1. Managing Drought: A Roadmap for Change in the United States
Dr. Donald A. Wilhite, Director
National Drought Mitigation Center
School of Natural Resources
University of Nebraska-Lincoln U.S.A.

2. Report online at http://www.geosociety.org/
Managing Drought and Water Scarcity in Vulnerable Environments: A Roadmap for Change in the U.S.
Report online at

3. The Cycle of Disaster Management
Risk management increases coping capacity, builds resilience.
proactive
reactive
Crisis management treats the symptoms, not the causes.

4. Components of Drought Risk Management
Hazard
Vulnerability = x
(natural event)
(social factors)
Meteorological
Drought
Are there trends in exposure?
What factors are affecting vulnerability?

5. What is ‘drought?’
A deficiency of precipitation from expected or normal that extends over a season or longer period of time and results in water supply that is insufficient to meet the needs of human activities and the environment.
Simply stated, it’s when ‘demand exceeds supply’ but

6. 1930s
1950s
1987-present
Key observations:
Drought—normal part of climate
Average annual spatial extent = 15%
Peak spatial extent = 65%
Year-to-year variability
Recent pattern over two decades
% Area Affected

7. Previous ‘Calls for Action’
General Accounting Office
Western Governors’ Association
National Academy of Sciences
Great Lakes Commission
American Meteorological Society
Interstate Council on Water Policy
National Drought Policy Commission

8. National Drought Policy Commission
Report to Congress in 2000 in response to the National Drought Policy Act of 1998.
Recommended creating a National Drought Policy.
National Drought Preparedness Act: 2001, 2003, 2005.

9. Why the sense of urgency?
Multiple severe droughts since 1996 have had severe impacts and have raised concern about increasing vulnerability.
U.S. population is growing rapidly, especially in the water-short western states and the southeast.
Water demand is increasing dramatically, conflicts between water users are increasing.

10. 21%
28%
30%
20%
Trend is very significant, and appears to represent a long term shift in the demographics of America
66%
26%
40%
20%
31%
23%

11. Improving drought management is a national issue!
2000
2001
2002
Improving drought management is a national issue!
2003
2004
2006

13. Why the sense of urgency?
Water supplies are fully or over-appropriated in many river basins.
All levels of government are poorly prepared for drought—reactive, crisis management approach.
Existing water laws and institutions are based on outmoded values and goals.

14. No national drought plan or policy currently exists.
Drought plans exist at the
state, river basin, local and tribal levels of government.
Response oriented
Lack of coordination
Bottom Line:
No national drought plan or policy currently exists.

15. Why the sense of urgency?
Climate change is likely to increase the frequency, severity, and duration of drought.
Increasing temperatures, increased evaporation, increased heat stress/heat waves
Changes in precipitation amount, intensity, distribution, and form, increased variability
Reduced snowpack, stream flow, ground water recharge, lower reservoir levels

16. Temperature trends (°F per century) since 1920
cooler warmer
3.6°F
2.7°F
1.8°F
0.9°F
PNW warmed +1.5o F during the 20th century
Each dot represents a station with data going back at least to 1920, size of dot shows magnitude of linear trend. Open circles are negative trends - not many of those. Most trends in the 1-3F range. The regional average (using appropriate area-weighting) is 1.5F/century.
These data have been quality-controlled and corrected by the National Climate Data Center. This includes removing the “urban warming” effect, which is statistically estimated.

17. Trends in April 1 SWE
This show the capacibility of our models to capture these effects.
Also, it is a simple function of temperature and precipition.
This is the percent change (red is negative, blue is positive) change in April 1 SWE
Mote P.W.,Hamlet A.F., Clark M.P., Lettenmaier D.P., 2005, Declining mountain snowpack in western North America, BAMS, 86 (1): 39-49

18. Portland, Oregon
Portland’s water needs by 2040 will increase by 60 mgd, 40 mgd from regional growth; 20 mgd from climate change impacts.

19. Science and Policy Recommendations
Implement a national drought policy as called for by NDPC and drought mitigation planning at all levels of government.
Include the potential impacts of projected changes in temperature and precipitation due to climate change in drought risk mitigation planning.

20. Science and Policy Recommendations
Create a new ‘national water culture’ that promotes sustainable water management practices to meet long-term societal needs.
Broad educational initiative to foster partnerships between levels of government, universities, and public.
Increased public education on the need for long-term drought mitigation and water resources management.

21. Science and Policy Recommendations
Engage stakeholders within common hydrologic basins in water and drought management planning.
Foster place-based science with community stakeholder involvement as part of public education and outreach for natural resources decision makers, integrating local climate and water information and climate projections.

22. Science and Policy Recommendations
Maintain and enhance existing data networks and data sets, enhance timely delivery of data and information to decision makers and the public.
Fully fund and implement the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).
Foster development of sector-based decision support tools for natural resource managers, agricultural producers, and policy makers.

23. NIDIS passed by Congress in late 2006.
Implementation Plan issued by NOAA in June 2007.
Multi-agency and organizational effort.
Drought Portal under development.

24. Science and Policy Recommendations
Encourage use of risk-based approaches for assessing multiple potential future climate and water management scenarios.
Support research that improves fundamental scientific understanding of drought, i.e., causes, predictability, impacts, mitigation actions, planning methodologies, and policy alternatives.

25. Science and Policy Recommendations
Value water at its full worth in the development of water resource management and drought mitigation plans.
Harmonize roles and responsibilities of cooperating institutions and reduce conflicts to achieve more effective decision making.
Fragmentation of responsibilities within and between levels of government constrains effective drought management.

26. It’s time for action! Visit the NDMC drought.unl.edu dwilhite2@unl.edu
Visit the NDMC
drought.unl.edu