Using climate information for drought planning

Historically, drought has been responded to rather than prepared for, yet studies have illustrated that proactive investment in drought risk management reduces impacts and overall response costs. One key element of preparedness is the use of sufficient climate information for monitoring, forecasting, and tracking long-term trends. In the face of a changing climate and increasing variability, these types of data are even more critical for planning and overall resiliency. The systematic use of these data to inform the drought planning component of drought risk management is a relatively recent development. Actionable science has direct applicability for planning and decision-making, and allows for an iterative process between scientists and end users that can build long-term drought resiliency. The article will describe how planners in Colorado are increasingly relying on climate data, ranging from paleoclimatological records to experimental seasonal forecasts, to guide their long-term drought preparedness and climate change adaptation efforts. This information can then be used to inform broader policy and planning efforts, unifying the scientific basis across multiple processes. In addition, the Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP), with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Global Water Partnership (GWP) as co-leads, promotes national policies encouraging proactive risk management, and provides a platform for sharing the lessons learned by the planners, policy makers, and scientists around the world. Data-driven decision-making using climate information can help depoliticize actions and increase overall resiliency and response in times of drought, which will be increasingly important as the world warms

Priority questions in multidisciplinary drought research

Addressing timely and relevant questions across a multitude of spatio-temporal scales, state-of-the-art interdisciplinary drought research will likely increase in importance under projected climate change. Given the complexity of the various direct and indirect causes and consequences of a drier world, scientific tasks need to be coordinated efficiently. Drought-related research endeavors ranging from individual projects to global initiatives therefore require prioritization. Here, we present 60 priority questions for optimizing future drought research. This topical catalogue reflects the experience of 65 scholars from 21 countries and almost 20 fields of research in both natural sciences and the humanities. The set of drought-related questions primarily covers drought monitoring, impacts, forecasting, climatology, adaptation, as well as planning and policy. The questions highlight the increasingly important role of remote sensing techniques in drought monitoring, importance of drought forecasting and understanding the relationships between drought parameters and drought impacts, but also challenges of drought adaptation and preparedness policies

Using climate information for drought planning

Historically, drought has been responded to rather than prepared for, yet studies have illustrated that proactive investment in drought risk management reduces impacts and overall response costs. One key element of preparedness is the use of sufficient climate information for monitoring, forecasting, and tracking long-term trends. In the face of a changing climate and increasing variability, these types of data are even more critical for planning and overall resiliency. The systematic use of these data to inform the drought planning component of drought risk management is a relatively recent development. Actionable science has direct applicability for planning and decision-making, and allows for an iterative process between scientists and end users that can build long-term drought resiliency. The article will describe how planners in Colorado are increasingly relying on climate data, ranging from paleoclimatological records to experimental seasonal forecasts, to guide their long-term drought preparedness and climate change adaptation efforts. This information can then be used to inform broader policy and planning efforts, unifying the scientific basis across multiple processes. In addition, the Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP), with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Global Water Partnership (GWP) as co-leads, promotes national policies encouraging proactive risk management, and provides a platform for sharing the lessons learned by the planners, policy makers, and scientists around the world. Data-driven decision-making using climate information can help depoliticize actions and increase overall resiliency and response in times of drought, which will be increasingly important as the world warms

A comprehensive framework for tourism and recreation drought vulnerability reduction

The effects of drought are vast, but loss statistics often do not reflect the impacts on the tourism and recreation sector, which for many places is one of the most critical economic drivers. This is concerning because drought events are common across the globe, with varying frequency, duration, and intensity, and are therefore unavoidable. Over the years, drought conditions have been at record levels in many regions, causing deep societal and economic impacts. However, little research has been conducted on connections between tourism/recreation and drought, revealing a distinct disconnect between the tourism/recreation sector and drought management. To bridge this gap in the current understanding of, and approaches to, managing drought in the tourism/recreation sector, we present an interdisciplinary conceptual framework that integrates tourism/recreation into the drought management process to ensure sustainable economic development and community vitality. The model presented here promotes understanding of critical interactions through a bottom-up stakeholder engagement process balanced with formal top-down management approaches