I respectfully submit for your consideration these comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Study for the City of Spokane Comprehensive Plan Periodic Update 2026 - 2046, prepared December 2025. Please contact me if there are any questions concerning these comments. Thank you. John Lowe
Comments on the City of Spokane Comprehensive Plan Periodic Update 2026 - 2046 Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS), December 2025
Prepared February 18, 2026
John Lowe
GENERAL COMMENTS
General Comment #1: overall, the document is well-done and informative. The maps are very useful; the basemap and associated layers should be made available online for use with geospatial platforms such as ArcGIS online and Google Earth. It should be possible to zoom in and out, for performing more detailed, neighborhood-level studies and planning. The ability to display multiple data layers should be provided. One example is as follows: the impervious surface layers (Exhibit 3.1-3), hydrologic soil groups layers (Exhibit 3.1-4) and groundwater resources layers (Exhibit 3.1-12) can be used together to identify locations and opportunities to improve recharge through removal or modification of impervious surfaces.
General Comment #2: considering the specific comments provided below, added mitigation measures are suggested, with one goal being to develop added information for consideration during the next five-year update of the Comprehensive Plan. A formal acknowledgement by the City in the EIS report of these proposed mitigation measures may be helpful in securing support and funding for their implementation from other institutions in the Spokane community. A preliminary framework for these proposed mitigations is presented below:
• Further studies:
o Regional-scale assessment of groundwater conditions including consideration of cumulative effects of withdrawals by multiple users (for example, Spokane County or irrigation districts).
o Local-scale studies of the potential effects of climate migration on population projections; additional needs created by increased population (housing, employment, water, emergency services)
o Studies of the improvement to groundwater recharge from reducing the footprint of impervious surfaces (provisional title: “urban groundwater recharge initiative”)
• Citizen science initiatives:
[PDF page 3 of 7]
o Workshops for scoping of activities and providing training
o Environmental monitoring:
▪ Soil moisture
▪ Carbon emissions: using radiocarbon monitoring of urban turfgrass, developed by University of California, Irvine: https://news.uci.edu/2025/11/03/uc-irvine-scientists-devise-method-for-cities-to-measure-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
▪ River monitoring (water temperature, for example)
• Promoting community resilience – translating EIS mitigations and the Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (CRVA) report into actions.
• Outreach:
o Speakers bureau for outreach to institutions such as the colleges (Gonzaga, EWU, WSU) and news media.
o Fund-raising workshop to garner support for implementing this framework.
• Governmental efforts:
o Sponsorship of voluntary activities, including support in locating funding.
o Identification of other regulatory programs:
▪ Conversion of turfgrass to xeriscaping (using the model of the City of Las Vegas’s ordinance).
▪ A proposed rule to reduce excessive residential water use.
▪ A proposed rule to require groundwater management plans for new development (using the model of the State of Arizona).
SPECIFIC COMMENTS
Specific Comment #1: Page 1-18, Section 1.4.1 Earth, Water Quality and Water Resources: With mitigation, what is the ultimate outcome? The conclusion from the analysis is that following mitigation through the use of project-specific best management practices, there are no significant unavoidable adverse impacts to water resources. As discussed below, there are scenarios regarding population growth and water availability driven by climate change which have not been fully analyzed. Rather than create delay to substantially update the analysis in the Environmental Impact Study (EIS), mitigations have been suggested in the general comments to promote further study, education and monitoring for updating and improving decision-making in the Comprehensive Plan.
Specific Comment #2: Page 2-17, Section 2.2.3 Growth Targets and Alternatives, Population, Household Sizes, and Housing Types, Population Targets.
[PDF page 4 of 7]
For the purposes of the EIS, the population growth in Spokane between 2022 and 2046 is assumed to be an estimated range from 25,157 to 50,650 added individuals, derived using a variety of methods including data from the Washington State Office of Financial Management. These values appear to be lower than the Growth Management Act (GMA) projections in 2022 (OFM, 2026). A visual inspection of the projections graph for Spokane County (https://ofm.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/default/files/public/dataresearch/pop/GMA/projections2022/gma_2022_high_low_charts.pdf) suggests that the medium (i.e. mid-range) estimate over the next 20 years in Spokane County is something under 100,000 added individuals, compared with the estimate for the City of Spokane of around 25,000. OFM’s data would suggest more of the population growth in Spokane County will occur outside the City of Spokane, which might understate the impacts associated with future population growth.
Suggested changes to the EIS report: Some explanation of the methods used for the population growth projections in the City of Spokane should be added to this section to clarify the population growth projections used in the EIS.
Specific Comment #3: Page 2-17, Section 2.2.3 Growth Targets and Alternatives, Population, Household Sizes, and Housing Types, Population Targets.
The population projections take into consideration historical variation in population and parameters to determine the slope of the trajectory in population growth (see for example, OFM, 2025). This appears to assume that future population growth will reflect past trends. There is a growing sense among researchers studying climate change that Earth’s climate is now departing from the stable conditions that supported human civilization for millennia, with outcomes that are difficult to predict (Ripple et al., 2026). A geospatial simulation of the implications of climate change on global migration finds that climate change boosts migration from lower to higher-latitude areas. Median (typical) projections suggest that climate change will induce globally a voluntary and forced permanent relocation of 62 million working-age individuals over the course of the 21st century, most of this internal to national borders (Burzynski, et al., 2022). In a study based on scenarios and data developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate migration driven by sea level rise throughout the 21st century is projected to amplify demographic change in both origin and destination locations. The authors recommend that policies addressing sustainable growth management (affordable housing, services to the aging, public health and infrastructure planning) should anticipate these population changes (Hauer, et al, 2024). Humans and the production of crops and livestock historically have been concentrated geographically in a zone described by a mean annual temperature in air ranging from 11 to 15 degrees C (52 to 59 degrees F), referred to as the human climate niche. The human climate niche will migrate as climate change intensifies; conditions
[PDF page 5 of 7]
would deteriorate in some regions and improve in others. A study based on IPCC scenarios and data calculated how the future population would redistribute under different climate scenarios. Under the worst-case "business as usual" emissions scenario, the changes in the human climate niche might result throughout the 21st century in the migration of billions of individuals, representing roughly 30% of the projected global population (Xu et al., 2020). The online periodical ProPublica reported on a study by the Rhodium Group showing that higher temperatures will drive agriculture and migration northward (Shaw et al., 2020). According to climate maps in ProPublica's report, Spokane County is projected to be a destination for climate migrants. Other researchers dispute the validity of the human climate niche, stating that it fails to capture the main sources of climate vulnerability and unrealistically overstates the impacts on human population distribution (Selby et al., 2024). While these findings reinforce the uncertainties in 21st century land use planning introduced by climate change, they do not provide information useful for impact assessments specific to Spokane. However, it is possible to say that population growth projections in the EIS based on historical experience may not account for these climate futures, a problem that could affect the reliability of entire impact analysis presented in the DEIS report.
Suggested changes to the EIS report: the discussion in this section should include stronger statements that population projections are based on historical experience and might be underestimated depending on the future course of climate change. Further study is needed to resolve this uncertainty, and, while no revision is proposed for the impact analysis in the current report, mitigation measures are proposed in comments above to develop those further studies and to monitor the impacts of climate migration on land use planning in Spokane.
Specific Comment #4: Page 3-20, Section 3.1.1 Affected Environment, Groundwater Resources. Page 3-20 Section 3.1 Earth, Water Quality and Water Resources, Groundwater Resources.
As described in the DEIS report, the study area contains a portion of the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Sole Source Aquifer, located mainly in Northwest Spokane and Northeast Spokane. Projection boundaries include the 5- and 10-year time-of-travel boundaries, selected for purposes of assessing wellhead protection. Selection of the study area based on the 5- and 10-year travel times seems too limiting for purposes of assessing water quantity and availability. The aquifer boundaries are much larger as described in the aquifer atlas (Spokane County, 2023) and supports multiple users. Assessing the impacts of future growth on water quantity and availability would seem to require a broader geographical assessment of groundwater. How other users outside of the
[PDF page 6 of 7]
City of Spokane affect water quantity and availability should be considered in analyzing the impacts to groundwater. Studies sponsored by the City of Spokane (for example, GSI, 2024; City of Spokane, 2025) note that water levels in the aquifer could drop below their observed historical levels should the region experience multi-year droughts. The Western United States experienced record-setting drought in the early 2020s, alongside the southwestern megadrought dating back to 2000. According to the National Integrated Drought Information System, this has left Western U.S. water supplies in a perilous position (NOAA/NIDIS, 2026). In August 2025, it was reported that the Spokane River ran dry between Barker and Sullivan Roads. It was speculated this might have been the lowest water level in the river reported historically. The river is hydrologically connected to the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum aquifer. Groundwater withdrawals from the aquifer along with other factors might have been responsible for the river running dry (Callaghan, 2025).
Suggested changes to the EIS report: sections discussing groundwater or water availability should include an expanded discussion of drought conditions in Spokane (drought is scarcely mentioned in the DEIS report). More text should be lifted up from the CRVA report and incorporated into sections of the DEIS report discussing groundwater and water supply. Further study is needed to better understand the longer-term impacts of climate change on the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie aquifer, something acknowledged by the City. No revision is proposed for the impact analysis in the current report, however, mitigation measures are proposed in the general comments as discussed above to develop those further studies and to monitor the impacts of climate migration on water availability in Spokane. These further studies should take a broader view of the aquifer (both geographically and in terms of users) including consideration of the cumulative effects of multiple water users on long-term water availability in Spokane.
REFERENCES
Burzynski, M. C. Deuster, F. Docquier and J. de Melo. 2022. Climate change, inequality and human migration. Journal of the European Economic Association. 20(3): 114-1197. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvab054
Callaghan, M. 2025. Spokane River reaches potential water record lows after ‘perfect storm’ of conditions. The Spokesman-Review, August 25. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/aug/25/spokane-river-reaches-potential-water-record-lows-/
City of Spokane. 2025. Spokane Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment. June. https://static.spokanecity.org/documents/planspokane/climate-planning/spokane-city-crva-final-no-appendix-6-19-25-sh.pdf. Accessed February 2026.
[PDF page 7 of 7]
GSI Water Solutions, Inc. et al. 2024. Groundwater Modeling Study of Potential Changes to Water Levels in City of Spokane Well Stations Arising from Increased Water Demands and Climate Change Influences on the Regional Aquifer System. https://static.spokanecity.org/documents/projects/capitalprograms/groundwater-modeling-study-2024.pdf. Retrieved February 2026.
Hauer, M.E., S.A. Jacobs and S.A. Kulp. 2024. Climate migration amplifies demographic change and population aging. Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. 121(3):e2206192119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2206192119.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Integrated Drought Information System (NOAA/NIDIS). 2025. The Western Drought Issue. https://www.drought.gov/news/western-drought-issue-2025-09-03. Accessed February 2026.
Ripple, W.J., C. Wolf, J. Rockstrom, J.W. Gregg, T. Westerhold, H.J. Schelinhuber, et al. 2026. The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory. One Earth, 101565. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101565
Selby, J., M. Hulme and W. Cramer. 2024. There is no human climate niche. One Earth. 7(7):1155-1157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2024.06.009
Shaw, A., A. Lustgarten and J.W. Goldsmith. 2020. New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States. ProPublica, September 15. https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/
Spokane County. 2023. The Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer Atlas. https://www.spokanecounty.gov/DocumentCenter/View/51201/2023-SVRP-AQUIFER- ATLAS_SMALLEST-FILE-SIZE. Accessed February 2026.
Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM). 2025. Probabilistic Population Projection Model: In-Development. December. https://ofm.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ofm_gma_probabilistic_model_presentation.pdf. Accessed February 2026.
Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM). 2026. Growth Management Act Population Projections for Counties: 2020 to 2050: 2022 projections. https://ofm.wa.gov/data-research/population-demographics/forecasts-projections/growth-managment-act/2022-projections/. Accessed February 2026.
Xu, C., T.A. Kohler, T.M. Lenton and M. Scheffer. 2020. Future of the human climate niche. Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. 117(21):11350-11355. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910114117.
[Personal contact details omitted from the reading text.]
John Lowe
Feb 18, 2026
Local Resident
[PDF page 1 of 7]
I respectfully submit for your consideration these comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Study for the City of Spokane Comprehensive Plan Periodic Update 2026 - 2046, prepared December 2025. Please contact me if there are any questions concerning these comments. Thank you. John Lowe
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ATTACHMENT / ADDITIONAL PAGES
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[PDF page 2 of 7]
Comments on the City of Spokane Comprehensive Plan Periodic Update 2026 - 2046 Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS), December 2025
Prepared February 18, 2026
John Lowe
GENERAL COMMENTS
General Comment #1: overall, the document is well-done and informative. The maps are very useful; the basemap and associated layers should be made available online for use with geospatial platforms such as ArcGIS online and Google Earth. It should be possible to zoom in and out, for performing more detailed, neighborhood-level studies and planning. The ability to display multiple data layers should be provided. One example is as follows: the impervious surface layers (Exhibit 3.1-3), hydrologic soil groups layers (Exhibit 3.1-4) and groundwater resources layers (Exhibit 3.1-12) can be used together to identify locations and opportunities to improve recharge through removal or modification of impervious surfaces.
General Comment #2: considering the specific comments provided below, added mitigation measures are suggested, with one goal being to develop added information for consideration during the next five-year update of the Comprehensive Plan. A formal acknowledgement by the City in the EIS report of these proposed mitigation measures may be helpful in securing support and funding for their implementation from other institutions in the Spokane community. A preliminary framework for these proposed mitigations is presented below:
• Further studies:
o Regional-scale assessment of groundwater conditions including consideration of cumulative effects of withdrawals by multiple users (for example, Spokane County or irrigation districts).
o Local-scale studies of the potential effects of climate migration on population projections; additional needs created by increased population (housing, employment, water, emergency services)
o Studies of the improvement to groundwater recharge from reducing the footprint of impervious surfaces (provisional title: “urban groundwater recharge initiative”)
• Citizen science initiatives:
[PDF page 3 of 7]
o Workshops for scoping of activities and providing training
o Environmental monitoring:
▪ Soil moisture
▪ Carbon emissions: using radiocarbon monitoring of urban turfgrass, developed by University of California, Irvine: https://news.uci.edu/2025/11/03/uc-irvine-scientists-devise-method-for-cities-to-measure-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
▪ River monitoring (water temperature, for example)
• Promoting community resilience – translating EIS mitigations and the Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (CRVA) report into actions.
• Outreach:
o Speakers bureau for outreach to institutions such as the colleges (Gonzaga, EWU, WSU) and news media.
o Fund-raising workshop to garner support for implementing this framework.
• Governmental efforts:
o Sponsorship of voluntary activities, including support in locating funding.
o Identification of other regulatory programs:
▪ Conversion of turfgrass to xeriscaping (using the model of the City of Las Vegas’s ordinance).
▪ A proposed rule to reduce excessive residential water use.
▪ A proposed rule to require groundwater management plans for new development (using the model of the State of Arizona).
SPECIFIC COMMENTS
Specific Comment #1: Page 1-18, Section 1.4.1 Earth, Water Quality and Water Resources: With mitigation, what is the ultimate outcome? The conclusion from the analysis is that following mitigation through the use of project-specific best management practices, there are no significant unavoidable adverse impacts to water resources. As discussed below, there are scenarios regarding population growth and water availability driven by climate change which have not been fully analyzed. Rather than create delay to substantially update the analysis in the Environmental Impact Study (EIS), mitigations have been suggested in the general comments to promote further study, education and monitoring for updating and improving decision-making in the Comprehensive Plan.
Specific Comment #2: Page 2-17, Section 2.2.3 Growth Targets and Alternatives, Population, Household Sizes, and Housing Types, Population Targets.
[PDF page 4 of 7]
For the purposes of the EIS, the population growth in Spokane between 2022 and 2046 is assumed to be an estimated range from 25,157 to 50,650 added individuals, derived using a variety of methods including data from the Washington State Office of Financial Management. These values appear to be lower than the Growth Management Act (GMA) projections in 2022 (OFM, 2026). A visual inspection of the projections graph for Spokane County (https://ofm.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/default/files/public/dataresearch/pop/GMA/projections2022/gma_2022_high_low_charts.pdf) suggests that the medium (i.e. mid-range) estimate over the next 20 years in Spokane County is something under 100,000 added individuals, compared with the estimate for the City of Spokane of around 25,000. OFM’s data would suggest more of the population growth in Spokane County will occur outside the City of Spokane, which might understate the impacts associated with future population growth.
Suggested changes to the EIS report: Some explanation of the methods used for the population growth projections in the City of Spokane should be added to this section to clarify the population growth projections used in the EIS.
Specific Comment #3: Page 2-17, Section 2.2.3 Growth Targets and Alternatives, Population, Household Sizes, and Housing Types, Population Targets.
The population projections take into consideration historical variation in population and parameters to determine the slope of the trajectory in population growth (see for example, OFM, 2025). This appears to assume that future population growth will reflect past trends. There is a growing sense among researchers studying climate change that Earth’s climate is now departing from the stable conditions that supported human civilization for millennia, with outcomes that are difficult to predict (Ripple et al., 2026). A geospatial simulation of the implications of climate change on global migration finds that climate change boosts migration from lower to higher-latitude areas. Median (typical) projections suggest that climate change will induce globally a voluntary and forced permanent relocation of 62 million working-age individuals over the course of the 21st century, most of this internal to national borders (Burzynski, et al., 2022). In a study based on scenarios and data developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate migration driven by sea level rise throughout the 21st century is projected to amplify demographic change in both origin and destination locations. The authors recommend that policies addressing sustainable growth management (affordable housing, services to the aging, public health and infrastructure planning) should anticipate these population changes (Hauer, et al, 2024). Humans and the production of crops and livestock historically have been concentrated geographically in a zone described by a mean annual temperature in air ranging from 11 to 15 degrees C (52 to 59 degrees F), referred to as the human climate niche. The human climate niche will migrate as climate change intensifies; conditions
[PDF page 5 of 7]
would deteriorate in some regions and improve in others. A study based on IPCC scenarios and data calculated how the future population would redistribute under different climate scenarios. Under the worst-case "business as usual" emissions scenario, the changes in the human climate niche might result throughout the 21st century in the migration of billions of individuals, representing roughly 30% of the projected global population (Xu et al., 2020). The online periodical ProPublica reported on a study by the Rhodium Group showing that higher temperatures will drive agriculture and migration northward (Shaw et al., 2020). According to climate maps in ProPublica's report, Spokane County is projected to be a destination for climate migrants. Other researchers dispute the validity of the human climate niche, stating that it fails to capture the main sources of climate vulnerability and unrealistically overstates the impacts on human population distribution (Selby et al., 2024). While these findings reinforce the uncertainties in 21st century land use planning introduced by climate change, they do not provide information useful for impact assessments specific to Spokane. However, it is possible to say that population growth projections in the EIS based on historical experience may not account for these climate futures, a problem that could affect the reliability of entire impact analysis presented in the DEIS report.
Suggested changes to the EIS report: the discussion in this section should include stronger statements that population projections are based on historical experience and might be underestimated depending on the future course of climate change. Further study is needed to resolve this uncertainty, and, while no revision is proposed for the impact analysis in the current report, mitigation measures are proposed in comments above to develop those further studies and to monitor the impacts of climate migration on land use planning in Spokane.
Specific Comment #4: Page 3-20, Section 3.1.1 Affected Environment, Groundwater Resources. Page 3-20 Section 3.1 Earth, Water Quality and Water Resources, Groundwater Resources.
As described in the DEIS report, the study area contains a portion of the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Sole Source Aquifer, located mainly in Northwest Spokane and Northeast Spokane. Projection boundaries include the 5- and 10-year time-of-travel boundaries, selected for purposes of assessing wellhead protection. Selection of the study area based on the 5- and 10-year travel times seems too limiting for purposes of assessing water quantity and availability. The aquifer boundaries are much larger as described in the aquifer atlas (Spokane County, 2023) and supports multiple users. Assessing the impacts of future growth on water quantity and availability would seem to require a broader geographical assessment of groundwater. How other users outside of the
[PDF page 6 of 7]
City of Spokane affect water quantity and availability should be considered in analyzing the impacts to groundwater. Studies sponsored by the City of Spokane (for example, GSI, 2024; City of Spokane, 2025) note that water levels in the aquifer could drop below their observed historical levels should the region experience multi-year droughts. The Western United States experienced record-setting drought in the early 2020s, alongside the southwestern megadrought dating back to 2000. According to the National Integrated Drought Information System, this has left Western U.S. water supplies in a perilous position (NOAA/NIDIS, 2026). In August 2025, it was reported that the Spokane River ran dry between Barker and Sullivan Roads. It was speculated this might have been the lowest water level in the river reported historically. The river is hydrologically connected to the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum aquifer. Groundwater withdrawals from the aquifer along with other factors might have been responsible for the river running dry (Callaghan, 2025).
Suggested changes to the EIS report: sections discussing groundwater or water availability should include an expanded discussion of drought conditions in Spokane (drought is scarcely mentioned in the DEIS report). More text should be lifted up from the CRVA report and incorporated into sections of the DEIS report discussing groundwater and water supply. Further study is needed to better understand the longer-term impacts of climate change on the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie aquifer, something acknowledged by the City. No revision is proposed for the impact analysis in the current report, however, mitigation measures are proposed in the general comments as discussed above to develop those further studies and to monitor the impacts of climate migration on water availability in Spokane. These further studies should take a broader view of the aquifer (both geographically and in terms of users) including consideration of the cumulative effects of multiple water users on long-term water availability in Spokane.
REFERENCES
Burzynski, M. C. Deuster, F. Docquier and J. de Melo. 2022. Climate change, inequality and human migration. Journal of the European Economic Association. 20(3): 114-1197. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvab054
Callaghan, M. 2025. Spokane River reaches potential water record lows after ‘perfect storm’ of conditions. The Spokesman-Review, August 25. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/aug/25/spokane-river-reaches-potential-water-record-lows-/
City of Spokane. 2025. Spokane Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment. June. https://static.spokanecity.org/documents/planspokane/climate-planning/spokane-city-crva-final-no-appendix-6-19-25-sh.pdf. Accessed February 2026.
[PDF page 7 of 7]
GSI Water Solutions, Inc. et al. 2024. Groundwater Modeling Study of Potential Changes to Water Levels in City of Spokane Well Stations Arising from Increased Water Demands and Climate Change Influences on the Regional Aquifer System. https://static.spokanecity.org/documents/projects/capitalprograms/groundwater-modeling-study-2024.pdf. Retrieved February 2026.
Hauer, M.E., S.A. Jacobs and S.A. Kulp. 2024. Climate migration amplifies demographic change and population aging. Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. 121(3):e2206192119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2206192119.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Integrated Drought Information System (NOAA/NIDIS). 2025. The Western Drought Issue. https://www.drought.gov/news/western-drought-issue-2025-09-03. Accessed February 2026.
Ripple, W.J., C. Wolf, J. Rockstrom, J.W. Gregg, T. Westerhold, H.J. Schelinhuber, et al. 2026. The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory. One Earth, 101565. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101565
Selby, J., M. Hulme and W. Cramer. 2024. There is no human climate niche. One Earth. 7(7):1155-1157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2024.06.009
Shaw, A., A. Lustgarten and J.W. Goldsmith. 2020. New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States. ProPublica, September 15. https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/
Spokane County. 2023. The Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer Atlas. https://www.spokanecounty.gov/DocumentCenter/View/51201/2023-SVRP-AQUIFER- ATLAS_SMALLEST-FILE-SIZE. Accessed February 2026.
Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM). 2025. Probabilistic Population Projection Model: In-Development. December. https://ofm.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ofm_gma_probabilistic_model_presentation.pdf. Accessed February 2026.
Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM). 2026. Growth Management Act Population Projections for Counties: 2020 to 2050: 2022 projections. https://ofm.wa.gov/data-research/population-demographics/forecasts-projections/growth-managment-act/2022-projections/. Accessed February 2026.
Xu, C., T.A. Kohler, T.M. Lenton and M. Scheffer. 2020. Future of the human climate niche. Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. 117(21):11350-11355. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910114117.
[Personal contact details omitted from the reading text.]