Impact Assessment
Impact Assessment. I'm Greg Martin with Washington Ag Today.
The Bureau of Reclamation released the Columbia Basin Climate Impact Assessment today, which projected climate change impacts on water resources in the Pacific Northwest. Carri Hessman, Program Manager with the Bureau of Reclamation explains.
HESSMAN: The Columbia River Basin Climate Impact Assessment is a high level view of the Columbia River Basin hydrology and effects of climate change. It establishes a foundation of information and data that really is at a reconnaissance level. It's intended to provide guidance for our stakeholders in order to further evaluate areas in their specific interest to do more in-depth climate change analysis, develop tools, work in assisting operations and maintenance planning and also we can use this for other purposes like data sharing with other entities.
The assessment was conducted over a two-year period
HESSMAN: Then we did a high level analysis of impacts of climate change in eight resource categories and those categories were dictated though the Secure Water Act and those eight categories are hydropower generation, flood control operations, reservoir conditions and water delivery, water quality, fish and wildlife habitat, ESA listed species, flow and water dependent ecological resiliency and recreation.
The Columbia Basin Climate Impact Assessment is available online through the Bureau of Reclamation's website.
And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.
