Advancing Drought Early Warning through Interdisciplinary Research
Drought Early Warning Research
Research to better understand how droughts evolve and how their impacts are mitigated is critical to providing timely and reliable information, products, and services in support of drought early warning. In particular, research to improve drought monitoring and prediction capabilities on a variety of timescales and spatial scales are needed for water and emergency management decisions, as well as for water-dependent sectors of the economy to more efficiently manage their resources.
- Lessons Learned from the 2017 Flash Drought Across the U.S. Northern Great Plains and Canadian Prairies
- Research to Advance National Drought Monitoring and Prediction Capabilities
- The Impacts of Increasing Drought on Forest Dynamics, Structure, and Biodiversity in the United States
- An Interpretation of the Origins of the 2012 Central Great Plains Drought
Scientific Understanding
Advancing knowledge of the weather and climatic mechanisms that lead to drought onset, persistence, and recovery.
Prediction and Forecasting
Strengthening drought prediction skill by identifying sources of drought predictability across timescales and regions to improve forecasts.
Information Systems
Incorporating the latest scientific advances into metrics for various societal sectors, and advanced information delivery platforms.
Network Capacity Building
Improving coordination and delivery of information through in-person drought outlook forums and weekly webinars using networks of experts at the state and local level.
Featured Research Initiative
"Successful implementation of the National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network is critical not only for monitoring drought, but for providing essential guidance to our nation’s farmers, ranchers, and foresters."
"Drought crosses all boundaries. As we cooperate across jurisdictions through the National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network, drought assessment improves for everyone."
The National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network
Sponsored by NIDIS, USDA, and other partners, the National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network (NCSMMN) is a multi-agency, multi-institutional initiative to aggregate and integrate soil moisture data from over 1,800 in situ monitoring stations from a wide range of mesonets across the U.S. The Network aims to blend this important soil moisture data with remotely-sensed and modeled hydrologic data to generate high-quality, easy-to-understand products and tools that will support better hazard early warning systems, improve crop production and resilience, and benefit many additional groups.
NIDIS-Supported Competitive Research Programs
Since 2012, NIDIS has funded more than 80 grants through the competitive Coping with Drought Initiative and Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections (MAPP) program, in addition to supporting a variety of other research projects advancing drought early warning across sectors. Below are examples of NIDIS-supported competitive research initiatives and programs.
Coping with Drought
NIDIS regularly hosts the Coping with Drought competitive funding opportunity, which supports research to assess the impacts of drought on agriculture, ecosystems, and water resources and develop decision support tools for regional, state, and local use.
Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections (MAPP)
NIDIS supports drought-focused competitive funding opportunities through the NOAA Climate Program Office's (CPO's) Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections (MAPP) program, with a focus on improving drought monitoring and prediction systems, resulting in improvements in the U.S. Drought Monitor, CPC Drought Outlooks, and drought early warning capabilities. MAPP funds collaborative research grants that involve academia, NOAA, and other research laboratories.
MAPP Drought Task Force
The goal of the interagency Drought Task Force is to achieve significant advances in understanding and in the ability to monitor and predict drought over North America. The NOAA Climate Program Office's Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections (MAPP) Program organizes the Drought Task Force to coordinate the activities of researchers supported through MAPP/NIDIS funding competitions.