UNC Asheville collaborates with the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in the areas of education, research, and public outreach to reach the following desired outcomes:

• Increased understanding of local and regional climate systems (especially those factors that cause drought) to enable policy and decision makers to efficiently and reliably plan and make informed decisions;


• Investigate climate-sensitive sectors and then effectively incorporating NOAA’s climate products into their plans and decisions;


• Provide tools to enable a climate-literate public; and


• Increased customer satisfaction with climate, drought and water information and services.

UNC Asheville’s NEMAC collaborates with NCDC to meet these needs by developing visualization, outreach and decision support tools. More specifically, NEMAC will create a series of databases, geographic information systems (GIS) products, graphics, and visualizations that will tailor drought and climate topics to specific regions and audiences. NEMAC will develop an outreach program intended to introduce a wide range of practical, implementable climate change actions that local governments and groups can include in their planning processes.

To accomplish this, UNCA will coordinate a series of workshops and utilize not only the visualization and outreach tools mentioned above, but also the Climate Change Handbook for Planners. This handbook deals with climate change issues associated with land use, transportation and other infrastructure, natural resources, building and site development, economic development, public health and public safety planning. Additionally, these workshops will have a three-fold purpose: 1) to gather information from specific constituent groups for the development of outreach tools; 2) to assist with the application of information to meet the requirements of the constituent group; and 3) to allow for continuous improvements during development. Student research interns will be vital to the development and progress of this project.

Start Date: July, 2009
End Date: June, 2012

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