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Climate Services for Coping with Climate Change, Drought, and
Extreme Heat in the México-U.S. Border Region
of drought, and possibly more intense summer storms, on river
hydrology, especially sediment flow balances. Participants also
examined the possible interactions between climate, regional
population change, and other social factors (e.g., changes in
technology, regulatory policy). They concluded that, while
the scenario exercise was valuable, a much longer effort, with
participation by many more stakeholders—such as río Conchos
irrigation district managers, and farmers—is needed to implement
collaborative climate change planning. A subset of participants is
planning a regional drought workshop, to explore the challenges
in planning and preparing on long-term, climate time scales. (For
a brief summary of the workshop, see
.
edu/blog/notes-field-preparing-climate-change-along-us-mexico-
border)
.
More recently, the NACSP RGB Pilot partners have focused on the
current and potential public health impacts of episodes of extreme
heat. This topic is part of a new, ongoing initiative that includes
additional partners, such as the Mexican agencies COFEPRIS and
Protección Civil de Ciudad Júarez, the City of El Paso, Texas,
and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This initiative is discussed in the section below, “Developing an
Integrated Heat Health Information System.”
Developing an Integrated Heat Health Information System
for Long-Term Resilience to Extreme Heat in the RGB
Region
Extreme heat is the deadliest natural disaster in the United
States, killing an average 130 people per year (based on 1986-
2015 statistics) (NOAA, 2016). Global climate models project
annual average temperature increases of more than 7°F (4°C),
