University of Oklahoma researchers will use a $3.8 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to study climate risks in the southern United States.

Through NOAA’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program, OU scientists will team with researchers from Louisiana State University to develop tools and resources for use by local and regional community managers in their long-range planning, OU officials said.

The study will fall under the Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program, which is designed to increase knowledge and application of drought risk assessment, forecasting, and management within the context of numerous other climate-related hazards.

Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee will be the focus of the research.

Geographic Information System-based tools will allow planners to examine historical events in their communities, assess changes in hazards profiles over time and view anticipated changes in those hazards consistent with climate change projections.

“This award will allow OU meteorologists to work with and support a multistate audience with the very latest in drought monitoring, planning, mitigation services, continuing a nearly 50-year tradition of public service and support to communities,” said John T. Snow, the dean of the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences.

The Oklahoma Climatological Survey and Louisiana State’s Department of Geography and Anthropology are the lead research groups responsible for establishing the project in the U.S.

For more information on the Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments Program: http://www.climate.noaa.gov/cpo—pa/risa/; the Oklahoma Climatological Survey: http://climate.ok.gov/ or NOAA Southern Regional Climate Center: http://www.srcc.lsu.edu/