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Climate change is increasingly becoming a major disruptor of human and natural systems. In some areas, summer temperatures are quickly rising, droughts are deepening, and heat waves are lengthening and getting hotter. Such changes will place pressure on scarce water resources, threaten food security, disrupt fisheries, and result in direct health consequences, among other impacts. These effects can produce secondary and tertiary impacts on human systems that may destabilize societies, economies, or governments. However, these dynamics are highly complex and deeply uncertain, and the pathways from climate changes to societal disruptions that lead to conflict remain poorly understood and an area for continuing research. Still, decisionmakers must plan and act in the near term to reduce future climate-induced risks to physical and human systems. As a first step to characterizing these pathways, this report examines climate change and its impacts on the physical environment to inform operational and longer-term decisionmaking by the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), with an emphasis on impacts that are relevant to food and water security in 2035, 2050, and 2070. This is the first report in a series that presents investigations into the potential impacts of climate change on the security environment in the CENTCOM area of responsibility (AOR). This report highlights locations that are projected to experience the biggest changes, as well as those that are most exposed to climate hazards.

Climatic changes --- Climatic changes --- Climatic changes --- Water security --- Water security --- Food security --- Food security --- Central Asia --- Food Supply --- Global Climate Change --- Middle East --- Natural Hazards --- South Asia --- Water Supply --- Climat --- Extrêmes (Météorologie) --- Catastrophes naturelles. --- Aliments --- Sécurité alimentaire. --- Eau --- Sécurité de l'eau. --- Climat --- Climat --- Climat --- Sécurité de l'eau --- Sécurité de l'eau --- Sécurité de l'eau --- Sécurité alimentaire --- Sécurité alimentaire --- Sécurité alimentaire --- Government policy --- Social aspects --- Risk assessment --- Social aspects --- Risk assessment --- Risk assessment --- Forecasting. --- Risk assessment --- Forecasting. --- Risk assessment --- Forecasting. --- Risk assessment --- Forecasting. --- Changements. --- Approvisionnement. --- Approvisionnement. --- Changements --- Aspect social --- Évaluation du risque --- Changements --- Aspect social --- Évaluation du risque --- Changements --- Aspect social --- Évaluation du risque --- Évaluation du risque --- Prévision. --- Évaluation du risque --- Prévision. --- Évaluation du risque --- Prévision. --- Évaluation du risque --- Prévision. --- Évaluation du risque --- Prévision. --- Évaluation du risque --- Prévision. --- United States. --- United States. --- United States --- Central Asia --- Egypt --- Middle East --- South Asia --- Armed Forces --- Environmental aspects.

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As part of the RAND Corporation's Security 2040 Initiative, the authors of this report explored a critical global challenge that will shape the security landscape over the next 20 years: contending with and preparing for the effects of climate change. Within the United States, many governmental entities, from cities to counties to military services, have already begun to prepare for and directly address climate change's impacts. The resilience of these communities and installations does not lie neatly within designated jurisdictional borders. Communities are dependent on how their neighbors, which include local military installations, choose to adapt to climate change. Likewise, military installations require the communities on which they depend for transportation, resources, and personnel to contend with and plan for climate change. Military installations and communities are coexisting and codependent entities, relying on mutual infrastructure and resources to support their respective functions. To explore this challenge, the authors reviewed and analyzed relevant literature, assessed other instances of intergovernmental collaboration, and applied the case of the Hampton Roads Sea Level Rise Preparedness and Resilience Intergovernmental Pilot Project to examine the role of collaboration in military and local government climate resilience planning. They found that collaboration between military services and local governments improves collective capacity to address climate change, and they provide insight into the attributes of effective joint planning. While limited in scope by design, the findings of this work are useful for those considering collaborative planning efforts and are intended to inspire future in-depth research on collaborative climate resilience planning.

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The U.S.-led international coalition to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has achieved substantial progress over the past several years, but the counter-ISIS campaign is not over. The authors assessed humanitarian needs in Eastern Syria's Middle Euphrates River Valley (MERV). They also examined how locally focused stabilization efforts might be orchestrated to help preclude the Islamic State's recapture of territory, even as Syria's larger civil conflict continues unabated and is growing more complex. This report opens with a sociocultural perspective on the MERV's human terrain, explicating long-standing divisions within and among the Valley's Sunni Arab tribes that may pose challenges to restoring broadly accepted local governance. The authors then assess the region's most urgent post-ISIS needs, focusing intensively on the status of its critical infrastructure—e.g., bridges, hospitals, transit facilities—as well as its natural resources, human displacement, and economic activity. In the political sphere, the authors examined how stabilization efforts might be pursued in a region where both the Syrian government and nonstate actors are filling a vacuum left by a common enemy's loss of territorial control. The authors then analyzed the pluses and minuses of attempting to overcome these challenges via either a separated division of labor approach to stabilization (i.e., a "steer clear" approach) or a more collaborative "interactive" approach. The authors recommend that both sides should start with a minimalist steer clear option but incrementally move toward a more interactive approach, as conditions permit.

IS (Organization) --- Postwar reconstruction --- Social aspects --- Syria --- History --- Participation, Foreign. --- Social aspects.

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Emergency managers in the United States face a challenging operating environment characterized by more-frequent and -intense storms, extended or year-round wildfire seasons, multiple simultaneous disasters, and an ongoing global pandemic. The sheer magnitude and growing frequency of weather and climate disasters are straining the capacities, capabilities, and systems that enable the United States to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. To support the U.S. emergency management system, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other entities have created constructs - programs, grants, assessments, doctrine, and coordination bodies - at different times and in response to various events and needs. The overall number of constructs has grown, and the poor integration among them can worsen emergency management services and disaster outcomes. Researchers reviewed 31 FEMA-selected constructs for opportunities to streamline, simplify, and strengthen the system, assessing how overlap, duplication, and fragmentation could affect implementation and outcomes. In this report, the researchers describe options for addressing the issues and impacts identified. Some options are designed to address specific impacts or individual constructs, while others propose broader solutions that would transform the emergency management system. Truly transformative changes generally require a broad consensus and engagement by multiple actors and would therefore likely be more difficult than smaller-scale changes to achieve. However, adoption of such options also offers the greatest opportunity for significant streamlining. The authors also discuss trade-offs in costs and unintended consequences.

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The aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria highlighted vulnerabilities in Puerto Rico's water sector. Hurricane damage spanned Puerto Rico's water infrastructure, including drinking water, wastewater, stormwater and flood control, as well as its water resources. This damage was attributed to multiple causes: the preexisting vulnerability of the water sector infrastructure; direct damage from Hurricanes Irma and Maria; and indirect disruption stemming from damage in other sectors, particularly the loss of electrical power. The recovery plan for the water sector in Puerto Rico involves not only repairing hurricane-damaged water infrastructure and systems but also fixing the significant legacy challenges in the water sector's infrastructure, operations, and governance. This report details a framework for a hurricane recovery made up of 30 courses of action consistent with the government of Puerto Rico's priorities. These courses of action address key opportunities for enhancing resilience in Puerto Rico's water sector, which include upgrading the physical infrastructure, as well as asset management and operational systems, with the objective of developing systems that are better hardened against extreme events but also more flexible and efficient. In addition, building capacity of water sector management organizations and personnel can enhance efficiency, contingency planning, and the ability to take advantage of new technologies and practices. Improving situational awareness of water sector assets and developing performance metrics that can be tracked in real time can provide early warning of problems and accelerate emergency responses.

Water-supply --- Water resources development --- Hurricane damage --- Hurricane Irma, 2017. --- Hurricane Maria, 2017. --- Puerto Rico.