Drought services: activities and tools at the National Drought Mitigation Center

The National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) has focused its efforts on drought services since it was first formed in 1995. A look back at these drought services and a look ahead at the drought services to come will be highlighted in this presentation. In the early years, many of these services focused on the national and state levels. Recently, the NDMC has made an effort to tailor these services to local and individual levels.

One of the very first services provided by the NDMC was a website developed around the concepts of drought monitoring, planning, and mitigation. This website has undergone several revisions, with the latest revision expected to be ready by the end of 2009. Although the concepts of monitoring, planning, and mitigation remain, the NDMC website's approach to these concepts has evolved in parallel with the web. The NDMC also hosts websites for the U.S. Drought Monitor, Drought Impact Reporter, and Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI) tools.

Another service began in early 1996, when NDMC scientists visited Tom McKee at Colorado State University to discuss the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). The SPI was a new drought index that provided promise for detecting precipitation anomalies for a variety of time scales. Soon, the SPI became a standard drought monitoring feature. To illustrate this, the NDMC has promoted and distributed the SPI program to more than 150 scientists in about 60 countries. SPI training is one of the most requested topics at international workshops presented by the NDMC.

In 2005, the NDMC received two grants from USDA's Risk Management Agency (RMA). The objectives of these grants were to develop tools designed specifically for users within the agricultural communities. Additional funding for these tools has also come from NOAA. A quick overview of these tools will be presented.

The development of these tools has included an extensive iterative process with stakeholders around the country, through means such as workshops, listening sessions, stakeholder reviews, and an evaluator network. NDMC staff have organized and hosted 30 different stakeholder participation events during the past two years, and have taken advantage of many opportunities to highlight the tools at meetings of various resource management groups. We work closely with the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), and these tools are, or will be, important components within the NIDIS portal.

The NDMC also works to foster information dissemination of drought assessment, mitigation, preparedness, and response options for a variety of decision makers, and the NDMC serves in an advisory capacity to policy makers and others by providing scientific and policy-relevant information on drought and water management issues. As a result, NDMC staff respond to more than 1,000 requests for information and assistance each year, including 400-600 media requests. The NDMC serves both on the NIDIS and U.S. Drought Monitor help desks. The NDMC also has a quarterly newsletter called DroughtScape that highlights drought-related activities taking place at the NDMC and across the country. Each of these services helps define the “big picture” of drought for policy makers and others who need that scale of information. But these drought services also work to localize drought, putting valuable information in the hands of agricultural producers and community, tribal, and other grassroots decision makers. The NDMC's unique experiences dealing with drought services fit naturally within the context of a National Climate Service.