People usually think of global climate change as something that affects the entire world. While this is true, the impacts of climate change will be different in different regions, and people will experience these impacts where they live. Penn State has been given the responsibility for conducting the first Mid-Atlantic Regional Assessment (MARA) of Climate Change Impacts. This region includes all or parts of eight states (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina) and the District of Columbia. A team of 14 faculty members is leading this activity. We are expected to have a draft report ready by April of 1999 so that the National Assessment Synthesis Team can combine information for 20 regions across the United States. Their draft synthesis report will be completed by September 1999, then circulated for peer review and revised, and submitted to Congress by January 2000.
Our assessment will investigate many types of impacts from global change at a regional level, then bring together information about diverse impacts into a picture of the effects on the region as a whole. For example, forests within the region may change as climatic conditions change. In our assessment, we intend to examine potential consequences of these changes for the timber industry as well as for campers or hunters who use forests for recreation. Farming practices may change with the climate, which could affect the health of waterways, including the Delaware and Chesapeake. The assessment will examine potential beneficial and detrimental impacts on forests and farms, human health and the disease outbreaks, and the extensive rivers, bays, and coastal waters of the Mid-Atlantic Region.
We are quite excited about this ambitious undertaking. Our first steps included making sure that we know about data bases available and current research that might be useful for the assessment. We held a two-day researcher's meeting June 8-9 to explore major questions raised during Penn State's September 1997 Mid-Atlantic Workshop. We are building on models developed for earlier assessments, including that for the Susquehanna River Basin.
Yet to maximize the usefulness of our formal assessment, we must go beyond researchers analyzing data and summarizing results. Input from potentially interested parties (hereafter called stakeholders) can improve the assessment's usefulness in several ways. Stakeholders can provide input about their information needs for making more informed decisions related to regional impacts of climate change. Their input can be used to make sure the assessment is responsive to climate-related concerns most important to the people who live and work in the region. Stakeholders may have relevant data not otherwise available to the assessment team. Their knowledge of regional and local social, cultural, and political institutions may suggest and help prioritize options for building resilience and flexibility within the region.
Next we plan to conduct a series of activities that will expand upon the stakeholder input we received earlier in the planning process. Stakeholders will help us refine the research questions and develop materials and strategies for disseminating the assessment results to a wide audience.