Drought Assessment in a Changing Climate: Priority Actions & Research Needs

In a changing climate, the intensity, duration, and frequency of droughts may change. This poses new challenges for drought assessment. Current methods for assessing drought conditions do not consistently and deliberately consider drought in the context of climate change, thereby unintentionally promoting drought response strategies that are limited in building long-term resilience in a changing climate. 

In response, NOAA's National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and the USDA Climate Hubs released this NOAA Technical Memorandum, which highlights priority actions and research questions across fifteen research focus areas to advance the knowledge and understanding of drought assessment into the future. Additional support for the workshop and report was provided by the University of Colorado Boulder 's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES).

This report, Drought Assessment in a Changing Climate: Priority Actions and Research Needs, was developed as part of a technical workshop that NIDIS and the USDA Climate Hubs co-hosted on February 28–March 1, 2023. Additional support for the workshop and report was provided by the University of Colorado Boulder 's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). The report captures the ideas and feedback of more than 100 subject matter experts from over 44 institutions across the drought research and practitioner communities. It offers a rich collection of ideas for action and further research that federal, tribal, state, local agencies and academic institutions can support. 

View and download sections of the report below:

• Executive Summary
• State of the Science
• 15 Focus Areas for Future Investment:
  • Learning with Indigenous Communities
  • Benchmarking Our Understanding and Assessment of Drought in a Changing Climate
  • Ensuring Equity in Drought Monitoring and Assessment
  • Evaluating Data Relevance, Fidelity, Integration, Metadata, and New Technologies
  • Determining the Physical Drivers of Drought and How They Are Changing
  • Understanding Drivers of Aridification and Their Interactions with Drought
  • Addressing Regional Differences in Non-stationarity
  • Improving Drought Indicator Performance
  • Using Precipitation Effectiveness More Broadly to Capture Rainfall Variability
  • Quantifying Water Demand in a Changing Climate
  • Evaluating Drought Impacts and How They Are Changing
  • Assessing Drought in Terms of Risk
  • Assessing Policy through the Lens of Non-stationarity
  • Strengthening Planning, Management, and Adaptation
  • Improving Communication and Collaborative Knowledge Exchange