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support a drought index -based vulnerability assessment approach, and if not, how it <br />might be adapted in order to do so. In addition, AMEC will also develop a process as <br />part of this project that will allow for integration of vulnerability information from local <br />drought plans and local hazard mitigation plans into the drought planning and <br />vulnerability assessment process, offering further possibilities to refine a Colorado <br />drought impact database. The result will be a synthesis of how drought vulnerability is <br />perceived at the local level, often captured in terms of `high, medium or low' significance <br />in relation to other natural hazards (AMEC is very familiar with Colorado's local hazard <br />mitigation plans having developed them for 16 counties in the state). Key outcomes of <br />this aspect of the project will be a Colorado Drought Impacts data collection framework <br />and tool to support immediate and ongoing collection of drought impacts data, and a <br />Technical Memo describing the potential for using /modifying the existing Drought <br />Impact Recorder for long term data collection. <br />AMEC recognizes that indicator values may not fully reflect impacts, especially at the <br />local level, and may not be relevant across all regions and sectors. However, <br />this approach does have the advantage of operating in the domain of the indicators <br />developed for the Drought Plan, thus managers have familiarity with both the approach <br />and the meaning of drought categories associated with the threshold values of <br />indicators (moderate, severe, etc.) Also, when sound data on impacts are available, the <br />approach can bring the assessment closer to a deterministic risk assessment by, for <br />example, estimating dollar damages resulting from a drought of a certain severity. <br />Drought risk is the product of both physical drought hazard and drought vulnerability <br />(i.e., the impact on farmers, ranchers, homeowners, wildlife and others that would be <br />affected). Risk -based analyses are the best available approach for planning for, <br />managing, and mitigating drought. A range of potential drought scenarios (and their <br />likelihood in a probabilistic assessment) can help identify those scenarios that contribute <br />the most to the risks, providing water managers with a rigorous quantitative framework <br />to evaluate costs and benefits of different resource allocation and risk mitigation <br />approaches. The vulnerability assessment being developed by the state for this project <br />moves towards these capabilities. <br />Quantitative approach to assessing drought vulnerability <br />Quantitative vulnerability assessment will complement more qualitative assessments <br />where sound data to support this are available or can be collected or developed <br />efficiently. The focus of this element of the project will be to develop and apply a <br />vulnerability assessment approach for state assets and critical sectors in order to <br />develop a method suitable to Colorado conditions, to test the approach, and then to <br />make recommendations to the state on what is required to implement the approach <br />within the state's Water DSS framework (i.e. the foundation of a Drought DSS). A key <br />deliverable, aside from the vulnerability assessment itself, will be recommendations on <br />what data will be required to improve this approach in future, how this information can or <br />should be collected, and information on technical aspects of the DSS itself, including <br />how to leverage existing technologies. <br />A focus for this quantitative approach will be to assess impacts (e.g., losses due to <br />water shortages) and the ability to reduce and mitigate those impacts, both short term <br />and long term (e.g., via water reallocation, water conservation etc) by providing data- <br />