Michael Hayes, Mark Svoboda, Tsegaye Tadesse

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NDMC Update
Michael Hayes, Mark Svoboda, Tsegaye
Tadesse National Drought Mitigation Center School
of Natural Resources University of
Nebraska-Lincoln
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Natural Disasters

• In spite of the understanding that risk
  management is key to reducing impacts money
  spent for relief overwhelms money spent for risk
  management funding! Why?
• Relief is media friendly, action oriented, easy
  to quantify
• Development aid is decreasing
• Absence of convincing (quantitative) analyses of
  estimated losses (impacts)

Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of
Disasters
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Natural Disasters

• Council of Governors Policy Advisors (1997)
  The concept of mitigation will be difficult
  unless officials understand the economic impacts
  and the positive quantitative benefits of
  mitigation actions.

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Why Monitor Drought Impacts?
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Why Monitor Drought Impacts?

• Impacts are becoming more complex ? agriculture,
  energy production, transportation, tourism and
  recreation, forest and wild land fires, urban
  water supply, environment and human health
• Conflicts between water users increasing
• Officials tend to underestimate droughts impact
• To justify mitigation actions, officials need
  quantitative impact information

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Why Monitor Drought Impacts?

• Drought is one of the most costly U.S. natural
  disasters
• FEMA estimates annual losses at 6-8 billion
  (1995)
• 1988 39 billion (62B in 2004 )
• 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 ???
• Congress has appropriated approximately 30
  billion in drought relief since 1988
• Europe, 2003 US13B

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An example of projected exponential loss trends
based on data adjusted for inflationSource
Munich Re Annual Review Natural Catastrophes 2004
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Drought Impact Reporter

• Went live on July 27! http//droughtreporter.unl.e
  du
• NOAA-OGP seed funding
• Web-based (GIS architecture) package of products
  and interactive features
• Ability to incorporate user-supplied input and
  information/feedback (all levels)
• A comprehensive archive of news articles
• Clipping service 7,100 publications daily
• NDMC 11,000 news stories since 1997
• 800 impact reports 750,000 hits

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Reporter Challenges

• Strengthening partnerships
• Fostering user input
• How to best organize/categorize information
  (e.g., by sector, local vs. regional, basins,
  etc.)
• Identifying and validating sources of information
• Quantitative versus qualitative information
• Positive impacts

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Potential Partnerships

• Federal agencies
• State Climatologists
• State agencies
• Governors Associations
• Native American Nations
• Hualapai Tribe (Arizona)
• University groups (Extension)
• U.S. Drought Monitor exploder group
• Natural Disaster groups

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Potential Outcomes

• Ability to do national assessments
• Building first national impacts database/archive
• Consistent reporting methodologies
• National, state, local levels
• Ingest/integrate regional impact data
• Heighten awareness of drought as a hazard and the
  importance of mitigation

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Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI)

• Jess Browns Update
• Tsegaye TadesseVegPREDICT
• Risk Management Agency 1.1 million grant

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Operational SPI Analysis
3-month SPI through the end of September 2005
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Additional NDMC-related News

• NADSS 1.2 million continuation grant with RMA
• NDMC Workshops
• EROS/JPL grant with NASA focusing on
  satellite-derived products for the Drought
  Monitor
• Case studies highlighting mitigation/planning
  successes and lessons learned
• NDMC Climatologist position
• NDMC new hires
• Climatology, Meteorology, Geography, Remote
  Sensing, Economics, Hydrology, Water Resources,
  GIS
• Phase 2 of the Drought Impact Reporter

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