Dan Ferguson

Interests

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Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Chapters

• Gerlak, A., Vafai, H., Ferguson, D. B., Salame, L., Colglazier, E. W., Vafai, H. A., Lansey, K. E., & Bryson, M. D. (2021). Science Diplomacy in Education. In Sustainable Development for the Americas: Science, Health, and Engineering Policy and Diplomacy(pp 297-342). CRC Press.
• Ferguson, D. B., Finucane, M. L., Keener, V. W., & Owen, G. (2016). Evaluation to advance science policy: lessons from Pacific RISA and CLIMAS. In Climate in Context(pp 215-234). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Journals/Publications

• Crimmins, M., Maxwell, C., Ferguson, D., & Frisvold, G. (2024). Burn Period: A Use-Inspired Metric to Track Wildfire Risk across Arizona and New Mexico in the Southwest United States. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 63(12). doi:10.1175/JAMC-D-24-0067.1
  More info

  Numerous tools and indices exist for wildland fire managers to anticipate and track changes in wildfire risk driven by variability in weather and climate conditions at hourly to seasonal scales. However, in working closely with Southwest U.S. managers, we learned of a simple meteorological metric being informally used, but not widely accessible in existing tools or information products, to gauge short-term changes in wildfire risk. This metric, termed “Burn Period” (BP), is the local count of hours per day with relative humidity values equal to or less than 20%. Our collaboration led to the development of an experimental tool called the “Burn Period Tracker” to ease access and promote the use of BP values for planning and response. This study is a climatological analysis of BP values at 124 fire weather stations across Arizona and New Mexico for the period 2000–22 to aid in interpretation and understanding of this use-inspired metric. BP values reflect the strong seasonality in temperature and moisture deficit–driven wildfire risk across the Southwest United States, with risk climbing through the arid spring season, peaking in June, and then falling rapidly with the onset of the summer monsoon in July. Regression analyses show that short-term variability in BP values is driven by variability in low-level atmospheric moisture in all months with strongest relationships during the summer after the onset of the monsoon. This study highlights the utility of BP as a short-term wildfire planning tool as well as an example of collaborative weather and climate services development.
• Ferguson, D., Frisvold, G., Maxwell, C., & Crimmins, M. (2024). How Are Weather and Climate Products and Decision Support Systems Used in Wildland Fire Decision-Making in the U.S. Southwest?. Weather, Climate, and Society, 16(4). doi:10.1175/WCAS-D-24-0069.1
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  Wildland fire management is a challenging environment in which to utilize scientific information. Despite the robust information system that supports U.S. wildland fire management, recent studies demonstrate that some data/ information products and decision support tools available to that community are not being used to their full potential. In the U.S. Southwest, the convergence of climate change, past wildland fire policy, and an expanding wildland–urban interface have increased pressure on wildland fire managers to use science-based information to improve management outcomes. This tension between the perceived need for more science in fire management and the practical challenges of using science to inform decisions led us to ask two basic questions: 1) How is information about weather and climate used in wildland fire management decision-making in the Southwest? 2) How are decision support tools used in Southwest wildland fire management? We found that relatively few sources of weather and climate information are consulted by Southwest wildland fire managers; a small percentage of those sources are used to inform the specific decisions and tasks we asked about; and decision support tools are commonly used to justify rather than inform decisions. We further found evidence that suggests that products and tools that are thoughtfully designed to fit within the specific information use environment of wildland fire management—rather than being produced in isolation from that environment—are more likely to be used and therefore have more impact than those that are produced in isolation from that environment. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: This study set out to understand how weather and climate information and decision support systems (DSSs) are perceived and used by the Southwest wildland fire management community. We found that the wildland fire community consults relatively few weather and climate products, even fewer are used to inform decisions, and that DSSs are frequently used to justify rather than inform decisions. We argue that the climate services community and other scientists who develop science-based tools and products for fire management will benefit from better understanding the information use environment in which their science may be used if they want to increase the utility of their work.
• Frisvold, G., Zhang, N., Crimmins, M., Ferguson, D., & Maxwell, C. (2024). Demand for Information for Wildland Fire Management. Atmosphere, 15(11). doi:10.3390/atmos15111364
  More info

  Significant resources have been devoted to increasing the supply of data and information products for wildland fire management. There has been comparatively less emphasis on understanding the demand for these products. There are large differences in the number of information sources that fire managers use in decision making. We developed a value-of-information model for wildland fire managers to formulate hypotheses about what factors drive these differences. Data from a comprehensive internet survey targeting a well-defined population of the Southwest wildland fire managers are used to test these hypotheses. Results are generally consistent with hypotheses generated from the value-of-information model. Multiple regression results suggest information use increases with the number of decisions that managers make and is greater during fire season than before. Information use is affected by a manager’s level of education, age, experience, job type, the agencies they work for, and the multi-agency dispatch centers where they work. Agency and dispatch center effects explain more of the variation in information use than differences in the respondents’ personal characteristics. To better understand fire manager demand for information, future research could explore in more detail what specific attributes of agencies and dispatch centers affect use of information for wildland fire management.
• Greene, C., & Ferguson, D. (2024). Equity, Justice, and Drought: Lessons for Climate Services from the U.S. Southwest. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 105(1). doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-22-0185.1
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  Drought is a complex hazard, with many interconnected impacts on environment and society. Droughts are difficult to monitor as they are slow-moving events with impacts that are not always visible. There is an increasing call to study and monitor droughts as a human–environment process and to provide climate services that can inform proactive decision-making on drought. While climate services strive to make droughts visible and therefore manageable for society, many of the equity issues that arise during periods of drought remain largely invisible. In this article we explore inequity in drought impacts in the U.S. Southwest, focusing on agriculture, household water security, and wildfires. Drawing from lessons in the literature on equity, environmental justice, and climate services as well as our experience researching drought impacts in the Southwest, we recommend that climate services can support drought decision-making that addresses equity issues by 1) integrating both physical and social dimensions of drought in climate services, 2) investing in engagement and trust building with diverse communities, and 3) better integrating place-based knowledge to reconcile scaling challenges. With the acceleration of the warming and drying of many parts of the world, there is an ever-increasing need to focus on reducing inequities in drought preparedness and response, which we propose starts with production of drought information that is more reflective of how droughts are experienced across all parts of society.
• Ferguson, D. B., Luz, P. M., Austhof, E. C., & Brown, H. E. (2023). Economics, health, or environment: What motivates individual climate action?. PLOS Clim, 2(8), e0000177.
• Greene, C., Wilmer, H., Ferguson, D. B., Crimmins, M. A., & Mcclaran, M. P. (2022). Rancher’s Knowledge of Social-Ecological Change: Centering Agency and Scale in Resilience. . Journal of Rural Studies, 96, 217-226.
• Ferguson, D. B., Meadow, A. M., & Huntington, H. P. (2022). Making a Difference: Planning for Engaged Participation in Environmental Research. Environmental Management, 69(2), 227-243. doi:10.1007/s00267-021-01585-5
• Gerlak, A. K., Karambelkar, S., & Ferguson, D. B. (2021). Knowledge Governance and Learning: Examining Challenges and Opportunities in the Colorado River Basin. Environmental Science and Policy. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2021.08.026
• Johnson, N., Erickson, K. S., Ferguson, D. B., Jäger, M., Jennings, L. L., Juan, A. R., Larson, S., Smythe, W., Strawhacker, C., Walker, A., Carroll, S. R., Moon, T. A., Druckenmiller, M. L., & Thoman, R. L. (2021). The Impact of COVID-19 on Food Sovereignty for Alaska Natives. 2021 Arctic Report Card. doi:10.25923/5cb7-6h06
• Peck, D. E., Owen, G., Greene, C. L., Garba, I., Ferguson, D. M., Carroll, S. R., Brymer, A. L., Meadow, A. M., & Wilmer, H. (2021).

  Expanded Ethical Principles for Research Partnership and Transdisciplinary Natural Resource Management Science

  . Environmental Management. doi:10.1007/s00267-021-01508-4
• Peck, D. E., Owen, G., Greene, C., Garba, I., Ferguson, D. B., Carroll, S. R., Bentley, A., Meadow, A., & Wilmer, H. (2021). An Expanded Set of Ethical Principles for Transdisciplinary Social-Ecological Research. Ecology and Society, 68, 453-467. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-021-01508-4
• Wilmer, H., Meadow, A., Bentley, A., Carroll, S. R., Ferguson, D. B., Garba, I., Greene, C., Owen, G., & Peck, D. E. (2021). Expanded Ethical Principles for Research Partnership and Transdisciplinary Natural Resource Management Science. Environmental Management. doi:Expanded Ethical Principles for Research Partnership and Transdisciplinary Natural Resource Management Science
• Anderson, T., Woodhouse, C. A., & Ferguson, D. B. (2020). Upper Lake Mary: Lake Level Response to Climate Variability. CLIMAS Technical Report.
• Ferguson, D. B., Carroll, S. R., Juan, A., Jennings, L., Jäger, M. B., & Johnson, N. (2020). Indigenous Foods Knowledges Network: Facilitating Exchange between Arctic and Southwest Indigenous Communities on Food and Knowledge Sovereignty. Witness Community Highlights. Fairbanks: ARCUS: Arctic Research Consortium of the United States.
• Rozance, M. A., Krosby, M., Meadow, A. M., Snover, A., Ferguson, D. B., & Owen, G. (2020). Building capacity for societally engaged climate science by transforming science training. Environmental Research Letters, 15(12), 125008.
• Jäger, M. B., Ferguson, D., Huntington, O., Johnson, M., Johnson, N., Amy, J., Larson, S., Pulsifer, P., Reader, T., Strawhacker, C., Walker, A., Whiting, D., Wilson, J., Yazzie, J., Carroll, S., & Network, I. (2019). Building an Indigenous Foods Knowledges Network Through Relational Accountability. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 9(B), 45-51.
• Owen, G., Ferguson, D. B., & McMahan, B. (2019). Contextualizing climate science: applying social learning systems theory to knowledge production, climate services, and use-inspired research. Climatic Change.
• Crimmins, M. A., Ferguson, D. B., Meadow, A. M., & Weiss, J. L. (2017). Discerning "flavors" of drought using climate extremes indices. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology. doi:10.1175/JAMC-D-16-0270.1
• Faulstich, H., Weiss, J. L., Meadow, A., Masayesva, A., Ferguson, D. B., & Crimmins, M. A. (2017). Drought Monitoring to Support Planning for the Hopi Tribe: Final Report 2010-2016. Climate Assessment for the Southwest Technical Report.
• Meadow, A. M., & Ferguson, D. B. (2017). Our Climate is Doing What? Tailoring Information about Regional Climate Change to Support Local Adaptation Decision Making. Rural Connections.
• Weiss, J. L., Meadow, A. M., Ferguson, D. B., & Crimmins, M. A. (2017). Variability of daily precipitation extremes in the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.
• Ferguson, D. B., Masayesva, A., Meadow, A. M., & Crimmins, M. A. (2016). Rain Gauges to Range Conditions: Collaborative Development of a Drought Information System to Support Local Decision-Making. Weather, Climate, and Society, 8, 345-359. doi:DOI: 10.1175/WCAS-D-15-0060.1
• Meadow, A. M., Ferguson, D. B., Guido, Z., Horangic, A., Owen, G., & Wall, T. (2015). Moving Toward the Deliberate Co-Production of Climate Science Knowledge. Weather, Climate, and Society, 7, 179-191. doi:10.1175/WCAS-D-14-00050.1
• Meadow, A. M., Crimmins, M. A., & Ferguson, D. B. (2013). Field of Dreams or Dream Team? Assessing Two Models for Drought Impact Reporting in the Semiarid Southwest.

Presentations

• Ferguson, D. B., Wilmer, H., & Meadow, A. M. (2020, November). Expanding Research Ethics in the Era of Transdisciplinary Research. Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center Actional Science Skills-Building Webinar Series.Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center.
• Jennings, L. L., Ferguson, D. B., Carroll, S. R., Erickson, K., Johnson, N., & Jager, M. E. (2021). Co-producing Knowledge in a Time of Rapid Change: Lessons from the Indigenous Foods Knowledges Network. GC52C session Social and Ecological Consequences of Recent Changes in the Arctic and Subarctic Region I Oral session at the American Geophysical Union Conference.
• Ferguson, D. B., Meadow, A. M., & Wilmer, H. (2020). Expanding Research Ethics in the Era of Transdisciplinary Research. Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center Actionable Science Webinar Series. online: Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center - University of Washington.
• Crimmins, M. A., & Ferguson, D. B. (2018, June). Recent Drought and Long Terms Trends in the Four Corners. HOPI DROUGHT TASK TEAM MEETING. Kykotsmovi, AZ: Hopi Department of Natural Resources.
• Lopez Hoffman, L., Feng, X., Huang, T., Lien, A., Swann, A. L., Breshears, D. D., Soto, J. R., Baldwin, E., Nuñez-Regueiro, M. M., Dang, T., Park, D. T., Merideth, R., Ferguson, D. B., Enquist, B. J., & Ernst, K. C. (2018, June). Crops in a Changing World: Hidden Forest-Agriculture Teleconnections. 5th European Congress of Conservation Biology. Jyväskylä, Finland: European Congress of Conservation Biology.
• Crimmins, M. A., Ferguson, D. B., McKellar, T., Schaap, M. G., Rasmussen, C., Rasmussen, C., McKellar, T., Schaap, M. G., Ferguson, D. B., & Crimmins, M. A. (2017, September). Evaluating Existing and Developing New Drought Indices Using Modeled Soil Moisture Time Series. Climate Assessment for the Southwest - New Project Showcase. Tucson, AZ: Climate Assessment for the Southwest.
• Ferguson, D. B., Rasmussen, C., Schaap, M. G., McKellar, T., & Crimmins, M. A. (2017, March). Evaluating drought indices using modeled soil moisture time series. Climate Assessment for the Southwest Spring Meeting. Tucson, AZ: Climate Assessment for the Southwest.
• Woodhouse, C. A., Brice, R., Crimmins, M. A., Griffin, D., Faulstich, H., & Ferguson, D. B. (2014, April). Three-Season Hydroclimatic Variability from Tree Rings in the Four Corners Region, USA. Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting. Tampa, FL: Association of American Geographers.
  More info

  The seasonal precipitation regime of the Four Corners region of the southwestern US includes a winter wet season and a summer monsoon. The two precipitation seasons are broken by a typically dry fore-summer that precedes the onset of the monsoon in early July. Dryland agriculture and grazing are practiced on tribal lands here; conditions over these three seasons are highly influential to the success of crops and rangeland conditions. Recent decades have been characterized by repeated intervals of severe drought in one or both of the two precipitation seasons, occasionally alleviated by wet fore-summer conditions. The instrumental record provides a subset of the climate conditions possible under natural variability. Tree-ring based reconstructions of cool-season and monsoon precipitation for past centuries have been generated for this region, providing a long-term perspective on the range of drought conditions possible. Here, we investigate the potential for reconstructing conditions in the pre-monsoon season, using not only precipitation totals, but hydroclimatic indices such as number of wet days and length of dry spells. By employing two species of conifers, Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), and chronologies generated from intra-annual ring widths, we take advantage of the range of climate sensitivities in the two species and earlywood and latewood growth. With a preliminary reconstruction, we evaluate seasonal sequences that occur most commonly, variations in sequences over time, and periods of persistent dry conditions in all three of these seasons that are so critical to tribal livelihoods and natural resources in this region.

Poster Presentations

• Martinez, A., Ferguson, D. B., & Rainie, S. C. (2017, December). The Role of Reconciling Values in Efforts to Build Community Resilience to Global Environmental Change. American Geophysical Union Conference. New Orleans, LA.

Others

• Crimmins, M., Ferguson, D. B., Weiss, J. L., & Faulstich, H. L. (2015, March). Hopi Climate: An Overview to Support Drought Monitoring and Management.
• Carroll, S. R., White, S., Yazzie, S., Lane, T., Curley, A., Ferguson, D. B., & David-Chavez, D. (2019, December). Dominique David-Chavez, Daniel B. Ferguson, Andrew Curley, Travis Lane+, Sheldwin Yazzie, Sarah White,Policy Brief: Supporting Tribal Data Governance for Indigenous Community Climate Resilience.. Tucson: Native Nations Institute and Climate Assessment for the Southwest, University of Arizona..
• Meadow, A., Black, M., Crimmins, M. A., Ferguson, D. B., & Weiss, J. L. (2016, July). Climate Profile of Gila River Indian Community. Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions - Native Nations Climate Adaptation Program.
• Meadow, A., Black, M., Crimmins, M. A., Ferguson, D. B., & Weiss, J. L. (2016, October). Climate Profile of the Pueblo of Sandia. Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions - Native Nations Climate Adaptation Program.
• Crimmins, M. A., Weiss, J. L., Ferguson, D. B., & Faulstich, H. (2015, May). Hopi Climate: An Overview to Support Drought Monitoring and Management. Climate Assessment for the Southwest. http://www.climas.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/pdfclimas-report-finalprint.pdf
• Ferguson, D. B., Rice, J., & Woodhouse, C. (2014, 2014). Linking Environmental Research and Practice: Lessons from the Integration of Climate Science and Water Management in the Western United States. http://www.climas.arizona.edu/publication/report/linking-environmental-research-and-practice