2. Drought and Extreme Tides in RMI and FSM

3. Impacts-Palau
Water Resources/Droughts – Palau experienced 9 month drought during ’97/’98 El Niño
Taro patches dried up/crop failure (Taro loss est. at $0.74 million)
Fires become major hazard
(20% of Palau’s forest, savannah, and agricultural lands destroyed)

4. ENSO Impacts
Water rationing in Majuro—seven hours of water every 15 days in February 1998
Crop losses in FSM, RMI, CNMI
Job losses in Fishing in FSM
Wildfires in FSM, Guam, Hawaii
Environmental Impacts—streams drying up, wild fires, coral bleaching

6. Communication, communication, communication
PEAC Lessons Learned
Number of success stories:
Water resources with direct benefits to communities and secondary benefits to industry (e.g., tuna canneries in American Samoa)
Power and utilities
Emergency management
Early & continuous collaboration/partnership with users key
Critical role of education, outreach & dialogue:
Raising awareness and understanding
Identifying impacts and exploring solutions
Building trust and credibility
Communication, communication, communication

7. PEAC Lessons Learned
Users interested in climate information on a variety of timescales; interactions and feedbacks important
Encountered a number of scientific, technical and institutional constraints, e.g.,:
Communications infrastructure
Forecast skill varies with season, place and parameter
Political and institutional boundaries – users and providers
Limited understanding of consequences, vulnerability and options for risk management
Technical terminology and language considerations
“Getting the message right”

8. PEAC Lessons Learned
Importance of setting projections of future conditions in context:
Problem to be addressed
Historical events, patterns and trends
Traditional knowledge and practices
Nature & consequences of any event depend on where you sit
Building trust & credibility a long-term endeavor:
Eyeball-to-eyeball contact
Maintaining awareness between events
Accommodating relative successes & failures (e.g., forecast)

9. General Guidelines for the Future
Recognize climate impacts are set in a multi-stress context:
Start with the problem; understand decision-making context
Additional users may require more integrated products
Embed climate information programs in context of broader development, poverty reduction environmental goals
Create and sustain a flexible/adaptable PEAC

10. Key Recommendations Strengthen collaboration with users:
Maintain ties to core users
Explore new sectors/user communities (health, coastal/marine resources, agriculture, forestry, land-use planning, economic development, tourism)
Review issues, problem definition and info. needs and evaluate products
Enhance mechanisms for feedback

11. Key Recommendations Strengthen and expand critical partnerships: Users
National meteorological and hydrological services
WMO RA-V Regional Climate Center and other regional partners (e.g., SPREP, SOPAC, PI-GCOS)
Local-level expertise
Mission agencies
Local boundary organizations and information brokers (intermediaries) – including educators, media, …
Expand (formal & informal) education opportunities

12. Key Recommendations Strengthen/enhance PEAC product line:
Mechanisms for regular feedback and revision
Add verification and monthly updates of conditions
Update rainfall atlas; national & local climatologies
Partnerships for locally-tailored products
Basic information on climate & response options, including economic analyses (impacts & adaptation)
Address data and communications issues
Explore new technology (e.g., data visualization tools)