Advancing Drought Monitoring and Outlook to Promote Adaptation and Community Resilience in a Changing Climate

Severe drought and extreme weather continue to threaten water sustainability in irrigated agriculture due to uncertain future climate variability. Consumptive water use associated with surface water and groundwater interactions further highlights climate-ready community in the urban-rural interface. Collaborative efforts have been made to evaluate drought impacts, yet observing drought impacts at local levels is still challenging. During the presentation, the author lays out a couple of new approaches to better characterize drought at local levels, consequently promoting adaptation and community resilience in a changing climate. System dynamics and the up-to-date drought index and post drought analysis will be also discussed along with applications of Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) for near real-time drought monitoring.