California Department of Water Resources: State Federal Water Managers Prepare for Dry Summer Conditions. “Californians can now access current water conditions in real time at California Water Watch, a new website launched by DWR. This website will help Californians see their local hydrological conditions, forecasts, and water conditions down to their address or their local watershed.”
California Department of Water Resources: DWR Launches New Website to Improve Tracking of Local and Statewide Water Conditions Amid Extreme Dry Conditions. “The website brings together data from DWR and other sources to provide dynamic real-time information on precipitation, temperature, reservoirs, snowpack, groundwater, streamflow, soil moisture, and vegetation conditions. Users can enter an address to see local conditions, including daily precipitation and temperature statistics, for their area and links to water supplier information. The website also allows users to compare data on local conditions by year and by region.”
University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Drought Center creates tool that could help detect emerging impacts by tracking news. “When drought develops somewhere across the country, news reports often chronicle its effects on that area. These reports can be vital resources in trying to understand the impact of drought in the U.S., said National Drought Mitigation Center assistant director Kelly Health. The Drought Center has developed a mostly automated news search process for drought impacts, and is mapping and qualifying the results. The experiential Media Drought Index (MDI), now available to the public, may help detect emerging impacts, said Smith, who led its development.”
PR Newswire: NASA Invites Media to Briefing on New Water Data Platform (PRESS RELEASE). “NASA will hold a virtual media briefing at 1:30 p.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 21, to share a powerful, new, web-based platform to help those who rely on water resources across the drought-stricken western U.S. Building on more than two decades of research, OpenET puts NASA data into the hands of farmers, water managers, conservation groups, and others to accelerate improvements and innovations in water management.”
From the San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Drought Map & Tracker. “Track the water shortage status, reservoir levels and restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.”
Bureau of Reclamation: Reclamation launches website with real-time information, interactive resources on drought. “The portal is user friendly and provides easy-to-understand features, explanations and current information on cutting-edge science, drought actions, current conditions and climate change visualizations that will help the public understand the complex drought conditions in the West.”
Local News 8: Wyoming launches new drought resources website. “The site provides resources and information for specific sectors impacted by drought, including agriculture, tourism, recreation, municipalities and water utilities. It also offers information on federal and state resources and assistance available to those impacted by drought. Information on wildfire conditions and restrictions plus links to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) drought disaster designations for Wyoming are also available on the website.”
California Department of Water Resources: State Develops Tool and Recommendations to Support Those Most Vulnerable to Drought. “DWR led a two-year process learning from stakeholder experiences about what puts small water systems and rural communities at higher risk of water shortages and what is needed to build their resilience to drought. The final report is now available online and could inform future legislation and efforts to help small water suppliers and rural communities reduce their risk of inadequate water supply amid a drought or other extreme event…. In addition to the report, a new online tool has been finalized that enables small water suppliers and rural communities to explore their relative risk of water shortage.”
Shepparton News: New Australian farm database to show drought and basin plan impacts. “A new secure database of Australian farms is hoping to open the door to new analysis, exploring fine scale trends in crop production, the effects of seasonal climate and drought on farm outcomes, and measuring trends in water productivity in the Murray-Darling Basin. A multi-year collaboration between the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the database integrates several existing datasets to unlock new insights and applications for Australian farms.”
Utah Public Media: New Citizen Science Program Will Use Social Media Posts To Monitor Drought In Utah. “Through a new citizen science initiative, the Utah Climate Center will capture drought data through public observations posted on social media.”
KSBW: New online interactive tool helps Californians prepare for future drought. “This rain-year has brought an alarmingly dry winter in California so far, according to climate change experts. Now, there’s a new tool to help Californians navigate your water supply. It’s an online toll that allows a person to see the groundwater levels in their area. The tool then gives a representation of what could be at risk or impacted if a drought hits.” Pretty sure that first “online toll” should be “online tool.”
National Drought Mitigation Center: Database includes more types of drought planning. “The updated state planning information on the NDMC website allows users to view a U.S. map that not only shows which states have drought plans — 47 and Puerto Rico — but also shows, via color-coding, how recently the plans were created or updated, and whether the plan identifies mitigation or response actions to be taken. Layers showing which states address drought in hazard, water and climate plans also show how recently the plans were created.”
FAO UN: Unlocking the potential of agricultural innovation to improve farmers’ resilience to drought. “Today FAO launched a revamped version of WaPOR, an open-access database tapping near real time satellite data to monitor land and water productivity in Africa and the Near East. Data from WaPOR, initially launched in 2017, helps policy makers and farmers to make informed decisions to be better prepared for drought and increase agricultural production with less water use.”
Phys.org: Climate scientists create Caribbean drought atlas. “Cornell atmospheric scientists have developed the first-of-its-kind, high-resolution Caribbean drought atlas, with data going back to 1950. Concurrently, the researchers confirmed the region’s 2013-16 drought was the most severe in 66 years due to consistently higher temperatures – a hint that climate change is to blame. Because of its topographic complexity, the new atlas delivers critical research data by providing a historical climate backdrop.”
New Zealand has a new resource for monitoring drought conditions. “Called The New Zealand Drought Index (NZDI), it is an easy-to-use, colour coded map that defines the scientifically observed drought status of every New Zealand district. The NZDI is modelled on similar indexes used around the world, displaying the dryness of each district in five categories: dry, very dry, extremely dry, drought and severe drought. Each category is colour coded from yellow for dry, through to dark red for severe drought.”
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