Abstract
Drought is a familiar climatic phenomenon in the United States Southwest, with complex human-environment interactions that extend beyond just the physical drought events. Due to continued climate variability and change, droughts are expected to become more frequent and/or severe in the future. Decision-makers are charged with mitigating and adapting to these more extreme conditions and to do that they need to understand the specific impacts drought has on regional and local scales, and how these impacts compare to historical conditions. Tremendous progress in drought monitoring strategies has occurred over the past several decades, with more tools providing greater spatial and temporal resolutions for a variety of variables, including drought impacts. Many of these updated tools can be used to develop improved drought climatologies for decision-makers to use in their drought risk management actions. In support of a Food-Energy-Water (FEW) systems study for New Mexico, this article explores the use of updated drought monitoring tools to analyze data and develop a more holistic drought climatology applicable for New Mexico. Based upon the drought climatology, droughts appear to be occurring with greater frequency and magnitude over the last two decades. This improved drought climatology information, using New Mexico as the example, increases the understanding of the effects of drought on the FEW systems, allowing for better management of current and future drought events and associated impacts.
Highlights
Since 2000, 16 drought events classified as “Billion Dollar Disasters” have occurred across the United States (U.S.) according to a national web-based archive of these types of disasters for a variety of natural hazards (NOAA NCEI, 2020)
Most efforts of drought management have focused on responding to drought impacts after an event, which has often meant that these responses have been uncoordinated and untimely, and little is done to reduce potential impacts in the events (Wilhite and Pulwarty, 2005; Wilhite et al, 2007)
As a good place to begin, the temperature and precipitation records are critical for a New Mexico drought climatology because both represent important components of the hydrological cycle and reveal extremes and trends that provide insights to decision-makers regarding past, present, and potentially future drought events
Summary
Since 2000, 16 drought events classified as “Billion Dollar Disasters” have occurred across the United States (U.S.) according to a national web-based archive of these types of disasters for a variety of natural hazards (NOAA NCEI, 2020). The estimated economic losses from the 16 drought-specific events total $133.2 billion These losses illustrate that drought is a key disaster that can have dramatic local and regional impacts across the U.S Droughts are different from other hazards in that they can develop slowly, extend over large regions, and have a long duration, making. Drought Climatologies for FEW Systems it very difficult for officials to tally both the direct and indirect impacts that result (Ding et al, 2011). Because of their widespread and long-lasting nature, droughts affect multiple sectors of a region’s economy. Places the attention on improving drought early warning, drought planning, and drought mitigation strategies that will hopefully reduce future drought impacts (Wilhite et al, 2014)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
