Climate change poses many challenges that affect society and the natural world. With these challenges, however, come opportunities to respond. By taking steps to adapt to and mitigate climate change, the risks to society and the impacts of continued climate change can be lessened. The National Climate Assessment, coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is a mandated report intended to inform response decisions. Required to be developed every four years, these reports provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date evaluation of climate change impacts available for the United States, making them a unique and important climate change document. The draft Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) report reviewed here addresses a wide range of topics of high importance to the United States and society more broadly, extending from human health and community well-being, to the built environment, to businesses and economies, to ecosystems and natural resources. This report evaluates the draft NCA4 to determine if it meets the requirements of the federal mandate, whether it provides accurate information grounded in the scientific literature, and whether it effectively communicates climate science, impacts, and responses for general audiences including the public, decision makers, and other stakeholders.

Summarizes the science of climate change and impacts on the United States, for the public and policymakers.

Climate-smart agriculture, or CSA, is a multidimensional approach to transforming and reshaping agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change. Global changes in rainfall and temperature patterns threaten agricultural production and increase the vulnerability of people dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, residing mostly in the world's developing countries. Climate change interrupts food markets and agro-economy, posing population-wide risks to the food supply. Threats can be minimized by increasing the resilience capacity of farmers through improving agricultural practices as well as enhancing flexibility and resource use efficiency in agricultural production systems. In order to develop a sustainable climate-smart agriculture practice, the first step is to assess the impacts of environmental constricts followed by modeling-based approaches. At the same time, an evaluation of current practices in minimizing abiotic stress in field crops is unavoidable. An assessment of the efficacy of newly developed methodologies is also of prime interest. Improvements in yield stability alone cannot generate the desired growth in the agro-economic sector; slow but steady demand for the improved food quality is also high on the priority list. So “Quality with Desired Quantity” will be a prime focus in the coming years in the agriculture sector. Policies that can influence climate-smart agriculture in the future have also been given equal importance.

Meant to aid State & local emergency managers in their efforts to develop & maintain a viable all-hazard emergency operations plan. This guide clarifies the preparedness, response, & short-term recovery planning elements that warrant inclusion in emergency operations plans. It offers the best judgment & recommendations on how to deal with the entire planning process -- from forming a planning team to writing the plan. Specific topics of discussion include: preliminary considerations, the planning process, emergency operations plan format, basic plan content, functional annex content, hazard-unique planning, & linking Federal & State operations.

Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 1998.