Characterization of Readiness of the Transportation and Agriculture Sectors to Cope with Interannual to Decadal Droughts in the Mississippi River Basin

The Missouri River Basin and Mississippi River Basin are both impacted by decadal climate variability phenomena, which can make substantial impacts on yields of winter and spring wheat, corn, soybeans, hay, and other crops. This project aimed to characterize the readiness of institutions to utilize early warning information to develop their own risk-based scenarios to meet their drought risk management goals, and to characterize the role of an early warning system in the context of climate adaptation and resilience.

This project was part of the FY 2016 Coping with Drought research competition, which focused on advancing specific NIDIS regional Drought Early Warning Systems (DEWS), targeting specific communities and sectors within these areas. The four targeted regions and their associated focus areas included the Missouri River Basin (agricultural and/or water supply focus); Midwest along the Mississippi River (transportation, agricultural, and/or water supply focus); Colorado River Basin (water supply, recreation, tourism, and/or energy focus); and California (water, agricultural, and/or wildfire focus).

For more information, please contact Molly Woloszyn (molly.woloszyn@noaa.gov).