NIDIS Awards Over $6.2 Million for Projects on Ecological Drought and Tribal Drought Resilience

NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) has announced a total annual award of $6.2 million to support 12 new, innovative, and impactful projects that will improve our nation’s resilience at a critical time in the fight against the drought crisis. The projects will focus on ecological drought and building tribal drought resilience.

NIDIS is funding seven new 2-year projects in FY 2022 focused on research and tools to improve our understanding and management of drought risk in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to inform more deliberate and expanded decision-making that supports sustainable, healthy, and resilient ecosystems. The competitively selected projects total $3,847,022, including $3,275,135 in cooperative agreements and $571,887 in other awards. Outcomes from this research will improve our understanding and management of drought risk in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and will complement research being implemented by other federal programs such as the U.S. Geological Survey Climate Adaptation Science Centers. Projects will focus on a diverse range of ecosystems and issues to include:

• Incorporating ecological drought into natural resource management decisions in Montana
• The impacts of drought on coastal restoration
• Integrating drought information decisions for ranchers and other land managers in the southwestern U.S.
• Identifying ecocultural hotspots for restoration to protect plants used for Native American cultural practices in the southwestern U.S.
• Building drought-resilient urban forests around Chicago
• Building a drought early warning system for coldwater fisheries in the Northern Rockies
• Building regional understanding of the vulnerabilities and effects of ecological drought for conservation and natural resource management in southern California.

NIDIS is also funding five new 2-year projects in FY 2022, focused on the implementation of actions—together with research on those actions—to build tribal drought resilience contained in existing plans and strategies. The competitively selected projects total $2,422,013 in cooperative agreements. The portfolio of projects selected includes five projects that are either fully led by, or co-led by tribal nations with lands within the states of California, Oregon, Montana, New Mexico, and Idaho. These projects are focused on:

• Improving Karuk tribal socio-ecological resilience to drought by increasing access to drought-relevant data and increasing Karuk community engagement in research, monitoring, and management activities to better integrate Indigenous and Western science and management systems
• Implementing activities from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) Climate Resiliency Plan
• Developing a drought early warning system for the Umatilla Indian Reservation
• Strengthening drought preparedness on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation through wetland restoration and monitoring
• Enhancing water retention and facilitating groundwater recharge to protect springs located on the Pueblo de San Ildefonso. 

This research is funded through the NOAA Climate Program Office Coping with Drought competition. Coping with Drought projects incorporate consultation with stakeholders and focus on information that is most useful for decision-making to reduce vulnerability; models and tools that bring this information to decision makers; and strategies for improving NIDIS’ engagement with communities in preparedness. Since 2007, the NIDIS has funded more than 70 innovative drought research projects through the Coping with Drought research competition. 

The NIDIS peer-reviewed competitive funding process ensures that proposals chosen to receive funding meet high standards of scientific rigor, quality, relevance to societal challenges, NOAA’s mission, and equity. These projects conducted by external partners expand the reach of NOAA’s mission and the frontiers of scientific inquiry. 

To see full lists of funded projects and more information, visit the NIDIS Coping with Drought Competition page.