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Climate Services for Coping with Climate Change, Drought, and
Extreme Heat in the México-U.S. Border Region
A key limitation is the absence of equivalent boundary
organizations in México, and limited coordination with
Mexican partners, aside from SMN. Of course, financial and
human resources are required to support the development and
deployment of robust boundary organizations in México; this is
a science policy issue, that requires investment from the federal
government, along with coordination between federal agencies
and partners, such as universities, as has been accomplished in
NOAA’s RISA program (Pulwarty
et al.,
, 2009; Parris
et al.,
, 2016)
and in climate service initiatives such as the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) Regional Climate Hubs and the U.S. Geologic
Survey (USGS) Climate Science Centers. As has been mentioned
frequently with respect to the establishment of climate services
in the U.S. and other countries (Brasseur and Gallardo, 2016),
the task of establishing services is fairly substantial, despite the
strong demand from certain sectors (such as water management,
fire management, public health, urban planning), with one barrier
being a lack of career incentives for academic participants and
clear career paths for practitioners in other sectors.
Through our work with colleagues in México and the U.S., we
have identified a number of social and physical science research
needs and gaps, in order to provide more complete services, and
to address important climate impact research issues. Beginning
with research that will help the climate services process, and will
aid in providing more comprehensive and effective services, we
note the following needs:
• social network analyses, in order to better understand
the connections and gaps in communication and
coordination among various stakeholders and decision
makers; such analyses aid in improving information
flows, responding to user needs, and evaluating the
return on investments in climate services (e.g., Owen
et
al.,
, 2012)
