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Goal A Support actionable climate science

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Priority

Make Decisions Based on the Best Available Climate Science

All Priority Goals

Actions

  • Action 1 Increase the state’s ability to anticipate and plan for climate impacts through implementation of the California Climate Change Assessments, which fund applied science, collaboration on Traditional Knowledge, and tools that provide actionable insight into the impacts a changing climate has on California’s economy, ecosystems, and communities.

    Success Metric: Release updated science, in the form of reports, informational resources, and tools, that can be used in planning and decision-making processes.

    Timeframe: 2026 and every five years thereafter

    Agency/Agencies: Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, Formerly the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research – Strategic Growth Council | Natural Resources Agency – Energy Commission

    For More Details: California Climate Change Assessment

  • Action 2 Invest in science-based management focused on climate resilience of California’s fire adapted landscapes.

    Success Metric: Create field and space-based data and assessments to track vegetation change statewide. Assess outcomes and effectiveness of management actions, including fuel reduction projects, forest health treatments, and other nature-based solutions.

    Timeframe: 2027

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency

    For More Details: Restoring Forest Health for Wildfire and Climate Resilience

    Success Metric: Implement and monitor long term forest-climate experiments on State Forests and other lands.

    Timeframe: Ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency - Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

    For More Details: Fire and Resource Assessment Program

    Success Metric: Implement pre- and post- prescribed fire monitoring across a broad range of vegetation types.

    Timeframe: Ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency - Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

    For More Details: Fire and Resource Assessment Program

    Success Metric: Implement plans to intensify U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) measurement plots across all lands in California to provide improved monitoring of landscape health.

    Timeframe: Annual

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency - Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

    For More Details: Fire and Resource Assessment Program

    Success Metric: Continue investment in Forest Health Research grants to better understand the effectiveness of forest health implementation projects.

    Timeframe: Ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency - Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

    For More Details: Fire and Resource Assessment Program

  • Action 3 Support utilization of emerging technologies and partnerships to improve forecasts of precipitation, seasonal snowpack, and runoff at all time scales.

    Success Metric: Produce experimental seasonal precipitation (including snowpack) forecasts in partnership with the research community each November for the coming wet season.

    Timeframe: Annual

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Department of Water Resources

    For More Details: Water Resilience Portfolio, 2023 Progress Report; Roadmap for Climate Resilient Forecasting Framework

    Success Metric: Make snowpack runoff forecasts with modern spatially explicit watershed models that can accommodate climate change impacts.

    Timeframe: 2030

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Department of Water Resources

    For More Details: Water Resilience Portfolio, 2023 Progress Report

    Success Metric: Transition of successful atmospheric river forecasting tools and products from university partners to Department of Water Resources operations.

    Timeframe: Ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Department of Water Resources

    For More Details: Water Resilience Portfolio, 2023 Progress Report; Atmospheric River Research

    Success Metric: Install new research-grade weather stations on state lands to contribute to the state’s climate modelling efforts.

    Timeframe: 2025

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Department of Fish and Wildlife

    For More Details: Climate-Biodiversity Sentinel Site Network; Water Resilience Portfolio, 2023 Progress Report

    Success Metric: Advance a multi-agency effort to install 430 new stream gages and upgrade or reactivate 200 more across the state.

    Timeframe: 2030

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Department of Water Resources

    For More Details: California's Water Supply Strategy Adapting to a Hotter, Drier Future; Senate Bill 19 – Stream Gaging Plan

  • Action 4 Coordinate actionable research that informs climate resilient decarbonization.

    Success Metric: Use of ratepayer-funded research results from the Energy Commission by utilities and other infrastructure providers to support vulnerability assessments as well as customer and grid-resilience investments, and to inform their obligations to prioritize underserved and vulnerable communities in the context of climate change.

    Timeframe: 2026

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Energy Commission | Public Utilities Commission

    For More Details: Electric Program Investment Charge Research Development and Deployment Program; Natural Gas Research Program; Climate Adaptation Proceeding; Energy Research Development and Deployment

  • Action 5 Work closely with federal agencies, California Native American tribes, businesses, and universities to better manage and protect California’s water resources by utilizing the latest airborne and spaceborne climate monitoring data and data products, including low-cost sensors, hand-held devices, mobile survey vehicles, and sophisticated sensors set up on communication towers, drones, aircraft, and satellites.

    Success Metric: Use aircraft and satellite-based snowpack observations to support the Department of Water Resources’ transition to spatially explicit watershed models for estimating snowmelt runoff.

    Timeframe: Ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Department of Water Resources

    For More Details: Memorandum of Understanding between the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Natural Resources Agency; California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program; Roadmap for Climate Resilient Forecasting Framework

    Success Metric: Department of Water Resources staff are trained to process Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar data from the pending National Aeronautics and Space Administration NISAR mission and perform subsidence monitoring to support Sustainable Groundwater Management Act implementation.

    Timeframe: 2025

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency - Department of Water Resources

    For More Details: Memorandum of Understanding between the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Natural Resources Agency

  • Action 6 Invest in research and long-term monitoring to inform adaptive management to improve the implementation and success of nature-based climate solutions.

    Success Metric: Number of funded nature-based solution projects that support restoration design, pre- and long-term post-restoration monitoring, and real-time decision making.

    Timeframe: Ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Department of Fish and Wildlife, Department of Water Resources, Delta Stewardship Council | Department of Food and Agriculture | Environmental Protection Agency – State Water Resources Control Board

    For More Details: State Water Resources Control Board 2024 Draft Strategic Work Plan; Water Resilience Portfolio, 2023 Progress Report; Delta Stewardship Council Research Awards

    Success Metric: Support research on climate indicators for California via the Indicators of Climate Change Reports and the Department of Water Resources California Hydroclimate Report.

    Timeframe: Ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Department of Water Resources, Delta Stewardship Council | Department of Food and Agriculture | Environmental Protection Agency – State Water Resources Control Board

    For More Details: Indicators of Climate Change in California, 2022; Department of Water Resources California Hydroclimate Report; Delta Stewardship Council Research Awards

    Success Metric: Number of Healthy Soils Demonstration Projects funded to test effects of nature-based climate solutions on agricultural lands.

    Timeframe: Annual

    Agency/Agencies: Department of Food and Agriculture

    For More Details: CDFH Healthy Soils Program Demonstration Grant

    Success Metric: Establish or support climate monitoring as part of seven state-supported wetland restoration projects in the Tahoe Basin.

    Timeframe: 2028

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Tahoe Conservancy

    For More Details: Tahoe Conservancy

  • Action 7 Develop and utilize a cultural heritage climate vulnerability assessment tool that derives values in collaboration with California Native American tribes, local communities, non-governmental organizations, local, national, and international partners. Connected efforts will increase the progress and improve systems for more effective solutions.

    Success Metric: Develop a series of workshops, conduct site specific pilot projects, and peer review with partners, to produce a dynamic, co-created framework. The process also includes research into other similar efforts for further improvement and a resources toolkit to assist cultural heritage site partners in ongoing stewardship of these special places.

    Timeframe: 2025 and annual thereafter

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – State Parks Office of Historic Preservation

    For More Details: State Parks Office of Historic Preservation Climate Action Program; Climate Heritage Network; Preserving Legacies

    Success Metric: Provide education, training, and technical assistance to potential users, in conjunction with partners working on similar frameworks.

    Timeframe: 2025 and annual thereafter

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – State Parks Office of Historic Preservation

    For More Details: State Parks Office of Historic Preservation Climate Action Program; Climate Heritage Network; Preserving Legacies

  • Action 8 Develop and update a suite of indicators that document the drivers and observed impacts of a changing climate across California over time.

    Success Metric: Release Indicators of Climate Change in California Report, presenting indicators tracking climate change; release and update plain-language summaries.

    Timeframe: 2026 and every four years thereafter; annual updates of plain-language summaries, as appropriate

    Agency/Agencies: Environmental Protection Agency - Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment

    For More Details: Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment Strategic Plan: 2018 Update; Indicators of Climate Change in California, 2022

    Success Metric: New biodiversity-related indicators identified through successful implementation of the climate-biodiversity monitoring network on state lands.

    Timeframe: Ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency - Department of Fish and Wildlife

    For More Details: Indicators of Climate Change in California, 2022; Climate-Biodiversity Sentinel Site Network

    Success Metric: Release the Fifth California Climate Change Assessment Public Health Report, a publicly accessible compilation of documented human health impacts of climate change on Californians.

    Timeframe: 2026

    Agency/Agencies: Health and Human Services Agency – Department of Public Health

    For More Details: Climate Change and Health Equity

  • Action 9 Develop state-of-the-science maps of carbon stocks.

    Success Metric: Update the state’s natural and working lands carbon inventory to incorporate the latest science, quantify impacts of land management activity and climate change on carbon, and make inventory sufficiently accurate for county or regional uses.

    Timeframe: 2025

    Agency/Agencies: Environmental Protection Agency – Air Resources Board

    For More Details: Natural and Working Lands Carbon Inventory

  • Action 10 Understand climate vulnerabilities of wildlife areas, ecological reserves, state-owned park units, and marine protected areas along California’s coast and ocean.

    Success Metric: Percentage of state-owned park units with completed vulnerability assessments.

    Timeframe: 2026

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Department of Parks and Recreation, Coastal Commission

    For More Details: State Parks Sea Level Rise Adaptation Strategy; Coastal Commission Local Coastal Program Grant Program

    Success Metric: Increase the number of wildlife areas and ecological reserves with completed vulnerability assessments.

    Timeframe: 2026

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Department of Fish and Wildlife, Coastal Commission

    For More Details: Department of Fish and Wildlife Science Institute Strategic Action Plan; Coastal Commission Local Coastal Program Grant Program

  • Action 11 Support accessible and actionable science to address the effect of climate change on species, habitats, and ecosystems.

    Success Metric: Research the impacts of climate change to sensitive species and at-risk ecosystems to inform land and species management.

    Timeframe: Ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency – Department of Fish and Wildlife

    For More Details: Science Institute

    Success Metric: Increase the number of state-owned or managed lands and marine protected areas with sustainable long-term monitoring frameworks in place to better understand and enable early detection of climate impacts on biodiversity.

    Timeframe: 2027 and ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Natural Resources Agency - Department of Fish and Wildlife, Ocean Protection Council

    For More Details: Department of Fish and Wildlife Climate-Biodiversity Sensor Network

  • Action 12 Quantify the impact of increased temperatures on electric grid operation.

    Success Metric: Increase in the understanding of temperature impacts on grid operation.

    Timeframe: Ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Public Utilities Commission

    For More Details: California Public Utilities Commission

    Success Metric: Support long-term planning for the implementation of grid resilience measures.

    Timeframe: Ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Public Utilities Commission

    For More Details: California Public Utilities Commission

    Success Metric: Reduction in distribution level and system levelpower disruptions due to extreme heat events.

    Timeframe: Ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Public Utilities Commission

    For More Details: California Public Utilities Commission

  • Action 13 Conduct excess mortality analyses of heat waves.

    Success Metric: Complete excess death analysis within 12 months of heat waves that meet the severity in the protocol developed by the California Department of Public Health.

    Timeframe: 2025 and ongoing

    Agency/Agencies: Health and Human Services Agency – Department of Public Health

    For More Details: Excess Mortality During the September 2022 Heat Wave in California