EPA Climate Change and Water News Excerpts
EPA Climate Change and Water News is a bi-weekly e-newsletter that covers climate change and water related news from EPA, other Federal agencies, and partners. To learn more about climate change and water related trainings, conferences, webinars, and other events, visit: http://water.epa.gov/scitech/climatechange/Calendar-of-Events.cfm.
EPA to Host Three-Part Webcast Series for State and Local Governments on Communications for Climate Programs in December: EPA’s State and Local Climate and Energy Program will host a three-part webcast series on communications on December 4th, 11th, and 18th, 2013. This series will provide information on communication strategies and methods that state and local governments can use to ensure the ongoing success of climate and clean energy programs. The structure of the three webcasts will parallel the general phases of program development and implementation: attracting stakeholder support and participation, sustaining change, and gaining momentum from program successes. Participants will learn how to design communications strategies to engage and empower stakeholders, use communications methods to instigate and sustain behavior change and foster individual and community solutions, and effectively communicate their programs’ successes and resulting benefits to diverse audiences. For more information and to register, visit: http://www.epa.gov/statelocalclimate/web-podcasts/forum.html.
EPA and Federal Partners Announce National Drought Resilience Partnership: As part of the President’s Climate Action Plan, the Obama Administration has launched a National Drought Resilience Partnership. The Partnership aims to align federal drought policies across the government and help communities manage the impact of drought by linking information (monitoring, forecasts, outlooks, and early warnings) with drought preparedness and long-term resilience strategies in critical sectors such as agriculture, municipal water systems, energy, recreation, tourism and transportation. In its first year, the Partnership will focus on: creating a new, web-based portal to ease access to federal agency drought recovery resources; hosting more frequent regional drought outlook forums; supporting the coordination of a national soil moisture monitoring network; and identifying a single point of contact for the public. In collaboration with local, state, and regional governments, the Partnership will undertake a pilot project in a western area hard hit by drought to create a local-scale drought resilience plan that could be applied in other areas. For the press release, click HERE. To learn more, click HERE.
