2024 CASC Futures Forum

November 18 – 22, 2024

San Diego, CA

Meeting purpose

The November 2024 CASC Mission Operational Meeting, also referred to as the CASC Futures Forum, will convene USGS CASC staff and consortium counterparts to discuss past, present, and future climate adaptation science, operations, and practices. The meeting will help inform and guide future National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Center work. Participants will also work to identify opportunities for new research, collaborations, and operational efficiencies.

The CASCs will convene to strategize how to best expand current strengths and build new capacity. The meeting will be used to assess the CASC’s core work, impact, and priority users and partners, as well as the key Departmental and Bureau-level priorities our work feeds into.

Objectives

1. Reflecting on the processes and products of the CASC's actionable science over the last 15 years.
2. Identifying priorities for future climate adaptation knowledge generation and practice for the CASC network.
3. Fostering new collaborations among national and regional CASC programs to best serve resource managers and local communities.
4. Increasing the capacity of CASC staff, fellows, and students to conduct actionable research.

1. Reflect on processes and products of CASC science

Desired outcome: Analyze the CASC’s current portfolio of work to reflect on lessons learned and future applications. Emphasis on gaps, outcomes, applications, and potential impact of our work.

2. Future of climate adaptation science and practice

As a complement to the analysis of past and ongoing science (Obj 1), this is an opportunity to look forward to future directions for integrative climate adaptation science and practices.  

Desired outcome: A discussion on what it means to do climate adaptation work in the future and how to evaluate success in climate adaptation practice.

3. Fostering new collaborations

Desired outcome: Promotion of new cross-CASC collaborations. Brainstorming on how to best support projects with high levels of partner involvement.

4. Increasing capacity of CASC staff, fellows, and students

Desired outcome: Fostering a connected community of researchers, especially early career and new scientists, through information exchange, trainings, and integration of latest practices and standards.