Alabama Drought Reach: Streamlining Drought Communication and Impact Reporting in Alabama

Drought heavily impacts Alabama's agriculture, a key industry employing over 600,000 citizens and contributing $70 billion to the state's economy. Recognizing the need for better drought documentation and understanding, the Auburn University Water Resources Center (AUWRC), Alabama State Climate Office, Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES), and Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station (AAES) collaborated to form Alabama Drought Reach (ADR) in May 2023. ADR’s mission is to improve drought communications and agricultural impact monitoring in Alabama. During the fall 2023 drought, ADR played a pivotal role in monitoring conditions by launching an internal drought survey that allowed Alabama Extension to directly report impacts to the Alabama State Climate Office. These impact reports helped the State Climate Office refine their input to the U.S. Drought Monitor map of Alabama, which is a product that instigates some USDA relief funding to farmers. ADR supported 39 counties with USDA assessments, collected impact reports statewide, and communicated drought conditions to the public. ADR continues to proactively respond to drought by communicating weekly drought conditions via graphics and newsletters and preparing Alabama Extension personnel to identify early onset drought conditions through workshops and publications. ADR and the Alabama State Climate Office are also working in collaboration with NOAA NIDIS to create a comprehensive assessment of how the Southeast responded to and communicated the fall 2023 drought. Alabama Drought Reach offers a unique opportunity for direct collaboration between Extension and State Climate Offices and hopes to be a model for other states as the Southeast continually prepares for future drought events. For the Advances in Communicating the Risk of Drought and Cascading Hazards session at AMS, I will highlight the importance of encouraging interagency collaboration, collecting impact data for drought monitoring, building trusted partnerships, training Extension to be involved with drought monitoring, and tailoring drought communication for various audiences.