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applications, which developed specifically tailored products for

the DSS not available from NOAA. Development of the website

leveraged existing resources and capabilities from across NOAA.

Project evaluation has come from feedback from stakeholders,

which has been extremely positive. The NOAA DSS website was

advertised by North Dakota’s Senator Conrad on the day of its

launch, and the story was subsequently picked up by many local

and state newspapers. Feedback indicates that many local commu-

nity members, as well as other federal agencies, including USACE

and USGS, use the site routinely to monitor conditions at Devils

Lake to help their planning for ongoing activities, such as USACE’s

building of levees. The Federal Emergency Management Agency,

Department of Transportation/Federal Highway Administration, and

local authorities have access to inundation maps through the DSS to

help them assess areas already flooded and the time of flooding, as

well as potential areas that will be flooded as the water rises.

The DSS was implemented through a concerted effort by NOAA

staff. Because of the short turnaround time required for launching

the site, there was not time to engage in a formal process to gather

stakeholder requirements, and thus staff familiar with user needs

designed the site to answer frequently asked questions:

• What is it like now?

• What was it like before?

• What will it be like later today, tomorrow, next week, or

next month?

Information already available across NOAA and partner agencies

was brought into one location to make it easily accessible to answer

the relevant stakeholder questions.

The greatest challenge was identifying resources to support the

project, in particular, funding to support the external contractor.

While some funds were identified, future work beyond the contract

period in support of the DSS by the contractor is not funded. Also,

while much of the website content is automated, updates

to content have not been routinely made due to the lack

of dedicated staff support.

Looking to the future

The DSS is automatically updated with the latest

weather, water and climate information and will

continue to operate this way as long as there is a strong

threat of catastrophic overflow of the lake. The external

contractor on the project continues to improve the site’s

science-based products and conduct research on the

role of climate variability and large-scale atmospheric

flow patterns in contributing to variations in the water

level of Devils Lake.

While resourcing projects is always a challenge, this

example demonstrates that leveraging existing resources

to develop decision support services to stakeholders can

be accomplished with little cost. In this case, relevant

products and information already available or easily

developed were brought together at one location to

make them readily accessible to stakeholders. The DSS

was made available within three weeks of initiation, and

in the event that additional applications are needed and

funding is identified to support their development, they

can easily be integrated into the system.

Addressing GFCS principles

The DSS addresses several principles of the Global

Framework on Climate Services (GFCS). By ensuring

greater availability of and access to NOAA services,

including climate, weather, and water services, it

both meets and exceeds Principle 2. Using the DSS,

NOAA was able to make use of global models to make

predictions and meet the needs of regional and local

stakeholders, in accordance with the third GFCS

Principle of addressing global, regional, and national

geographic domains.

Principle 4 states that operational climate services will

be the core element of the GFCS. This project exemplifies

the use of operational climate services as information on

the site is updated in operational timeframes. Users are

able to get the most up-to-date information on climate,

weather, and water relevant to the region.

The website was built as a result of engagement with

stakeholders who were faced with a particular challenge

– in this case, the potential catastrophic overflow of

Devils Lake. Other partners were engaged to provide

the maximum benefit for stakeholders. For example,

geographically relevant data from and links to other

agencies are available on the DSS for use by Devils Lake

decision makers. Thus, the project addresses GFCS

Principle 8, building the framework through user-

provider partnerships that includes all stakeholders.

The DSS has been an example of agency respon-

siveness to the needs of stakeholders. It provides

information relevant to an ongoing environmental

hazard to help stakeholders manage their risk and

implement strategies to make the best use of their

financial investment.

Many local community members and other federal agencies use the DSS site to

monitor conditions at Devils Lake and inform their planning activities

Image: NOAA