California Climate Change Assessments

The Natural Resources Agency produced the state’s fourth Climate Change Assessment in 2018. The Third Assessment included two studies on agricultural climate risks and strategies, one of which created an agricultural vulnerability index for the state. A steady stream of research on climate impacts on agriculture has been published since then and more are underway.

Climate Change Consortium for Specialty Crops: Impacts and Strategies for Resilience

Published in 2013 by CDFA, this report—the product of a year-long convening of agricultural and climate change experts including CalCAN— is a comprehensive planning document for agricultural resilience.

Safeguarding California Plan (2014)

First published in 2009 by the Brown administration, it was updated in 2014 to include detailed and substantive summaries of climate impacts in agriculture and recommended adaptation strategies. In contrast, the 2018 Safeguarding update mostly just summarizes ongoing actions at CDFA, which fall far short of what is needed to make agriculture resilient in the state.

Climate Adaptation Clearinghouses

The Brown administration launched two clearinghouses for climate adaptation and resilience research and information. Cal.Adapt.org was first launched in 2011 and continues to be a useful source of localized projections of climate impacts, including changes in average maximum temperature and average precipitation. The administration’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) launched a beta version of the second ResilientCA.org in 2018, which serves as a centralized database of information and resources to assist decision makers at the state, tribal, regional, and local levels when planning for and implementing climate adaptation efforts.