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The Climate & Wildfire Institute
A boundary organization focused on delivering climate and wildfire related research services to decision-makers
Why CWI?
The recent dramatic increase in wildfires is an apocalyptic crisis for California and the Western United States, driven in part by climate change. In WIRED magazine’s November 2020 cover story, Mark Finney, a scientist from the US Forest Service Fire Lab, describes how management activities have also contributed, setting the stage for the entire western slope of the Sierra Nevada to ignite over the next 10 to 15 years as the greatest firestorms ever seen. While recent investments in climate and wildfire research have been significant, initiatives are scattered and ad hoc. Individual programs are focused on their project outcomes and are misaligned in timing and resource allocations. They often lack the capacity to effect tangible progress on the ground. In short, the status quo will not work to provide the information needed at the pace and scale necessary to make an impact. And with climate change, we are entering a no-analog scenario where our understanding of its impact on wildfire and ecosystem resilience must be constantly updated based on agile learning. This learning must occur alongside decision-making, which itself evolves rapidly in response to societal and environmental pressures. Thus scientific innovations need to continuously inform and be informed by policy. These urgent needs call for a Manhattan-Project-like effort. This effort must simultaneously leverage the academy’s research talent, the private sector’s nimbleness and ingenuity, and the public sector’s implementation capacity and decision-making leadership. This concept paper describes how a Climate and Wildfire Institute (CWI) could make this critical need a reality.
Key Elements
Below are the elements necessary to generate the research services associated with the Institute.
Convening: A new independent boundary organization, in the form of a 501(c)(3), that brings together broad Climate and Wildfire research and practitioner communities in academia, government, and the private sector to sustain agile knowledge development that is responsive to public policy needs.
Policy and Decision-Making Context: An inclusive framework for research, policy, and solutions that are coordinated and linked to state and federal program priorities and legislative needs. Use research sites to demonstrate important findings to policymakers and managers.
- Research, Pilots, and Solutions as a Service: Develop research, pilot projects, and solutions as a service with a focus on a needs-driven approach. Priorities are defined by the scale of need, ability to make an impact, and resource availability. Prioritized research services are co-developed collectively among academic, public, tribal, and private partners. They build on and collaborate with state, federal, and private initiatives, including the California Strategic Growth Council’s Innovation Centers, the California Fire Science Consortium, and the Joint Institute for Wood Products Innovation (among many others), so that those initiatives, research, and programs can be expanded rather than reproduced.
Science and Technology Transfer: Develop science and technology transfer strategies for both policymakers and practitioners. The CWI will streamline the translation of scientific information to support decision-making, becoming a clearing house for data-driven policy and action.
- Open Digital Infrastructure: Coordinate the development of open access and transparent information products that are current, accessible, and democratized, building on existing data sets and expanding them.
Statement of Need
Despite its international leadership in the science, policy, and management of climate change, California must do more to confront the consequences of a warming planet. Reducing wildfire damage is the most pressing but certainly not the only example of the challenge. Wildfire season now regularly brings months of polluted air and unpredictable energy grid shutdowns, impacting the health of the most vulnerable communities while choking the lifeblood of the State’s economy. The fires kill and injure people and wildlife. They cause massive property damage, exceeding $16B in 2020 alone. The recent dramatic increase in wildfires is a crisis with no clear end in sight. Indeed, with an accelerating change in climate partly to blame for the increase, California’s fire apocalypse will likely intensify, to the point where it could put the State’s carbon neutrality goals at risk.
The ferocity of these fires and the speed of climate change caught many California climate scientists by surprise. The size and severity of wildfires have exceeded our scientific understanding, policy instruments, and technical capability. Getting ahead of the impending catastrophe requires a strategy that will accelerate learning and rapidly transform new insights into effective policy. This strategy must dramatically advance the predictions of wildfire and air quality on time scales ranging from days to seasons to decades; transform wildland management and planning to restore ecological health and reduce wildfire risk in the wildland-urban interface, and develop forward-looking policies informed by the best science to protect vulnerable landscapes and the health and well-being of at-risk communities.And wildfire is just one of multiple interlinked risks posed by climate change. The research community is working to tackle some of these problems, supported by various funding sources. Unfortunately, these efforts are not well-coordinated and do not always connect to policy. And there is no sustained commitment to realize the full value of these investments at either the state or federal levels. Even worse, there are only scattered investments in transforming emerging knowledge into on-the-ground change.
The problems confronting California are shared by neighboring states and provinces and by drought and fire-prone regions worldwide. A collective effort has the best chance of marshalling the necessary resources and building the capacity to enact new policies and practices and restore balance to our troubled relationship with wildfire. Thus, science and technology innovations must be coordinated, coupled with effective communication strategies, and connected to policy and policymakers.
Vision
The cornerstone of the region's long-term strategy to address the threat of climate change is an institute dedicated to bringing existing efforts to full fruition, ensuring those efforts are sustained and speeding the implementation of new science-based approaches on the ground. We envision a physical presence anchored at Lake Tahoe and in southern California for the Institute, with deep ties to universities, governments, and the private sector. The Institute will build a clear strategy to address significant gaps in climate and wildfire science and policy. The Institute’s work on landscape resilience and climate solutions for forests, chaparral, and urban areas will consist of approaches that can be demonstrated, replicated, and applied across North America.
Organizational Structure
The organization of the proposed Climate and Wildfire Institute builds on several existing initiatives to achieve a cohesive regional approach. Guiding this outline is the conviction that coordination and inclusion are keys to success. The Institute must build on, rather than replace, existing efforts and institutions that address the vast array of climate and wildfire issues.
Leadership: The leadership of the Institute will be sited at the Lake Tahoe center. The Lake Tahoe area has the infrastructure to support the Institute, and the Lake Tahoe region is at the forefront of bi-state cooperation to limit wildfire hazards and improve forest health. To ensure consideration of critical regional differences in fire regimes, risks, and policy needs, we envision additional regional hubs; for example, we are in active discussions about hosting a southern California hub at Stunt Ranch, a UC Natural Reserve in the Santa Monica Mountains. Given the focus on science-to-policy and science-to-action initiatives, convening workshops that bring constituents together to enact solutions will be a critical function.
Staff: This sustained enterprise will require professional staff, flexibly-programmed research funding for Institute scientists and affiliates, and support for engaging with local, state, and federal agencies, Indigenous tribes, and private sector partners. By leveraging expertise at the region's world-renowned universities, the Institute will also enable workforce development critical to meeting the emerging challenge of adapting to climate change and reversing legacies of past management.
Research: With the University of California and partners at other academic, national laboratory, non-profit, and private organizations as anchor institutions, the Institute’s central research goals will be to advance climate science and technology in service of wildfire prediction and to develop policy guidance related to fire, land use planning and risk management. The Institute will move beyond existing science at an accelerated pace. It will coordinate scientists and research products to realize synergies across disparate areas of expertise and focus on moving science to action. The research priorities will support decision-making that improves resilience and increases opportunities for the state’s people, ecosystems, and economy.
Information: The Institute will ensure the continuity of high-value, publicly accessible data and an integrated modeling system for the region’s climate, air quality, water supply, ecosystem health, and wildfire. The modeling system will be designed to deliver predictions with lead times from days to seasons to decades. This continuously updated predictive capacity will directly save homes, lives, and money. For example, it will enable more strategic deployment of fire-fighting resources, and the development of strategies to reduce long-term fire risk by improving ecosystem resilience to fire and climate change. Professional Institute staff would regularly develop policy recommendations on wildfire issues in consultation with scientists and decision-makers, focusing on long-term cost and damage reduction in the private and public sectors.
Governance: Combating climate change is a shared responsibility that requires collaboration across all sectors of society. To reflect this “all-in” ethic, as well as to ensure independence and inclusion, the Institute will be a public-private partnership. The Institute will be established as a new, independent 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entity with the intent to form a multi-agency Federally Funded Research and Development Center. Such a boundary organization could accept funding from multiple sources and ensure accountability with a board that includes constituents and funders.
Operational Elements
The Institute will be an intellectual, physical, and social space to convene an inclusive community. The first step in this approach is to understand the knowledge and data gaps within the existing policy and decision-making context, and then to use this information to develop a strategy. The goal is to prioritize research services that are demand-driven and action-oriented. The science and technology generated from these efforts will be transferred to stakeholders through consultation with them. It will also be made available to others through an open, shared information ecosystem. The digital infrastructure needed to sustain this knowledge will be coordinated, developed, and maintained based on user needs. Below are key highlights of each element:
Element 1: Convening
Implement Boundary Organization: Develop a boundary organization in the form of an independent 501(c)(3) with board representation from the public, academic, tribal, and private sectors.
- Tracking and Coordination of Research: Track climate and wildfire-related research systematically. Coordination between selected programs will help identify additional opportunities and avoid duplication of efforts.
- Fund Management and Accountability: Receive, manage and disseminate funds to staff and partner institutions, ensuring delivery of research services.
- Rapid Communication of Findings: Design targeted communication of research findings, including traditional ecological knowledge, in a fashion that allows for rapid incorporation of insights into decisions.
Building Capacity: Co-develop information with regional groups, Indigenous tribes, and local communities so that they can productively engage in planning responses to wildfire and other climate-change-related threats to natural resources.
- Convene Events: Provide a physical and virtual space with staff support for the coordination, communication, implementation of climate and wildfire research.
Element 2: Policy and Decision-Making Context
Ongoing Needs Assessment: Conduct ongoing and forward-looking needs assessments among stakeholders, including federal and state agencies, to determine common need requests and emerging questions.
Data to Decision: Identify where emerging climate and wildfire research can inform decision-making.
Decisions in Need of Data: Identify where and when new decision-making requires new research.
- Road mapping Sustainability Pathways: Engage with federal agencies, state agencies, tribes, foundations, and the private sector to develop sustainability plans for research services that are critical for decision-makers and on-the-ground practitioners.
Element 3: Research, Pilots, and Solutions as a Service
Impact Focused Research: Prioritize research with a clear path for maximum impact of results.
Inclusive Research Teams: Develop research teams that are inclusive of sectors, institutions, diversity, and career stages.
Co-Development: Develop and advance science in consultation with those who need the information and will benefit from the outcomes. All efforts will be made to incorporate agency scientists and staff where appropriate.
- Leverage Existing Efforts: Build on and collaborate with state, federal, and private initiatives, including the California Strategic Growth Council’s Innovation Centers, California Fire Science Consortium, and the Joint Institute for Wood Products Innovation, so that those initiatives, research, and programs can be expanded rather than duplicated ( link to catalog of initiatives ).
Integration of Research Services: Provide support to ensure that existing research services are coordinated and collaboration exists where necessary.
Element 4: Science and Technology Transfer
Understanding User Needs: Identify the requirements and delivery mechanisms for practical and impactful products and services through a detailed engagement process targeting defined end-users.
Operationalizing Research: Design research services with pathways for implementation and dissemination of results on the ground. It is critical that these services actually help end-users, who might be an exhausted firefighter with a phone on the ground, or a legislative staffer responsible for summarizing environmental conditions at the state scale.
Integrated Information: Ensure connectivity and interoperability of distributed services to maximize synergies and benefits across services. For example, a service focused on improved high-resolution wind predictions will be designed to produce information that will flow seamlessly to a service focused on fine-scale fire behavior modeling.
Element 5: Open Digital Infrastructure
Coordinated Digital Infrastructure Efforts: Climate and wildfire data are being created at such a fast pace that centralizing it all on one server is no longer a viable option. Federation of data generated from distributed research initiatives such as the Forest Data Hub, as described in the recommendations from the Governor’s Forest Management Task Force, is a critical pathway to achieving impact.
Open Access: Make the research service data, science, and models open for all sectors to use.
Open Innovation: Ensure new innovations in science and technology remain in the public sector for all sectors to use.
Reliable Continuity: Support dataset continuity, critical for the agile development of research services.
Open Consortium Model
As a boundary organization, the Climate Wildfire Institute will operate at the nexus among the public, private, tribal, and academic sectors using an open consortium model. With this model, CWI aims to overcome the institutional limitations and lags inherent to each sector. It will provide the operational capacity to seamlessly move between sectors, and rapidly facilitate research services built on the best available science and technologies.
Inclusivity is a vital principle of the Climate Wildfire Institute. Partners interested in building long-term capacity across sectors are welcome. Numerous public sector, non-profit stakeholders, philanthropic institutions, tribal organizations, as well as private sector entities have expressed support for the Institute. Below is an initial list of academic stakeholders who have expressed interest in this concept.
Academic Sector: This effort is supported by numerous leading scientists and researchers in the field of Climate and Wildfire, listed below. They are affiliated with a cross-section of research institutions. This list is not exhaustive but intended to give a sense of scope. Many of these researchers lead large projects with multiple investigators, so this list effectively includes a much larger number of scientists and researchers.
Research Services
Below are identified priorities for research services that could be delivered by the Institute. Actual services will depend on ongoing agency needs and will be co-developed with key partners.
Climate and Weather: Robust, sector-specific, and timely forecasts to inform risks and mitigation.
Priority: Within weather forecasts and climate projections, high-resolution characterizations of surface winds and wind-driven fire risk, informed by new and robust observations of surface winds in field campaigns and intensive development of atmospheric models.
Vegetation and Fuels: Nowcasts and forecasts of vegetation and fuels to better inform management of fire risk and ecosystem resilience.
Priority: Simulate the effects of alternate vegetation management strategies, including those informed by traditional ecological knowledge, on future tree mortality and wildfire risk, both in the coming fire season and in the coming decades.
Priority: Develop high-resolution nowcast and forecast versions of vegetation and fuel data products through a collaboration between land managers, federal agencies, and private industry to achieve best-in-class science and technology.
Fire Perimeters: Location of current active fires for emergency response and accurate archive of fire perimeters.
Priority: Build a real-time, detection system of active fire perimeters that incorporates input from multiple sources, including remote sensing platforms and unstructured ground-based observations, enhancing capacity for use of managed wildfire.
Priority: Coordinate mapping efforts to create consistent, accurate, and timely fire perimeter maps, including historical fire perimeters.
Fire Hindcasts and Forecasts: Active fire behavior forecasts, and hindcasts to diagnose critical drivers of wildfire behavior.
Priority: Improved, spatially refined, probabilistic fuels and fire weather intelligence, available as input to fire behavior models for up to 6-month prediction of fire risk.
Priority: Produce publicly available, probabilistic, active fire forecasts - for all fires - using multiple wildfire models to account for weather, type of fires, situational complexity, and uncertainty.
Planning and Policy: Strategies for wildfire risk mitigation under a changing climate that are regionally specific, landscape-scale, and long-term.
Priority: Quantification of carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions from unmanaged and managed wildfires, taking into account increases in carbon dioxide concentrations and climate change.
Priority: Analysis of the relationship between local and state government land use regulation and wildfire risk; development of policy recommendations for more effective governance of land use in the context of wildfire risk.