Temperate- Your climate adaptation planning companion

Tool Overview: 

Temperate is designed to help cities move through the process of climate change adaptation planning, including exploring climate hazards, creating vulnerability assessments, and crafting action plans. Using available temperature and precipitation climate projections for the user's location, Temperate will suggest potential future climate hazards that may be of significance. After exploring potential hazards, Temperate walks users through assessing each hazard's possible impact on various community systems.

Future Sea Level Rise and the New Jersey Coast: Assessing Potential Impacts and Opportunities

Increasing rates of sea level rise caused by global warming are expected to lead to permanent inundation, episodic flooding, beach erosion and saline intrusion in low-lying coastal areas. Sea level rise is a significant and growing threat to the coastal region of New Jersey, USA and this study presents a comprehensive assessment of the expected impacts. We project future sea level rise based on historical measurements and global scenarios, and apply them to digital elevation models to illustrate the extent to which the New Jersey coast is vulnerable. We estimate that 1 to 3 % of New Jersey’s land area will be affected by inundation and 6.5 to over 9 % by episodic coastal flooding over the next century. We also characterize potential impacts on the socioeconomic and natural systems of the New Jersey coast focusing on Cape May Point for illustrative purposes. We then suggest a range of potential adaptation and mitigation opportunities for managing coastal areas in response to sea level rise. Our findings suggest that where possible a gradual withdrawal of development from some areas of the New Jersey coast may be the optimum management strategy for protecting natural ecosystems.

Monthly Water Balance Model Futures Portal

Tool Overview: 

Simulations of future climate suggest profiles of temperature and precipitation may differ significantly from those in the past. Future changes in climate, specifically changes in temperature, and the type, timing, and distribution of precipitation may lead to changes in the hydrologic cycle. As such, natural resource managers are in need of tools that can provide estimates of key components of the hydrologic cycle, uncertainty associated with the estimates, and limitations associated with the climate data used to estimate these components. To help address this need, the U.S.

Hydrologic and Water Quality System (HAWQS)

Tool Overview: 

The Hydrologic and Water Quality System (HAWQS) is a web-based interactive water quantity and quality modeling system that employs as its core modeling engine the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), an internationally-recognized public domain model. HAWQS provides users with interactive web interfaces and maps; pre-loaded input data; outputs that include tables, charts, and raw output data; a user guide, and online development, execution, and storage of a user's modeling projects.

Historical Climate Trends

Tool Overview: 

The Historical Climate Trends product provides a comparative seasonal or annual analysis for a specified climate division or state. Long term averages are taken from NCDC's monthly and annual temperature and rainfall datasets. These long term averages are depicted in each chart as a horizontal line in the middle of the chart. 5-year moving averages of seasonal (or annual) values are plotted in comparison to the long-term average as red or blue curves for temperature and green or brown curves for precipitation.

CMIP Climate Data Processing Tool

Tool Overview: 

The purpose of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) Climate Data Processing Tool is to process readily available downscaled climate data at the local level into relevant statistics for transportation planners. This tool works with data used by the Downscaled CMIP3 and CMIP5 Climate and Hydrology Projections (DCHP) website. This website houses climate model data from phase 3 (CMIP3) and phase 5 (CMIP5) of the World Climate Research Programme.

Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI) Ecosystem Services Model

Tool Overview: 

The Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI) Ecosystem Services Model is an online tool that models potential impacts of climate change, land use change and water consumption alteration (i.e., population growth and water withdrawals) on flow volumes, water supply stress, and ecosystem productivity. The WaSSI Ecosystem Services Model can be used technically to model impacts in the United States, Mexico, Rwanda, and Burundi, but can also serve as an educational tool to demonstrate linkages between water use, climate change, water availability, and carbon storage.

Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP)

Tool Overview: 

The Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) System is a software tool designed to help users with integrated water resources planning. WEAP uses a GIS-based interactive platform to allow high user customization, and helps users generate, integrate, and analyze watershed-specific information related to water supply, demand, and quality, as well as ecological information.

EPA Water Erosion Prediction Project Climate Assessment Tool (WEPPCAT)

Tool Overview: 

WEPPCAT is a free, online erosion simulation tool that allows users to analyze potential stream sediment loading in response to various climate change and land management scenarios. WEPPCAT leverages the existing USDA Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) Model, but has additional features that allow analysis of climate impacts and various land management practices on soil yield and loss.

Water Conservation Tracking Tool

Tool Overview: 

The Alliance for Water Efficiency (AWE) Water Conservation Tracking Tool is a program that allows water utilities to analyze various water conservation strategies and design conservation programs to maximize water savings and benefits while minimizing costs. The tool operates through Microsoft Excel and integrates real data from individual water utilities, allowing personalized and standardized analyses of water savings, costs, and benefits in two different units (i.e., English and metric).