model) of the Yakima River Basin fishery (for anadromous salmonids)

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and their influences, and by highlighting areas where the identified management options could be applied to modify outcomes. For example, Fig. 3 illustrates some of the detail developed for the “Fish health and population in the YRB” sub-model from the bottom of Fig. 2. To develop this detail, workshop participants started with a fundamental objective—defining “Fish population health” (in this case focusing entirely on anadromous salmonids) as a reasonable proxy for the objective of maximizing environmental benefits– and then worked backwards to identify what they would need to know to estimate the health of salmonid populations in the YRB. For each element of the conceptual model, participants discussed current knowledge and information available to provide input on the variable, providing an indication of the level of uncertainty and pointers to research that could be used in the design of future studies related to that element. For example, projections of water flow under future climate scenarios (an element of Fig. 3) have been made for the Yakima main stem (Mastin, 2008), but not for the tributaries. While there are a number of native and non-native fish species in the YRB, stakeholders agreed that anadromous salmonids were the most important. This is especially true for the Yakama Tribe, for whom salmon were historically a key element of their diet and their tribal well-being (Montag et al. 2013). Indeed, based on stakeholder preferences discussed at the workshop, our subsequent research focus was shifted from resident bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) to anadromous steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss; Hardiman and Mesa 2013). Given this importance and the constraints of the workshop schedule, we focused the “fisheries” portion of the conceptual model on anadromous salmonids. The health of these fisheries could be measured, to a first order, by the number of fish of each species, species diversity and the genetic integrity of the salmon populations. The total number of fish in a salmon population depends on the success of each stage in its life-cycle, three of which occur wholly within the YRB (spawning, incubation, and rearing), two of which occur largely outside the basin (outmigration and ocean survival) and the last of which (adult spawning runs) occurs both outside and inside the YRB. Fish harvest affects the total number of fish in the basin (Fig. 3); fish harvest in turn has the potential to yield economic, social and cultural benefits, outcomes of interest to stakeholders. As shown in Fig. 3, key factors identified as affecting the in-basin stages of their life cycles include availability of suitable habitat (including water depth and flow rate), water temperature and food availability and needs, and all of these factors are expected to be impacted by climate change. Based on previous work and with the expertise present at the workshop, we conducted an illustrative quantification of this portion of the conceptual model to test how much could be done with the model and whether and where additional modeling and quantification would be beneficial. Mastin (2008) developed a flow model for the Yakima River, building from climate downscaling completed by Mote et al. (2003). Thus, Mastin (2008) created two climate change scenarios based on a 1 °C and a 2 °C increased air temperature from current conditions to represent an early decade (i.e., 2020–2029) and a mid-decade (i.e., 2040–2049) of the 21st century. These two scenarios were used directly (projected stream flows) and indirectly (water temperature as a function of changes in air temperature) in the illustrative calculations and are represented as “Future Climate” in Fig. 3. Insights from a Pacific salmonid habitat decision support system previously developed for the YRB (Bovee et al. 2008) were used to estimate how changes in flow and water temperature might affect the amount of “suitable” habitat available. No data were available to support estimates of how changes in the amount of available habitat would affect salmonid populations, but participants were comfortable saying that less habitat would lead to smaller populations. Clearly, the illustrative quantification became both more narrow (habitat suitability can only be judged on a species- and life-stagespecific basis) and more speculative (less spawning habitat leads to fewer salmon) as we


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worked through the process from flow to the economic impacts from salmonid harvests, which helped to highlight possible research needs. Portions of this illustrative quantification are described in the SM, and the identified research needs are described in other papers of this issue. A preliminary model of factors affecting agriculture and agricultural economics (for crops only) in the YRB was developed and some illustrative quantification of that model was also conducted during the workshop (SM, Figure SM-1 and associated discussion).

4 Discussion 4.1 Making applied science useful to decision makers The primary goal of this study was to develop a sound conceptual model and an associated qualitative decision logic, understanding and specifying the type of information that would be useful for stakeholders’ decisions, before focusing on quantifying the uncertainties and the relationships between problem elements. This conceptual model was intended to provide a suitable framework for putting the present research (focused on increasing our understanding of the impacts of climate change on salmonid populations in the YRB) into a decision-relevant context. Kragt et al. (2013) argue that models and modellers greatly facilitate integrated research projects, by bringing together various technical disciplines around a common problem definition; we have found this to be the case in our work as well. The illustrative quantification of portions of the model helped workshop participants develop a relatively complete model, as they identified more uncertainties and more influencing factors during the quantification step than during the general development of the conceptual model. The rigorous exercise of attempting to trace and quantify the impact of climate change at a high level (such as changes in precipitation and temperature) through to impacts on things that are of fundamental importance to stakeholders (such as salmon populations and economic impacts on agriculture) revealed new questions and new uncertainties, which were the basis of other papers of this issue. The economic and social impacts of changes in climate and associated changes in water supply were highlighted by participants in the stakeholder workshop as being some of the most critical outcomes of interest to them. Yakima County is the largest contributor to Washington State’s $9.5 billion agriculture industry, but the importance of water-dependent tourism (e.g., fishing, river rafting) is increasing. For this conceptual model and the subsequent applied research to support water managers and their decisions effectively, it was essential that we considered outcomes that were of fundamental interest to them and other decision-makers. In this context, that meant providing information that went beyond flow projections, and providing that information in a form and context that was meaningful to the decision-makers and will ultimately allow decision-makers to consider tradeoffs between alternative strategies. While the economic and social impacts models have not yet been fully developed, some model development and illustrative quantification of impacts on agriculture and fisheries were developed, and is described in the SM. The most powerful insight from the DA framing and conceptual model development was that science applications and modeling results were much more useful to stakeholders if the evaluation pushed through to outcomes that were of fundamental interest to those stakeholders. For example, participants were interested in fish health in the YRB generally, but they were much more interested in the implications of healthy anadromous salmon populations on the quality of life in the YRB. Healthy salmon populations provide social and economic benefits to the community, in addition to their value as an environmental resource. Extending more traditional science analyses to forecast or enhance our understanding of the

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full value of salmon highlights tradeoffs and factors not typically considered in a fish population health study (see for example, Montag et al. 2013). Stakeholders clearly recognized that decisions and uncertainties that influence the availability of water to support salmon populations necessarily affect how much water is available for other uses (e.g., agriculture, municipal use), and models or studies which ignore this basic fact were of little interest to them. Clearly recognizing that tradeoffs are necessary was critical to stakeholder buy-in and interest in research results. The development of conceptual models as illustrated here, with the involvement of decision-makers and stakeholders, provides a useful framework for recognizing and communicating those tradeoffs and explaining the usefulness of more narrowly-defined studies. For example, the conceptual model (Fig. 2) can be used to explain why it is important to understand how habitat quality and quantity will change under different climate scenarios and decisions: because habitat affects the health of fish populations, which is both a direct environmental consequence of interest and a contributor to economic benefits in the YRB. Finally, the conceptual model development provides a platform to highlight areas of uncertainty that limit the understanding of the potential impacts of climate change and decision alternatives by those who will be most directly affected by those changes, and indicates areas where both additional study and additional engagement of stakeholders would be beneficial. For example, it would be useful to examine the effect of habitat availability (Hatten et al. 2013) on salmon population sizes, to strengthen the connection between habitat modeling and salmon populations. It would also be useful to better understand the relationship between salmon growth rates at various life stages and salmon survival, extending bioenergetics modeling results (Hardiman and Mesa 2013), which look at effects on individual fish, through to implications for fish populations. 4.2 Impacts of the case study workshop on subsequent research Our goal for the DA framing workshop was to develop a shared conceptual framework for conducting and integrating decision-relevant, climate-related research in the YRB. A second near-term goal was to use the discussions and resulting conceptual model to ensure that research initiated by some of us addressed issues of interest and relevance to decisionmakers and stakeholders. Several key issues raised by stakeholders during the course of the discussions and conceptual modeling led to changes in the scope of our planned research. The most significant of these stakeholder-driven modifications to planned research were (a) addition of modeling focused on predicting climate-driven changes to water temperatures in the lower main stem Yakima River, critical habitat for ocean and spawning migrations of Pacific salmon (Voss and Maule 2013), (b) change in one of the focal species for bioenergetics modeling to steelhead, which spawn and rear in lower elevation, potentially warmer tributary streams (Hardiman and Mesa 2013), (c) addition of water temperature modeling of these lower elevation tributaries to the Yakima River (Graves and Maule 2013) and (d) identification of two areas where economic and social implications of climate change could be usefully modeled based on data available from other research and monitoring agencies in the YRB (SM and Montag et al. 2013). Thus, in this study we have shown that DA concepts and activities can be used successfully to define and formulate stakeholder needs, while guiding research that extends our understanding of the effects of climate change on natural resources and aids decision-makers as they deal with uncertainty. Acknowledgements We thank the workshop participants, Lynne Koontz, and Jennifer Thorvaldson for their support, and the reviewers for many helpful suggestions. Funding was provided by U.S. Geological Survey,


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Science Applications and Decision Support Program. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement of the U.S. Government.

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