Information from regional Drought Early Warning Systems helped people make better decisions in many sectors, including construction, fish production, and agriculture. A recent survey assessed the value of drought and climate-related webinars and quarterly climate summaries produced for decision-makers in the Midwest and Missouri River Drought Early Warning Systems and in the Great Lakes Basin. The National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln led the survey, which was funded by the National Integrated Drought Information System.

Summarizes information and results of two Northeast drought forums held in winter 2017, the first in New York State on Feb. 27 and the second in Massachusetts on March 1. The meetings was designed to 

This updated National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) Implementation Plan reflects the second phase of NIDIS development and deployment as reauthorized by Congress in 2014. It details NIDIS’s evolution and lessons learned in moving towards a national drought early warning information system, and reflects the thoughtful feedback and participation of NIDIS’s partners.

The five-year Western drought and recent drought conditions in Northeastern and Southeastern United States underscore the continued importance of building national capabilities for long-term drought resilience. Federal agencies have focused on drought response for decades. Under the framework of the National Drought Resilience Partnership (NDRP), a greater emphasis has been placed on improving federal agency collaboration to ensure more efficient use of program dollars and agency expertise. A broad cross-section of stakeholder groups has supported and guided this collaboration.

The Work Plan is a two-year road map organized under three broad tasks:

Findings from a meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, Nov. 13-14, 2013.

Coastal droughts have a different dynamic from upland droughts, which are typically characterized by agricultural, hydrologic, meteorological, and (or) socioeconomic impacts. The location of the freshwater-saltwater interface in surface-water bodies is an important factor in the ecological and socioeconomic dynamics of coastal communities. Because of the uniqueness of drought impacts on coastal ecosystems, a Coastal Salinity Index (CSI) was developed using an approach similar to the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI).

The Carolinas Integrated Sciences and Assessments (CISA) developed an experimental method of drought monitoring and reporting by citizen scientists. This method of condition monitoring encourages CoCoRaHS volunteers to submit regular reports about the effects of local precipitation on the environment and society, creating a baseline against which to assess change through time (i.e., seasonally, with varying levels of precipitation).

A four-year study of the blue crabs in the ACE Basin National Estuarine Research Reserve in South Carolina during the 2008-11 drought found that crabs decreased in the low flow Combahee River due to increased parasites (Hematodinium sp.) but increased in the high flow Edisto River due to decreased predation by freshwater predators (alligators).

Since drought can have both positive and negative effects on blue crabs, there is considerable interest in understanding how future variation in river discharge will impact commercial blue crab landings.

The Carolinas Integrated Sciences and Assessments (CISA) team is creating a digital atlas of hydroclimate extremes in the Carolinas. The atlas will complement existing information sources on extreme precipitation (e.g. NOAA’s Atlas 14) and drought (e.g., products from the National Drought Mitigation Center). It will include maps and figures characterizing various measures of precipitation, drought, and the water balance.