Funding Agency: USDA
Award Period: 2024-2026
Our driving research question is: How can Wisconsin’s rural communities better prepare for amplified temperature and precipitation extremes through enhanced predictive decision-tools, inclusive and culturally relevant community engagement and more effective communication and educational outreach?
Our project goal is to increase climate resiliency in rural Wisconsin by working with communities on their identification of and preparation for impacts from extreme variations in temperature and precipitation. This interdisciplinary team will co-produce novel solutions for predictability and preparedness through co-investigation and discovery by engaging with three groups of rural stakeholders affected by projected increases in extremes associated with a changing climate: 1) farmers and agricultural advisors; 2) hazard planners, emergency managers, and public health officers; 3) school districts and rural youth.
For this project, our work will focus on a subset of those stakeholder groups in three distinct regions of Wisconsin: driftless, central, and northern. With each group, we will develop stakeholder engagement activities to understand stakeholder perceptions of potential impacts, critical decision points, and needs for climate resiliency preparedness, while also considering sociocultural contexts and local values in the co-development of preparedness tools and resources. We will leverage existing investments and resources, and our anticipated products include new predictive models, decision-support tools, stakeholder sector-specific action plans and guidance, and culturally relevant communication strategies and educational output, including educational modules for middle to high school youth.