NIDIS Coping with Drought: Lessons from a Long-standing Federal Program to Strengthen Community and Sectoral Drought Resilience

Since 2007, the NOAA National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) has funded more than 70 innovative drought research projects through the Coping with Drought (CWD) research competition. Research through the CWD competition assesses impacts of drought on agriculture, water resources, and tourism and recreation and develops decision support tools for regional, tribal, state, and local use. Recent competitions have focused on improving our understanding and management of drought risk in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, as well as supporting tribal nations in building drought resilience while acknowledging the guiding principles of tribal engagement defined in our Tribal Engagement Strategy. Competitions are designed to respond to needs identified across our regional Drought Early Warning Systems, through national initiatives and in working closely with our tribal partners. Learn more about successful projects designed to include decision makers and those that will employ the outcomes to plan for and adapt to drought in the future. This presentation will share lessons from successful projects that were designed to include decision-makers, concrete applications of research outcomes for planning and resilience, and lessons on effective relationships between the federal government and grant recipients to maximize the applications of research findings into real-life solutions.