7. Developing a Self-sustained Continuing Capacity for Monitoring, Evaluation, and Informing Decisions

For the communities of experts on climate change and infrastructures and urban systems, along with decision-makers and other stakeholders whose support is important to keep the assessment process self-sustaining, the challenge is to combine attention to both science issues (the what) and institutional issues (the how). Roles will need to be played by a variety of kinds of institutions beyond the federal government alone – foundations, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and universities – all of which have unique things to offer but limitations in performing some aspects of the continuing process. Universities may be especially important as institutions with long-term commitments to learning and communicating that learning, increasingly looking toward issue-oriented cross-disciplinary programs in response to both student and stakeholder interest. But a key will probably be implementation of the US Global Change Research Program’s Strategic Plan, with its support for decision support science and supporting assessments. In addition, the nation’s engineering societies – such as the American Society of Civil Engineers – will be an invaluable resource for knowledge development and application in assessing and responding to challenges for adaptive built infrastructures.