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Lisa Dilling is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and a member of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is PI and Director of the Western Water Assessment, a NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessment project that studies and facilitates the use of climate information in decision making in the Intermountain West. Her scholarship focuses on decision making, the use of information and science policy. Her research topics include drought and urban water management, climate adaptation in cities and on public lands, carbon management, and geoengineering governance.  She is the author of over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, co-editor of the book, "Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change, Facilitating Social Change" and was Co-leader and co-author of the State of the Carbon Cycle Synthesis and Assessment Product 2.2 for the U.S. Global Change Research Program. She was the recipient of a 2016 Leverhulme Visiting Professorship hosted by Oxford University, UK. She holds a PhD in biology from the University of California Santa Barbara and a BA in biology from Harvard University.

Abstract: Adaptation and Surprises: Managing Water for a Resilient Future

Cities in the U.S. have been adapting to drought for many years, implementing a combination of mechanisms to cope with climate and water variability and (often) increasing population. I argue that these experiences help us to understand how society will engage the challenge of adapting to climate change. Data from drought management show that adaptation to climate variability can shift vulnerability in unexpected ways. I suggest that there is a need for greater engagement with various publics on the tradeoffs involved in adaptation action and for improving analysis and communication about the complicated nature of the dynamics of vulnerability.