Building a Mississippi River Basin Drought & Water Dashboard

Drought is a common, natural occurrence across the Mississippi River Basin. The significant impacts of drought on the river itself and the surrounding valley were amplified in the past few years as parts of the Lower Mississippi River hit historic low river levels. This impacted navigation and hydropower operations, along with crop, pasture and forestry losses in the Mississippi River Valley. An added challenge in recent years has been the tendency to transition from drought, to flood, and back to drought, within short time spans, sometimes within a matter of months.

To improve access and usability of drought and water information across the Mississippi River Basin, NOAA, in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is developing a public-facing Mississippi River Basin Drought and Water Dashboard. This online platform, hosted on the U.S. Drought Portal (drought.gov) and modeled after the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River Basin Drought & Water Dashboard, will include a suite of curated and customized information and tools to provide drought information and support decision-making across the Mississippi Valley. This includes real-time information with easy to understand and downloadable graphics that span historical, current, and future conditions.

This Dashboard will be useful to a broad range of users, from water managers to the general public. The Dashboard will also provide context to understand the nature of drought and water management in the river and support public education about drought impacts in the basin. 

NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) will host two public review sessions in early 2025 to allow a broad stakeholder audience to use prototypes of the Dashboard and provide feedback before a public launch. 

For more information, please contact Meredith Muth (meredith.f.muth@noaa.gov).