Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Fifth National Climate Assessment - Read the Report

Climate Resilience Information System

Federal agencies and non-federal entities are responding to requests for tailored, actionable information about observed climate trends as well as future climate conditions and the risks they pose. Federally supported research produces projections of future climate conditions (e.g., temperature, precipitation), as well as many risks (e.g., flooding, wildfire) that are influenced by climate conditions. This information is needed by a spectrum of users, each with different needs for planning and decision-making.  

Planned for initial implementation in Fiscal Year 2024, the Climate Resilience Information System (CRIS) will facilitate access to federal decision-relevant information, enabling users to easily find and customize information for their needs. 

For example, fruit growers want to know the timing and duration of frost days at critical times of the year, public health officials need projections for days exceeding critical temperature limits, and coastal planners want information on extreme events and flood risk. CRIS will support the development of tools and services for each of these constituencies from a single, authoritative source of information—integrating both past and future as well as climate and non-climate data. 

CRIS will use an open, accessible, and interoperable architecture that is intended to support designers of decision-support tools and services. Pathfinding precursor projects  include Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation (CMRA) and the NCA Interactive Atlas. Thus, the vision for CRIS is a foundational resource that supports multiple climate services and resilience priorities, including those outlined in the NSTC Federal Framework and Action Plan for Climate Services and National Climate Resilience Framework. 

Components 

Ultimately, CRIS will contain six components:

  1. A collection of federal decision-relevant data 

  2. Tools and utilities for browsing, mapping, graphing, interpreting, and analyzing 

  3. An open-source repository of the software underpinning all tools and utilities 

  4. An open tool-developers forum to foster synergies and community-building 

  5. Ready-to-use web templates that are compatible with CRIS and facilitate easy integration of federal agencies’ maps and data with local, state, and Tribal maps and data 

  6. Free training and online tutorials about CRIS resources 

The system will use a no-wrong-door design philosophy, enabling users to access the same underlying climate data from multiple federal storefronts or web applications.

Climate Resilience Information System

Diagram depicting access to climate and non-climate data sources by federal initiatives via cloud services
Figure 1: CRIS improves access to both climate and non-climate data via cloud services that support and adhere to open science standards. Multiple federal initiatives, such as CMRA, can access this authoritative source, which also supports community initiatives that seek to build resilience. 
Credit: Esri

Audience: CRIS broadly defines its audience as designers of services who then create websites (themed data portals or ‘storefronts’) for consumers of climate services or initiatives that supply climate services (Figure 1). As new information flows into CRIS and new applications become available, the updates will propagate to the storefronts that build on the common architecture.

Data sources: Decision-relevant data includes both climate and non-climate data that support assessments of exposure, vulnerability, and risk among valued assets, populations, and built and natural environments. The aim is to inclusively and equitably support communities and businesses building resilience to weather and climate hazards all across the nation. Over time, CRIS’ scope will expand to offer international and global data as well.

Architecture: The CRIS architecture will consist of three tiers: a data tier, a service tier, and a storefront tier (Figure 2). 

  • The data tier envisions both cloud data repositories such as the NGDA (National Geospatial Data Asset) Portfolio or commercial services (Amazon Web Services), as well as federal resources such as NOAA’s NCEI or NASA DAACs. 

  • The service tier is designed to ensure open-source compliance with international OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) standards but also to support commercial services (e.g. Esri’s ArcGIS) and provide analytical capabilities and links to other APIs. 

  • The storefront tier ensures open science standards for metadata and code are met, along with workflows, map services, and importantly, guides for the use of the data based on assessment of different downscaled dataset options. This tier would feed into both federal storefront portals, such as Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation (CMRA), hazard-focused portals that tailor information for specific audiences (e.g., Heat.gov), and locally focused portals that integrate federal data with local, state, and Tribal data for knowledge-building and constituent engagement.  

Diagram illustrating the architecture of a cris hub website, showing the integration of various data sources and services like cmra, nca atlas, and aws with a tiered structure of storefront, services, and data layers.
Figure 2: Another view of CRIS illustrates the CRIS Hub website, which will contain a data tier catalog, user guides for different levels of expertise, and tools such as templates or analytical services for designers of services (see Figure 1).  
Credit: Esri

Leadership and Development

CRIS is guided by an interagency leadership team hosted by USGCRP, with representatives from NOAA, DOI/USGS, NASA, NSF, USDA, FEMA, DOE, and OSTP. 

The contract to develop CRIS is managed by NOAA’s Geospatial Information Officer and the Climate Program Office and executed by Esri. Additional guidance and support is provided by the Federal Geospatial Data Committee and the Open Geospatial Consortium. 

Contact 

For more information, contact Dr. Fred Lipschultz or Reuben Aniekwu.