Developing an Objective, Impacts-Based Framework for Drought Mitigation Activities in Ohio

This NIDIS-funded project, which is being led by the State Climate Office of Ohio in partnership with the Ohio Emergency Management Agency (EMA), will develop a system to track and assess drought intensity in Ohio and produce real-time drought monitoring products. The goal of this project is the provision of timely and accurate drought information and tools to support science-driven decision-making and to enhance adaptive capacity specifically for Ohio EMA and a broader group of partners across Ohio and the Midwest. 

While the primary focus is to develop sustainable tools to support Ohio EMA, the methods that are developed in this project for assessing drought impacts—and determining impacts-based drought thresholds—can be readily applied by other states. Therefore, this project can be viewed as a state-level pilot to inform regional and national best practices on drought monitoring and drought impact assessment.

Learn more about this research, or view the Ohio Drought Dashboard.