Victoria Keener

Research Fellow

 

Dr. Victoria Keener is a Research Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawai`i, and a principal investigator of the NOAA sponsored Pacific Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program. Dr. Keener received her PhD in 2010 in Agricultural & Biological Engineering from the University of Florida, specializing in hydro-climatology and  impacts of the El-Nino/Southern Oscillation on quantity and quality of streamflow. The Pacific RISA program strives to enhance knowledge and capacity to sustainably manage freshwater resources in Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. Projects include producing downscaled climate and hydrological projections to estimate future water availability; assessing stakeholders’ decision-support needs and their capacity to use seasonal forecasts; identifying opportunities for cost-effective adaptive measures within the existing law and policy framework; and coordinating. Dr. Keener has interdisciplinary research interests in the translation of climate information into knowledge applicable to decision making, especially in conjunction with public water utilities. Dr. Keener is the Lead Editor and a Lead Chapter Author for the Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment (PIRCA) report, the regional technical input to the US 2013 National Climate Assessment

Organization(s)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program was created in 1995 to pioneer innovative mechanisms for enhancing the value of climate information and products for understanding and responding to a variety of challenges associated with climate variability and change at the regional scale. Currently, there are eleven region-specific RISA teams (see box) working in sustained partnerships with local decision-makers.