Second National Drought Forum Report
On July 30–31, 2019, the second National Drought Forum was held at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. The Forum was planned and coordinated by the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), along with the National Drought Resilience Partnership (NDRP).
The second National Drought Forum convened high-level drought experts and decision-makers from drought-impacted regions and economic sectors of the country, along with the private sector, research institutions, nonprofit organizations, global institutions, and officials across all levels of government to review progress made, and to discuss and determine new priority actions around emerging drought early warning and long-term resilience issues.
The Forum’s accomplishments included:
- Taking stock of lessons learned and progress towards U.S. drought readiness since the first Forum in 2012
- Strengthening the state–federal relationship to realize greater collaboration and promote, where appropriate, cooperative partnerships with U.S. businesses to address drought across time scales and across levels of government and sectors
- Featuring the Federal Water Officials and their 2019 priority actions for the National Drought Resilience Partnership
- Discussing new information and opportunities for coordination that help move the nation from a reactive to a proactive approach to drought risk management
- Producing a list of action items that could improve U.S. drought readiness and resilience.
Action items were subsequently organized in several key areas:
- Advancing Applied Research and Process Understanding
- Strengthening Drought Monitoring and Observations
- Developing Decision Support Tools
- Quantifying Drought Impacts
- Prioritizing Integrated Water Resource Management
- Mitigating Drought through Ecosystem Restoration
- Financing Pre-Disaster Drought Mitigation
- Communicating and Coordinating Drought Information.
The Priority Actions resulting from the National Drought Forum reflect the dialogue and discussion from Forum attendees, and do not represent official Administration policy or position, or an official policy or position of the individual organizations/agencies represented at the Forum. Attendees, along with the broad community of concerned drought stakeholders at large, all have a role to play in advancing these actions, including identifying potential means to fund such actions.
