The Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment (IN CCIA) is a collaborative effort to provide professionals, decision makers, and the public with information about how climate change affects state and local interests throughout Indiana, USA. This assessment effort has three interrelated goals: (1) analyze and document the best available climate change impacts research, (2) develop and maintain a network of stakeholders and experts, and (3) start a dialog about climate change throughout Indiana. The project adopted a process that prioritized stakeholder engagement, re-envisioned traditional dissemination approaches, and that had limited state government involvement, setting the IN CCIA apart from most other state climate assessments (SCAs) in the USA. This overview describes the motivations, principles, and processes that guided the IN CCIA development, explores how Indiana’s approach compares with those of other SCAs, and briefly summarizes the papers presented in this special issue. As interest in SCAs grows in non-coastal and politically conservative locations, the IN CCIA serves as one example of how a bottom-up assessment with limited funding can deliver credible climate science to diverse stakeholder groups in the absence of state-level mandates or direction and attract public attention over an extended period of time.

中文翻译：

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印第安纳州气候变化影响评估简介：过程和背景概述

印第安纳州气候变化影响评估 (IN CCIA) 是一项合作努力，旨在为专业人士、决策者和公众提供有关气候变化如何影响美国印第安纳州州和地方利益的信息。该评估工作具有三个相互关联的目标：(1) 分析和记录最佳可用的气候变化影响研究，(2) 发展和维护利益相关者和专家网络，以及 (3) 在整个印第安纳州开展关于气候变化的对话。该项目采用了一个优先考虑利益相关者参与的过程，重新设想了传统的传播方法，并且限制了州政府的参与，使 IN CCIA 与美国大多数其他州气候评估 (SCA) 区分开来。本概述描述了动机、原则、和指导 IN CCIA 发展的过程，探讨了印第安纳州的方法与其他 SCA 的方法的比较，并简要总结了本特刊中介绍的论文。随着非沿海地区和政治上保守的地区对 SCA 的兴趣日益增长，IN CCIA 作为一个例子，说明了在缺乏州级授权或指导的情况下，资金有限的自下而上的评估如何向不同的利益相关者群体提供可靠的气候科学并在很长一段时间内引起公众的注意。