The National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln has announced the release of its first annual report, Building Drought Resilience.
The Drought Risk Management Research Center launched to conduct research to improve drought resilience across the United States. It is a partnership between the National Integrated Drought Information System and the National Drought Mitigation Center.
NIDIS supports the DRMRC through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Sectoral Applications Research Program.
The DRMRC is contributing to improved drought monitoring, impacts assessment and risk management by working with drought planners at state, local, tribal and regional scales to tailor information, processes and tools for their needs, including:
- Supporting the growth of regional drought early warning systems and more geographically precise decision-making;
- Improving processes for identifying drought impacts and vulnerabilities; and
- Providing planning information and processes that meet specific needs.
The research and tools developed by the DRMRC will help communities, states and regions plan for, adapt to and recover from drought and water stresses. The DRMRC benefits anyone seeking to track drought and its impacts, address underlying causes of drought impacts, develop or update drought management plans, or understand and communicate the connections between drought’s effects and strategies for minimizing losses.
We’ve already launched Dry Horizons, a monthly e-newsletter that highlights practitioners’ success stories, shares new developments in the field, and allows people to raise questions. Through DRMRC, the drought center worked with regional, state and watershed drought planning efforts across the country in 2016.
We also were involved in each of the NIDIS Regional Drought Early Warning System efforts and contributed to specialized workshops, stakeholder meetings and other RDEWS initiatives as needed.
Through DRMRC, and with the National Drought Resilience Partnership, the NDMC also presented a series of webinars on drought planning for watershed drought coordinators in Montana’s Upper Missouri Headwaters Basin.