The Northern Great Plains Regional Incubator for Drought Resiliency
The Northern Great Plains—including Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska—face increasing threats from disasters like droughts, wildfires, and floods. These events harm agriculture, recreation, and other critical economic sectors that are vital to the region’s economy and communities.
This project, the Northern Great Plains Regional Incubator for Drought Resiliency, will bring together a team to improve the region’s ability to respond to these hazardous events using advanced tools such as satellite data, ground sensors, and artificial intelligence. These tools will enable more refined models to monitor and forecast water availability and drought conditions across the region. The Northern Great Plains Regional Incubator for Drought Resiliency will bring together government agencies, tribal nations, farmers, researchers, and businesses to create a collaborative system to assess and manage drought risk.
Additionally, this work will focus on growing partnerships with tribal colleges and rural agricultural communities to expand education and workforce development, ensuring these communities are included in drought planning, assessment, and response. The project will improve disaster aid delivery, support sustainable agriculture, and provide new business opportunities by sharing its innovations with other regions. The Northern Great Plains Regional Incubator for Drought Resiliency seeks to protect the livelihoods, heritage, and environment of the Northern Great Plains while becoming a national model for drought resilience.
For more information, please contact Britt Parker (britt.parker@noaa.gov).
Research Snapshot
Kelsey Jensco, Montana Climate Office, University of Montana
Kyle Bocinsky, Zachary Hoylman, Montana Climate Office, University of Montana
What to expect from this research
- Convene a team of scientists, managers, businesses, and communities to co-design high-impact solutions that will catalyze drought resiliency in the Northern Great Plains.
- Transfer innovative, scalable, and practical solutions in drought assessment and early warning that leverage modern climate monitoring infrastructure, data validation frameworks, and machine learning-based hydrological modeling.
- Improve water resources assessment and resiliency by standing up critical monitoring and modeling infrastructure and extension partnerships in rural agricultural communities and Tribal Nations nations across the Northern Great Plains.
- Implement modern, objective, non-stationary systems for drought and hazard detection for more accurate disaster relief policy to mitigate risks associated with changing hazardous weather and agro-economic landscapes.
- Create a durable economic development ecosystem that will feed back into and help sustain long- term innovation resulting from this project.
