From principles to action: Applying the National Research Council's principles for effective decision support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's watch office

•We developed a flood risk decision support tool for emergency managers.•We structured our project around the NRC principles for decision support.•Adherence to the NRC principles required specific collaborative research approaches.•We developed a tool and novel scientific analyses tailored to our stakeholders' needs.•Using a deliberate collaboration plan helped us improve our climate services.

The National Research Council (NRC) proposed six principles for effective decision support in its 2009 report Informing Decisions in a Changing Climate. We structured a collaborative project between the Federal Emergency Management Agency Region R9 (FEMA R9), the Western Region Headquarters of the National Weather Service (WR-NWS), and the Climate Assessment of the Southwest (CLIMAS) at the University of Arizona around the application of the NRC principles. The goal of the project was to provide FEMA R9's Watch Office with climate information scaled to their temporal and spatial interests to aid them in assessing the potential risk of flood disasters. We found that we needed specific strategies and activities in order to apply the principles effectively. By using a set of established collaborative research approaches we were better able to assess FEMA R9's information needs and WR-NWS's capacity to meet those needs. Despite our diligent planning of engagement strategies, we still encountered some barriers to transitioning our decision support tool from research to operations. This paper describes our methods for planning and executing a three-party collaborative effort to provide climate services, the decision support tool developed through this process, and the lessons we will take from this deliberate collaborative process to our future work and implications of the NRC principles for the broader field of climate services.