The Climate Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC) provides information and tools for making decisions about landscape and watershed management in a changing climate. We apply a definition of decision support given by the of National Research Council: “decision support systems … include the people and organizations that develop … products and services, as well as the knowledge, information, products, and services [themselves].” CIRC is a consortium of three multi-university organizations:
- The Oregon Climate Change Research Institute (OCCRI), including Oregon State University (OSU) and the University of Oregon (UO);
- Idaho’s project on Water Resources in a Changing Climate (WRCC), funded by NSF’s Office of Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), including University of Idaho (UI), Boise State University (BSU), and Idaho State University (ISU);
- University Extension Services from Idaho, Oregon, and Washington including Oregon and Washington Sea Grant programs.
Stakeholders include 11 federal agencies that have formed a regional partnership around climate change called the Climate Change Consortium (C3), the water resources agencies of the three states, other state agencies that deal with climate-sensitive issues, and three major urban water utilities. CIRC will continue such stakeholder involvement through the following activities:
- forming a research agenda around the needs of stakeholders;
- assembling needed expertise to address key questions;
- designing decision support tools to translate the research answers into practical applications;
- generalizing the results of those tools for other applications.
CIRC has been the home of the Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) for the Pacific Northwest since September 2010.
