HUMAN ADAPTABILITY TO ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE: DEVELOPMENT OF AN ASSESSMENT PROTOCOL Lisa M.B. Harrington Max Lu John A. Harrington, Jr. Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas 66506-2904 1. INTRODUCTION In 2000, an initial five-year multi-university research program known as the Human- Environment Regional Observatory project (HERO) began. The purpose of the project is to develop long-term research sites to study interactions between people and the environment, with particular attention to the effects of environmental change. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are providing funding for the social science-based HERO project, which is using the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) system as a model to investigate human dimensions of global change. Research teams and study areas have been established at the University of Arizona (focusing on southern Arizona and northern Mexico borderlands), Clark University (central Massachusetts), Kansas State University (southwestern Kansas, in the High Plains-Ogallala region), and Pennsylvania State University (the central Susquehanna valley). An overarching ‘proof-of-concept’ question to guide research was developed: “How does evolving/changing land use affect the vulnerabilities of peoples and places in the face of climate variation and change?” One of the major objectives of the HERO project is to develop research protocols and data standards for study of human-environment interactions at both individual study areas and across regions. The research teams have been addressing questions that can be applied to potential effects of climate change and weather extremes, the abilities of human socio-economic systems to react to potential stresses, and adaptive actions that may be taken to reduce negative economic and environmental consequences of environmental change. In order to create compatible research approaches among disparate study sites, each research team is focusing on development of research protocols for specific concepts related to project goals. Based on its research experience and regional history, the Kansas State University High Plains-Ogallala Human- Environment Research Observatory (HPO HERO) team has concentrated on assessing the adaptability of human systems to environmental change, with a focus on agriculture and the High Plains. The focal area for HPO HERO is the 19 southwesternmost counties of Kansas, in the heart of the former Dust Bowl (Figure 1). The study area encompasses about 41,120 km 2 , with 156,000 people and over 2.25 million cattle. The three principal settlements are Garden City (2000 population 28,451), Dodge City (25,176), and Liberal (19,666). Variable climate conditions and severe weather recur with frequency.