The Evolution of Accessibility of the U.S. Drought Monitor

Since its inception, the United States Drought Monitor (USDM) has evolved to become the “Gold Standard” of drought monitoring in the United States. The USDM is highlighted as an evolving product, using a continuous development process where users and the development team work together to produce the best product possible. Through this process, changes have been made to the USDM map and webpage that include improving upon the products, available data, and providing new products and information requested from stakeholders. Two decades ago, the USDM map was created using CorelDRAW and only half a dozen data sets were available, today over forty-five different types of data are uploaded to ArcGIS where authors can analyze and draw the map, and this is just one example of the USDM’s progression. As part of the continuous development process, the National Drought Mitigation Center along with the USDM authors have spearheaded efforts to improve accessibility to the USDM products for all users. Some of these efforts include researching the readability of the USDM weekly narrative, adding accommodations for visual impairments, providing information to underserved communities, and presenting information in different formats (i.e., multimedia videos). Regular workshops and forums with USDM authors occur in different regions in the U.S. to discuss the USDM map making process and continue an open dialog with its users and stakeholders. As technology and data continue to evolve, the USDM will also evolve implementing cutting-edge technologies to keep pushing the map and associated data to new heights.