Recovering from or Terminating a Drought: Perspectives from California

Owing to the far-reaching societal and economic impacts of drought, there is considerable interest in how much precipitation is required to end a drought.  However, complex hydrological processes and water management practices affect the quantity of precipitation required to end or ameliorate (reduce the severity of) a drought. While resource managers typically have detailed knowledge of what is needed to ameliorate drought and/or water deficits in their systems, the general public including the media and political leadership do not.

Several drought recovery and drought amelioration/termination tools exist which estimate the amount of precipitation needed to ameliorate or end drought.  The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) supports and maintains a website dedicated to determining the quantity of precipitation needed to ameliorate or end a drought.  A National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) funded project to enhance this website has recently been completed.  In addition, this project also addressed not only existing tools, but gathered user requirements for new drought termination products and services.

This presentation will highlight a few of the existing drought amelioration tools available online, including the revamped tool at NCEI.  It will also highlight the results of the drought amelioration project, including outcomes of the user-engagement workshops designed to document how drought amelioration tools are being used and what improvements in these tools the user community is seeking.