BOARD00047 ‎(2)‎

• Board Meeting Date: 9/20/2006
• Description: IWM & D Section - Western Governors Association - The National Integrated Drought Information System - Creating a Drought Early Warning System for the 21st Century
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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3. !laving the NIDIS Implementation Team identify opportunities to use
existing agency collection programs to gather additional data relevant
to drought impacts. For example, the USDA's National Agricultural
Statistical Service (NASS) annual acreage and production survey could
be modified to request information on crops, acreages and livestock
numbers affected by drought. NASS also could be used to establish
impact reports for other drought issues, (i.e., economic and social) as
needed.

3. Research Needs. Agricultural producers, resource managers, municipalities,
industries and other water lIsers are obliged 10 make risk management and
investment decisions that rely on current and anticipated climatic conditions.
Research is nceded to improve the forecasting of short. and long-term drought
conditions, to make the forecasts more useful and timely, and to establish priori.
ties based on the potential to reduce drought impacts.

Recommendation 3a: NIDlS must facilitate the coordination and program
delivery across interagency, intergovernmental and private sector science
and research programs by establishing an integrated federal drought
research program:

I. Improving capabilities to monitor, understand and forecast droughts.

2. Developing methodologies to integrate data on climate, hydrology,
water available in storage, and socioeconomic and ecosystem condi.
tions, in order to better understand and quantify the linkages between
the physical characteristics of drought, the impacts that result from
droughts, and the triggers used by decision-makers who respond to
drought.

3. Identifying regional differences in drought impacts and related infor.
mation needs and delivery systems, and developing regionally specilic
drought monitoring and forecasts.

4 Developing new decision support tools, such as drought 'scenarios'
(e.g., 'if. then. '), that would give decision-makers (such as agricultural
producers) a better range of risks and options to consider.

5. Improving the scientilic basis for understanding ground water and
surface water relationships and developing triggers and thresholds for
critical surface water flows and ground water levels.

6. Encouraging all relevant federal agencies, in cooperation with the
NIDIS Implementation Team, to expand their drought research portfo.
lias by undertaking an analysis of existing research and identifying
gaps. The lindings of this gap analysis should guide funding and prior-
ities for future drought research.

7. The federal agencies participating in the coordinated research program
under NIDIS should commit a percentage (no less than live percent) of
their research budgets to drought issues.

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