Drought Planning Research Articles

Managing drought risk in a changing climate: The role of national drought policy

There is increasing concern worldwide about the ineffectiveness of current drought management practices that are largely based on crisis management. These practices are reactive and, therefore, only treat the symptoms (impacts) of drought rather than the underlying causes for the vulnerabilities associated with impacts. Through the adoption of national drought policies that are focused on risk reduction and complemented by drought mitigation or preparedness plans at various levels of government, the coping capacity of nations to manage droughts can be improved. The time for adopting an approach that emphasizes drought risk reduction is now, given the spiraling impacts of droughts in an ever-increasing number of sectors and the current and projected trends for the increased frequency, severity and duration of drought events in association with a changing climate. This paper discusses the underlying concepts of drought, the principles and objectives of national drought policies and a drought planning process that has been effective in the preparation of drought mitigation plans.

실시간 저수위 및 용수공급 취약성 지표를 활용한 농업용 저수지 운영 기준 개발

The efficient operation and management strategies of reservoirs in irrigation periods of drought events are an essential element for drought planning and countermeasure. Korea Rural Community Corporation has developed the real-time water level observation system of agricultural reservoirs to efficiently operate reservoirs, however, it is not possible to predict drought conditions, and only provides information of current situation. Hence, it is necessary to evaluate accurate irrigation vulnerability and efficiently reservoir operation rules using current water level. In this paper, the improvement methods of reservoir operation planning were developed with water supply vulnerability characteristic curves comparing to automatic water gauge at agricultural reservoirs. The 11 reservoirs were simulated applying the reservoir operation rules which was determined by irrigation vulnerability characteristic curves criteria and real time water level, and evaluated water supply situation in 2012 year. The analysis of results can be identified probabilistic possibility of water supply failures compared with the existing reservoir operation criteria. These results of efficient reservoir operation rules can be achieved enable irrigation planners to optimally manage available water resources for decision making, and contributed to maintain the water supply according to demand strategy for agricultural reservoirs management.

An overview of US state drought plans: crisis or risk management?

Recent severe drought events across the nation have raised our concerns over society’s changing and increasing vulnerability to droughts. All levels of governments have taken actions to plan for the slow-onset, long-lasting and spatially extensive drought hazard. The progress of drought planning at the state level is especially impressive over the past decade due to the dramatic growth of drought plans. To date, almost all states have drought plans, but previous studies indicated these plans are still heavily relying on the reactive crisis management approach to deal with ongoing droughts rather than the proactive risk management approach toward building drought resilience. No study so far has empirically examined how well all of these state plans are and to what extent these plans incorporated risk management theory and practices on a national basis. Thus, this study develops a drought risk coding protocol to systematically assess the 44 latest state drought plans’ quality in risk management. An inventory of the state drought plans is also established to demonstrate their quality, content and characteristics. The results indicate that state drought plans typically address emergency responses well, while they are generally weak in establishing strong goals, mitigation and adaptation, public involvement, plan updates and implementation. Lastly, recommendations are provided for drought officials to develop, enhance or revise drought plans toward a risk management approach.

Drought planning research in the United States: An overview and outlook

Drought is widely known as an insidious hazard due to its complex and unique characteristics. Drought disasters have brought tremendous economic losses and significant social and environmental impacts to communities across the globe. To further understand the hazard drought poses and provide insights into planning for drought preparedness, this article conducts a thorough literature review of drought hazard and drought planning frameworks within the United States. Two main approaches and three major forms of drought planning are discussed and summarized. Based on this review, a preliminary overview of drought planning status in the United States is presented. This study provides insight into major drought planning literature and establishes a link with drought mitigation and adaptation. The article concludes with discussion and implication for future drought planning and a future research outlook.

Using economic and other performance measures to evaluate a municipal drought plan

This paper explores the welfare costs associated with drought plan transactions between a public municipal water agency, the El Dorado Irrigation District (EID) in California in the USA and its customers. The EID imposes a tiered pricing plan for municipal customers, which was analyzed as a discrete continuous choice (DCC) model by water users within a climate driven water evaluation and planning (WEAP) model of the EID water system. The DCC is subsequently used to estimate the compensating variation (CV) measure of the loss of consumer welfare in the case where a customer does not receive water that matches a preferred level of demand. In addition to monetized welfare loss, we look at other metrics of performance such as reservoir storage and hydropower generation. For the drought-of-record under full build-out, results show that the welfare loss to EID customers from the imposed drought plan is far less than if no drought plan were in place. This suggests that current consumption is well beyond essential needs and, without a drought plan, water shortages in the later period of a drought would generate a much greater welfare loss. Most of the cost associated with the drought plan is born by EID in the form of reduced revenues.

A Drought-Planning Methodology for Ranchers in the Great Plains

On the Ground Ranch drought planning is important for identifying management priorities, proactively evaluating management options before a drought occurs, and ultimately reducing the effects of drought on an operation and the grasslands that support it. An engagement activity with ranchers and ranch advisors developed a drought planning methodology to help other ranchers develop their own individual ranch drought plans. Although the ranchers and advisors who participated differed some on specific approaches, they agreed on the benefits of incorporating drought into overall ranch planning well in advance of drought and acknowledged the reality of having to make adjustments as situations arise.

Reconstructed cool- and warm-season precipitation over the tribal lands of northeastern Arizona

For over a decade, the Hopi Tribe and Navajo Nation of northeastern Arizona have suffered the effects of persistent drought conditions. Severe dry spells have critically impacted natural ecosystems, water resources, and regional livelihoods including dryland farming and ranching. Drought planning and resource management efforts in the region are based largely on the instrumental climate record, which contains a limited number of severe, sustained droughts. In this study, a new network of moisture-sensitive tree-ring chronologies provides the basis for evaluating the longer-term temporal variability of precipitation in the Four Corners region. By analyzing the earlywood and latewood components within each annual tree ring, we are able to generate separate, centuries-long reconstructions of both cool- (October-April) and warm-season (July-August) precipitation. These proxy records offer new insights into seasonal drought characteristics and indicate that the instrumental record fails to adequately represent precipitation variability over the past 400 years. Through the use of two different analysis techniques, we identify multiyear and decadal-scale drought events more severe than any in the modern era. Furthermore, the reconstructions suggest that many of the historically significant droughts of the past (e.g., 17th century Puebloan drought) were not merely winter phenomena, but persisted through the summer season as well. By comparing these proxy records with historical docu- ments, we are able to independently validate the reconstructions and better understand the socioeconomic and environmental significance of past climate anomalies on the tribal lands of northeastern Arizona.

State Drought Programs and Plans: Survey of the Western United States

Drought preparedness programs are considered a primary defense against drought hazards. This article investigates state drought programs in the western United States, including a review of drought plans and interviews with state drought officials. While nearly all states have developed drought plans and larger drought programs, the scope and depth of these programs vary widely. State programs and plans typically address monitoring, declaration and response, and communication and coordination. Yet few states conduct postdrought assessments or impact and risk assessments. Resources tend to be allocated more for drought response than mitigation. Officials emphasized not only the importance of available monitoring data, but also the need for improved information for monitoring and predicting drought. State drought officials recommended the following: (1) clear and relevant drought indicators and triggers; (2) frequent communication and coordination among state agencies, local governments, and stakeholders; (3) regularly updated drought plans; and (4) strong leadership that includes a full-time state drought coordinator.

Drought planning and management in transboundary river basins: the case of the Iberian Guadiana

Droughts are recurrent climatic hazards that cause major environmental, economic and social impacts, and increase the conflict potential between countries sharing transboundary river basins. The shared river basins of the Iberian Peninsula, and the Guadiana in particular, are of major significance for Mediterranean Europe, as examples of basins marked by aridity, water scarcity, and drought risk. A political agreement (the Albufeira Convention) regulates water issues between Portugal and Spain but an exception regime is applied under drought conditions, and the Convention looses its effectiveness. The two countries have different planning and management policies to tackle droughts, based on distinctive administrative and socio-economic structures. This paper analyses each country's framework, and assesses the level of cooperation and compliance with the basic pillars of transboundary water governance, identifying the potential and constraints for shared and effective transboundary drought planning and management. The analysis conducted shows how both countries fail to identify common benefits and goals, based on a shared process of public participation (which still does not exist). The paper concludes that, before aiming for a shared or joint planning process, both countries need to incorporate adaptive and precautionary management procedures into their planning systems and cooperation structures.

Do drought management plans reduce drought risk? A risk assessment model for a Mediterranean river basin

Groundwater resources are traditionally overexploited in arid and drought-prone regions with profitable irrigated agriculture, and the depletion of this groundwater results from a combination of the physical scarcity of surface sources and the lack of effective control of use rights on the part of water authorities. This is the case in the Segura River Basin of southern Spain. As a result, drought risks and structural deficits have steadily increased over the last 50years. The Drought Management Plan recently approved by the Segura River Basin Authority aims to enforce more stringent water supply restrictions from surface sources, but the plan does not include any explicit policy to handle illegal groundwater abstraction. By using a stochastic risk assessment model, this paper shows that the implementation of the drought plan will increase the expected irrigation deficits of surface water and can, paradoxically, lead to higher drought and aquifer depletion risks than the traditional rules that the new plan replaces.

Development of a Demand Driven Hydro-climatic Model for Drought Planning

In recent years, droughts with increasing severity and frequency have been experienced around the world due to climate change effects. Water planning and management during droughts needs to deal with water demand variability, uncertainties in streamflow prediction, conflicts over water resources allocation, and the absence of necessary emergency schemes in drought situations. Reservoirs could play an important role in drought mitigation; therefore, development of an algorithm for operation of reservoirs in drought periods could help to mitigate the drought impacts by reducing the expected water shortages. For this purpose, the probable drought’s characteristics and their variations in response to factors such as climate change should be incorporated. This study aims at developing a contingency planning scheme for operation of reservoirs in drought periods using hedging rules with the objective of decreasing the maximum water deficit. The case study for evaluation of the performance of the proposed algorithm is the Sattarkhan reservoir in the Aharchay watershed, located in the northwestern part of Iran. The trend evaluations of the hydro-climatic variables show that the climate change has already affected streamflow in the region and has increased water scarcity and drought severity. To incorporate the climate change study in reservoir planning; streamflow should be simulated under climate change impacts. For this purpose, the climatic variables including temperature and precipitation in the future under climate change impacts are simulated using downscaled GCM (General Circulation Model) outputs to derive scenarios for possible future drought events. Then a hydrological model is developed to simulate the river streamflow, based on the downscaled data. The results show that the proposed methodology leads to less water deficit and decreases the drought damages in the study area.

Testing the resilience of water supply systems to long droughts

Public water supply systems are designed to maintain water supply through extended periods of dry weather without excessive cost or environmental damage. During a drought, water suppliers can take further measures to enhance supplies or reduce demand. The introduction of drought measures is usually formalised in a drought plan, but there is often little evidence that the plan will prove successful during a range of feasible droughts. As the climate changes, recent hydrological data may be a poor guide to future drought, and planned actions may prove insufficient to maintain adequate water supplies. This paper describes a method for testing the resilience of water company drought plans to droughts that are outside recent hydrological experience. Long severe droughts of the nineteenth century provide an opportunity to test water supply system behaviour in a range of realistic droughts. The method developed combines system modelling with an interactive approach that asks water system managers to work through the actions that they would take at different stages of the drought, without knowledge of subsequent drought development. The approach was tested for two contrasting English water resource systems. In both cases, the existing water supply and drought planning measures succeeded in maintaining water supply, but significant demand restrictions and engineering measures had to be introduced. Wider use of the method by water supply planners should allow the refinement of drought and water supply plans, and will also create increased awareness of the actions necessary to manage a range of droughts.

Millennial precipitation reconstruction for the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico, reveals changingb drought signal

AbstractDrought is a recurring phenomenon in the American Southwest. Since the frequency and severity of hydrologic droughts and other hydroclimatic events are of critical importance to the ecology and rapidly growing human population of this region, knowledge of long‐term natural hydroclimatic variability is valuable for resource managers and policy‐makers. An October–June precipitation reconstruction for the period AD 824–2007 was developed from multi‐century tree‐ring records of Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas‐fir), Pinus strobiformis (Southwestern white pine) and Pinus ponderosa (Ponderosa pine) for the Jemez Mountains in Northern New Mexico. Calibration and verification statistics for the period 1896–2007 show a high level of skill, and account for a significant portion of the observed variance (>50%) irrespective of which period is used to develop or verify the regression model. Split‐sample validation supports our use of a reconstruction model based on the full period of reliable observational data (1896–2007). A recent segment of the reconstruction (2000–2006) emerges as the driest 7‐year period sensed by the trees in the entire record. That this period was only moderately dry in precipitation anomaly likely indicates accentuated stress from other factors, such as warmer temperatures. Correlation field maps of actual and reconstructed October–June total precipitation, sea surface temperatures and 500‐mb geopotential heights show characteristics that are similar to those indicative of El Niño–Southern Oscillation patterns, particularly with regard to ocean and atmospheric conditions in the equatorial and north Pacific. Our 1184‐year reconstruction of hydroclimatic variability provides long‐term perspective on current and 20th century wet and dry events in Northern New Mexico, is useful to guide expectations of future variability, aids sustainable water management, provides scenarios for drought planning and as inputs for hydrologic models under a broader range of conditions than those provided by historical climate records. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society

Options for water scarcity and drought management—the role of desalination

Recurring droughts across Europe have increased the awareness for the vulnerability of current water management systems at both national and EU level. While the European Commission contemplates concepts, member states are taking actions to cope with restricted availability of water resources. The paper presents a summary of drought planning activities of some water scarce regions. It can be shown, that all concepts include seawater desalination as key component of drinking water supply. Additionally, wastewater reuse plays another important role in mitigating water shortage. A more detailed analysis is given for Cyprus which shows that there is remarkable potential and the intention to combine the various elements of water savings, water reuse and exploring new water resources.

Developing Objective Operational Definitions for Monitoring Drought

Abstract Drought is a complex phenomenon that is difficult to accurately describe because its definition is both spatially variant and context dependent. Decision makers in local, state, and federal agencies commonly use operational drought definitions that are based on specific drought index thresholds to trigger water conservation measures and determine levels of drought assistance. Unfortunately, many state drought plans utilize operational drought definitions that are derived subjectively and therefore may not be appropriate for triggering drought responses. This paper presents an objective methodology for establishing operational drought definitions. The advantages of this methodology are demonstrated by calculating meteorological drought thresholds for the Palmer drought severity index, the standardized precipitation index, and percent of normal precipitation using both station and climate division data from Texas. Results indicate that using subjectively derived operational drought definitions may lead to over- or underestimating true drought severity. Therefore, it is more appropriate to use an objective location-specific method for defining operational drought thresholds.

Droughts and drought mitigation in water resources planning

Many parts of Australia have experienced their worst single- and multi-year droughts on record over the last decade. These recent climate conditions have severely stressed our water supply systems and the communities that depend on them. With the threat of climate change potentially further exacerbating droughts in the years ahead, Engineers Australia firmly believes that: (i) A national review of the adequacy of drought response plans is urgently required. A recent national overview of long-term water resources planning by the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE, 2007) revealed large inconsistencies and inadequacies in the standard of that planning. Based on the knowledge of the authors of this paper, similar outcomes are expected in the area of drought response planning. The scope of the review should include assessment of the transparency and defensibility of the timing of implementation of drought response actions; (ii) Continuing investment is needed in climate research to better understand the underlying drivers of our climate variability and their interactions at a range of time scales. The majority of research to date has focused on short-term sea surface temperature or pressure differentials across the globe (eg. the El Niño/Southern Oscillation) without understanding the longer-term drivers behind these temperature and pressure responses, which are being investigated through the Indian Ocean Climate Initiative and, more recently, the South East Australia Climate Initiative. This investment should include consolidation for and communication to the water industry of existing knowledge of links between long-term climate variability and key climate drivers including Earth’s orbital cycles, solar activity, atmospheric chemistry, major volcanic eruptions, surface and deeper ocean circulations (including the thermohaline circulation – the “great ocean conveyor belt”), sea ice, and major bushfires; (iii) Greater collaboration is required between climatologists, paleoclimatologists and water resource engineers to take advantage of recent scientific advances that have direct implications for drought response planning. Engineers Australia proposes that the National Water Commission should conduct a national forum to bring these three industry groups together with the aim of providing meaningful, useful advice to water industry practitioners from the latest climate research and to guide research activities towards more practical outcomes. This will enable water resource planners to better understand natural climate variability in the longer term and appropriately take into account greenhouse gas induced climate change, including an understanding of uncertainties surrounding both current and future climate; (iv) The development of an industry standard end-use demand model for urban areas should be accelerated. The absence of an industry standard tool in this area currently inhibits the ability to rapidly assess the financial costs of imposing restrictions on particular sectors of the community versus supply augmentation costs to avoid those restrictions. Such a tool is needed to make informed decisions about preparedness to pay for new infrastructure to avoid or reduce restrictions; and (v) More sophisticated water products and market mechanisms have a strong role to play in better managing scarce resources between similar types of users during times of drought. This has become increasingly important with demand hardening over recent decades, which has reduced the water savings that are achievable from water restrictions. Any expansion of water markets as a drought management tool must, however, occur within a regulatory framework that seeks to achieve equitable social outcomes by acknowledging the inherent social value of water to communities and the food security value of water to the nation. It is acknowledged in preparing this position paper that our understanding of drought and our responses to it are rapidly changing, particularly in light of climate change. This is particularly the case with the current reviews of aspects of the National Drought Policy, which were being undertaken by several government agencies at the time of drafting this paper. It is hoped that this position paper will encourage both greater dialogue and investment in drought forecasting, planning, adaptation and mitigation to enable Australia to be well placed to cope with future climate conditions.

The need for integration of drought monitoring tools for proactive food security management in sub‐Saharan Africa

Abstract Reducing the impact of drought and famine remains a challenge in sub‐Saharan Africa despite ongoing drought relief assistance in recent decades. This is because drought and famine are primarily addressed through a crisis management approach when a disaster occurs, rather than stressing preparedness and risk management. Moreover, drought planning and food security efforts have been hampered by a lack of integrated drought monitoring tools, inadequate early warning systems (EWS), and insufficient information flow within and between levels of government in many sub‐Saharan countries. The integration of existing drought monitoring tools for sub‐Saharan Africa is essential for improving food security systems to reduce the impacts of drought and famine on society in this region. A proactive approach emphasizing integration requires the collective use of multiple tools, which can be used to detect trends in food availability and provide early indicators at local, national, and regional scales on the likely occurrence of food crises. In addition, improving the ability to monitor and disseminate critical drought‐related information using available modern technologies (e.g., satellites, computers, and modern communication techniques) may help trigger timely and appropriate preventive responses and, ultimately, contribute to food security and sustainable development in sub‐Saharan Africa.

The role of water conservation in drought planning

D rought is a natural part of climate in most regions around the world. We should not be surprised when drought occurs but expect and account for it in our management plans. Yet, every year, severe drought occurs somewhere in the United States, resulting in millions, if not billions, of dollars in financial drought losses and untold stress on people, businesses, and the environment. Although many livelihoods and sectors are relatively resilient to short-term drought, there are times when exceptional drought circumstances undermine our usual management strategies. Historically, when this has happened, governments and other decision makers have implemented a wide range of ad-hoc drought relief measures to get through the hard times. Although often providing important emergency assistance, these crisis management efforts are frequently highly political, untimely, inefficient, and poorly targeted (Wilhite et al. 2005). To address these issues, a new paradigm has emerged among drought and other hazard planners that focuses more attention on implementing proactive risk management strategies before a disaster occurs. Planners are increasingly developing drought mitigation and preparedness plans to increase a region's or sector's long-term resiliency to drought and to help ensure the implementation of appropriate and well-coordinated response actions during drought. Water conservation plays …

The role of water conservation in drought planning

Drought is a natural part of climate in most regions around the world. We should not be surprised when drought occurs but expect and account for it in our management plans. Yet, every year, severe drought occurs somewhere in the United States, resulting in millions, if not billions, of dollars in financial drought losses and untold stress on people, businesses, and the environment.

Tabletop Exercises Drive Home the Importance of Drought Planning

Areas throughout the southeast and other parts of the United States faced drought conditions of increasingly catastrophic proportions during late 2007 and early 2008, and North Carolina was no exception. Traditional conservation measures and restrictions to outdoor water uses were no longer sufficient to adequately reduce demands on water systems. To facilitate interagency dialog on ways to address the drought, the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources Division of Water Resources and the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety Emergency Management Division hosted a drought tabletop exercise. Water utilities used the tabletop exercise as well as a draft drought‐response toolbox to help them decide on response actions for worsening drought conditions. The tabletop exercises described in this article can be used by state water agencies anywhere in the United States to prepare for a drought. States and water systems can create and conduct drought exercises like the ones described here, add drought factors and actions to their emergency response plans, and work with other state and local agencies to include drought scenarios in other types of security and emergency response training exercises.