Workshop on drought monitoring & early warning

Workshop 1 part of the 2011 National hydrologic warning council training conference

The goals of the Drought workshop are twofold. Our first objective is to confer with emergency managers, decision makers, and agency and organizational representatives on drought management tools, resources, and current projects. The workshop will highlight existing drought management tools housed at the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) (drought.unl.edu) and will provide an opportunity for workshop participants to contribute input to products currently in development.

The second half of the workshop will introduce participants to the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS). NIDIS, established by federal law in 2006, is responsible for improving drought early warning, both through research and targeted information dissemination. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is the lead federal agency for NIDIS.
NIDIS is currently undertaking three pilot projects, focusing on the Upper Colorado River Basin, the Southeast U.S. and California. These pilots are in various stages of planning and implementation and collectively will be used to prototype a drought early warning information system for the U.S. Updates for all three pilots will be presented.

NIDIS pilots are used to explore and demonstrate a variety of early warning and drought risk reduction strategies that incorporate drought monitoring and prediction information in partnership with users and federal, state, regional, tribal and local agencies. Over the next five years NIDIS will build on the successes of the U.S. Drought Monitor, Seasonal Outlooks, and other tools and products through better coordination of relevant monitoring, forecasting, education and impact assessment efforts tailored to individual watersheds.

The US Drought Portal (USDP) (drought.gov) is the resource through which NIDIS provides information, tools, and services at the national, regional, and local levels to enable decision making to mitigate and adapt to drought impacts.

At this workshop, the USDP developers seek input in two general areas:

1. What information, resources, or tools do you currently produce or use that should be included in the USDP? This can include data, forecasts, maps, assessments, or other drought-related information, and can be made available to the general public or even to a subset of USDP users through portal community functions.

2. How useful is the USDP in its current configuration and how can it be improved? This includes usability, how items render in different browsers, or changes that would make the USDP more appealing to a broader range of users.

This workshop will provide an opportunity for drought researchers to learn more from stakeholders about (1) their drought risk management activities, (2) what tools they use and their usefulness, and (3) additional information and data needs. It is also a chance for stakeholders to get to know the NDMC and NIDIS communities and to have NIDIS better understand how partnerships and early warning systems can be improved.